What is a TRUE Safety Culture?

by | Sep 11, 2019 | Worker Safety

If you’re a safety or operations professional, chances are, not too far from where you are right now, there’s a poster that says “safety first” on it.

Maybe Mr. T is saying it. Maybe your facility is really ‘fun’ and has Homer Simpson on it. But, in spite of these posters, can you confidently say that your company really puts safety first? Do you have a TRUE safety culture?  

At StrongArm, we frequently hear from companies who struggle with this issue. They work to prioritize safety whenever they can, hang up posters, and bring in new safety initiatives here and there over the years. However, no matter what they try, safety seems to live in conflict with productivity and productivity, of course, is king. As a result, safety is an afterthought and incident rates aren’t improving.

Our FUSE Risk Management Platform has served as this great tool for overcoming these problems.

  • For the organization: A true safety culture quantifies safety through a score, giving safety a seat at the table and be analyzed alongside productivity-rather than picking one or the other. Companies that use FUSE are able to assess the risk of a job function or a new process, assign a dollar value to it based off of loss history, and make more holistic decisions that consider short run productivity in tandem with long term safety.
  • For the safety professional: A true safety culture allows professionals to understand which employees are at the most risk of injury and when they’re at the most risk. The FUSE allows safety teams to conduct strategic daily check ins that are targeted and specific based on timely and relevant data, rather than wide and general. FUSE allows safety to become a proactive effort.
  • For the Industrial Athlete™: A true safety culture empowers each individual Industrial Athlete™ to improve their own safety. FUSE reminds the Industrial Athlete™ to consider safety when they check in and check out your sensor. Not only does the dock tell you your Safety Score, but it gives you specific pointers for how to work safer at the critical pre-shift moments. Additionally, when wearing the sensor, Industrial Athlete™ knows that if they make a dangerous move, they’ll receive a haptic buzz. While not the kind of buzz that will deter the movement completely, haptic is enough feedback that Industrial Athletes™ think carefully about the moves they make and avoid unnecessary risks. In other words, haptic keeps safety in the back of their mind at all times.

The proof is in the numbers. Over 90% of Industrial Athletes™ surveyed say they want to receive a personal Safety Score. With the FUSE Platform, safety managers are delivering – over 85% of managers on the FUSE platform have daily or weekly conversations with their Industrial Athletes™ based on this data. Organizations that have adopted the FUSE Platform with all its enabled features have seen upwards of 40% reduction in YoY Ergonomic related injury claims.

In the age of sensors and predictive analytics, it takes a modern approach to build a true safety culture. The posters alone just don’t cut it anymore.  

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