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Safety meetings are essential to the workplace, no matter what business is involved. They are the key to keeping your employees and customers safe and risk-free, especially if you’re working around dangerous equipment or chemicals. When in the workplace, people need to be informed about any risks and the steps to take to avoid any pitfalls, illness, injury or death. Planned safety meetings, ones that happen regularly, are the chance to distribute this information and answer any questions that people may have.The reasons to hold safety meetings are vast and varying, but the top four fall under these categories:

• Complacency – Regular meetings allow for a follow up on the procedures needed to keep everyone safe. With the meetings set at specific intervals, you can be sure that your employees will not be able to become complacent with the rules and guidelines. Routine behavior often leads to a decrease in attention, and therefore safety. By cutting into the routine with planned meetings, you can essentially “wake up” your employees and remind them of the need to stay safe.

• Prevention – With specific procedures in place to promote safety, every employee should know what to do in the case of an emergency. Better yet, they know how to prevent the emergency in the first place. It’s best if professionals take over the training within the safety meetings and have ways of measuring employee retention, so that they are able to know how to better explain the procedures, and thus prevent any accidents from happening in the workplace.

• Evaluation – As mentioned above, safety meetings work best when you’re able to test your employees’ retention of the information. Using the information gathered from these evaluations, as well as the data from the workplace field, you’re then able to evaluate the best course of action to guarantee a decrease in workplace accidents. On top of that, the meetings allow for employees to talk with one another and benefit from the ideas and views of others.

• Correction – Safety meetings give a proper time and place to advise your employees of accidents that have happened and how they should best be avoided in the future. All new policies and procedures should always be thoroughly explained to those expected to implement them in their daily work. Correcting flawed procedures is an important part of keeping the workplace safe and accident free.

There are many benefits to holding safety meetings, but there are three vital ones:

• Stronger Teams – Teams with fewer injuries and illnesses tend to work better together. The level of trust is stronger, forming a team that can depend on each other to come through with their part of the work. When accidents happen on a site, than often blame, guilt and anger start messing with the team dynamics. It’s best to prevent accidents from happening to keep the workplace running smooth.

• Marketing – It’s an underrated and often unused marketing tool to say that your workplace is accident free. Customers are more willing to work with companies that boast an accident-free workplace, as they feel the safer conditions lead to better quality work (which, often they do) and that a workplace that cares about the lives of their employees will care about their customers as well.

• Safety Culture & Communication – Far too many workplaces around the world are too lax with their safety procedures. By holding meetings and changing the outcome of your own business, you can influence the safety cultures of others by example. You’ve already changed the safety culture of your own by keeping your employees informed and educated, and educated people tend to share their knowledge with less educated people. Safety around the business world will begin to change, over time, with the more positive exposure safety meetings obtain.

Regular, mandatory safety meetings should not be taken lightly. The safety of your workplace, and therefore your company, depend on them. If you have any questions concerning safety meetings or regulations, feel free to contact us. We'd be happy to talk with you.