The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) wants to know how employers are instilling a culture of safety in their workforce. The agency is seeking public input to reduce workplace injuries and fatalities by increasing worker participation in safety and health programs. OSHA representatives are interested in the following areas:
● Connecting safety and health programs with a positive workplace safety culture
● Understanding how employers include safety in a strong organizational culture
● Identifying barriers and challenges to improving safety and health in the workplace
● Reducing injuries, illnesses and fatalities
● Learning how organizations succeed in promoting a culture of workplace safety
“We invite employers and employees to share their valuable insights into how workers and their organizations successfully develop safety and health programs and their concerns about what needs improvement,” said Doug Parker, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health, in a June 2023 press release. “Effective business operators listen to workers and align company values with best safety practices to keep people safe. Those who do improve job quality, reduce costs for medical care and lost time and make theirs a place people want to work.”
OSHA is soliciting feedback from employers, workers and other interested parties so the agency can develop educational materials with information related to safety and health programs, including emergency preparedness and planning, “as an integral part of a positive workplace safety culture.”
The educational materials “will assist employers and other stakeholders who want to use industrial psychology techniques to augment organizational culture to be inclusive of safety,” according to the agency.
The endeavor will also aim to identify barriers and challenges for improving workplace safety and health culture, including financial, social, behavioral and other challenges; describe the current range of workplace culture and make the connection to corresponding levels of workplace safety and health performance; define successful cultural strategies that reduce workplace injuries, illnesses, and fatalities, as well as discovering those that do not; and identify any impediments to workplace culture and determine the best way to promote it.
OSHA is asking interested parties to consider the following questions:
● Organization values are used as guiding principles for decisions and actions toward an organization’s goals, mission and vision. Using this definition, what would you say are your organization’s values?
● Does your organization communicate safety and health in their values? If so, how?
● Please share an example of how you demonstrate that safety and health is an important value to you while at work.
● Does your organization promote safety and health in the workplace? If so, how?
● Depending on how long you have been at your current organization, please speak to how your organization’s safety and health needs have shifted over time.
● If you had important information you wanted to send to colleagues in your industry, how would you send it? With what tools/methods/communication channels?
OSHA is accepting comments until Nov. 30, 2023 at https://www.regulations.gov/docket/OSHA-2023-0011.
About The Author
KUEHNER-HEBERT is a freelance writer based in Running Springs, Calif. She has more than three decades of journalism experience. Reach her at [email protected].