Motivating Manufacturing Workers to Wear Safety Gear: How Do You Encourage Compliance?

I am working with one manufacturing company as HR. I am facing one issue with my workers: they don't like to wear safety equipment during work. How can I motivate them to follow all safety norms during work?

Enhancing Safety Consciousness in the Workplace

Mr. Nathrao has given a short and crisp reply that covers everything. However, let me elaborate on one point.

Bringing safety consciousness is a time-consuming process. Your company should have strived to inculcate safety consciousness right from Day 1. Safety consciousness will come with an attitudinal change. However, changing attitudes is a herculean task.

Start conducting safety awareness programs. Perform safety audits and share the audit results in these awareness programs. Secondly, emphasize what is the opposite of safety. The opposite of safety is accidents. Accidents traumatize individual employees, their colleagues, family members, etc. Conduct interviews with the family members of employees who were involved in accidents. Explain to the employees the financial and psychological impact that occurs after accidents. Ask them if they would like to repeat this in their homes. Indians are generally emotional. Therefore, an interview with a sobbing mother or sister of the employee who had an accident will have a far greater impact. For the remaining hard-headed employees, negative discipline is always an option.

All the best!

Regards,
Dinesh Divekar

Mr. Dinesh Divekar has explained the matter very well, duly covering all tools. I would like to add a few more suggestions:

1. First of all, you should have a well-defined Safety Policy conducted by your Safety Officer, which should cover all safety points related to your organization.

2. Distribute printed pamphlets of safety rules, precautions, etc., as per your safety requirements. Display the same on big signboards at Entry/Exit points, Reception Area, Risk Involved Zone, etc.

3. You can start celebrating Safety Day, Safety Week, etc., during which you can arrange Safety Training. The trainer will showcase major accidents that have happened due to not following Safety Rules, emphasizing that the same can happen to them as well.

4. Make small teams and organize games, puzzles, quizzes, etc., to enhance their learning power.

5. Plan some rewards (gifts, certificates, cash prizes) every month. Establish point criteria for each employee who follows the Safety Rules and Instructions. Award the top 3 employees with the most points in a month.

6. There must be strict rules for those who do not follow instructions intentionally or have a negative attitude/thinking. Such employees can be issued a "Show Cause Notice" and should not be given or assigned important tasks.

As already stated, Safety is an ongoing process, and people will become more aware over time. Secure a proper budget from Management for Safety and proceed with expertise. You will see results soon.

Regards

As pointed out by Mr. Nathrao, safety is everybody's responsibility. Management and supervisors need to ensure all PPE is followed.

Conducting a Safety Survey

You need to conduct a survey within the factory involving management and workers on the importance of safety. Use questions and answers in a, b, or c format:

1. Do you understand the importance of safety?
2. Do you know why PPE is issued to you?
3. Why do most workers not like to wear their PPE?
4. Can you get injured while working?
5. PPE is to protect you.
6. If you are injured, who will suffer more?
7. Etc... limit to 10.

From the feedback, you could gain some indication of their attitude towards safety. You could then plan further training for them. As Mr. Dinesh rightly pointed out, workers sometimes change when real examples are shown to them. Enforcement is important, and records of constant violators need to be maintained.

There are a lot of videos available on YouTube. Download and show them in batches to your employees, demonstrating what happens when they do not wear safety equipment or PPEs. It is a loss for the organization and also for the individual employees. Families also suffer due to death or loss of limbs from accidents. It is better to be wise in advance than to be regretful later!