Setting the Stage for an Off-the-Job Safety Mindset

“What I do on my own time is none of your business!” I am certain that this could be the response the MUIR Safety team will be confronted with as we kick-off National Safety Month at Muir Omni Graphics in just a few weeks. The 2012 Safety Promotion that the team has been preparing for has been designed to focus on an Off-the-Job Safety initiative.

Work is work and home is home. Right? Maybe. 

Last spring while in attendance at the Iowa-Illinois Safety Council Professional Development Conference, I had opted to sit in on the Off-the-Job Safety session, presented by Glenn Williams of John Deere. The concept of this session hit home with me, making perfect sense. Management absolutely has a vested interest in the home activities of employees and the safety measures taken-or not taken. Accidents and injuries occurring at home may lead to absences, restricted activities or a combination of both in the workplace. Simply put: Off-the-Job safety (or lack of) can directly affect the productivity of the company. 

In the fall of 2011, I had presented the idea of an Off-the-Job Safety promotion for 2012 to the MUIR Safety team. The general tone of the meeting changed abruptly, as the team made it clear that this was treading in dangerous territory. Employees would not like it all and would think we had no rights to tell them what to do on their own time. It is none of our business. I knew then, that this would take a little work. Over the past two years, the Safety Team had developed into a comfortable presence in the company-never threatening, never acting as “Safety Police”. This didn’t happen overnight and I could see that I would have to carefully persuade the team to see the benefits of an Off-the-Job Safety Promotion. 

These are the points I used in my plan to win the team over:

1. The company is taking the step to become an ESOP – Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Soon employees would be owners in the company.
2. As owners, employees should be aware of the company’s productivity and its direct relationship to the success the company.
3. Attendance and full capability to accomplish job responsibilities is critical to consistent and increasing productivity as the company grows.
4. By providing appropriate facts through fun games and contests, we can simply raise the awareness of home safety tips with our employees and their own stake in the healthy productivity of the company.
5. Never, never, never, would we become Home Safety Police. Our role in the Off-the-Job Safety promotion would be to promote and encourage healthy and safe practices in the home.

I spoke to the team on several occasions and, finally, shortly after the first of this year, all were on board and ready to plan for the 2012 Off-the-Job Safety Promotion. We are just a few weeks away from the June kick-off and I am taking on the responsibility for starting it off on the right foot. It will be critical to set the right tone for a successful and engaging promotion, scheduled to run through December.

Off-the-Job Safety will protect our On-the-Job productivity and the future of this company, as well as the future of the employees.

What are you doing to promote Off-the-Job Safety initiatives in YOUR company? I would love to hear your success stories and challenges of Off-the-Job safety awareness.