Attendance at our weekly Safety Meetings at Swiss-Tech are at an all-time high as employees from each department are continuing to keep workplace safety at the top of their priorities. For at least the last three years, we’ve been holding weekly safety meetings on topics ranging from spills and repeated motion injuries to burns and general health and wellness.
We have a rotating list of topics we try to focus on yearly, but if something happens or our employees bring up a concern, we can change up the topics.
Safety Meeting Goals
“These safety meetings are another way for management to continually be communicating with our employees and find out topics that they think need to be discussed,” said Kristi Granberg, Swiss-Tech’s Human Resources and Accounting Manager. “During the meetings, I always ask if anyone wants to bring something to our attention. And 60 percent of the time something new is brought to our attention.”
At Swiss-Tech we have employees who are CPR and first-aid trained – we call them our first responders. An employee recently asked when there would be another first responder training.
“We have one scheduled for November, so Mercy Health will be coming in to work with us on this training,” Granberg said. “We’re happy our employees are thinking about safety and the training they’d like.”
Employee Participation
One employee from each department comes to the safety meeting on a rotating basis. With a 90 percent attendance rate, we’re confident that our employees know that safety isn’t one person’s responsibility here, it’s everyone’s responsibility.
When we’re planning our weekly safety meetings, we look to what our employees are asking about, and what they’re seeing or hearing outside of our facility.
“We want our employees to bring things they see in the news or hear from family and friends to our attention,” Granberg said. “We don’t want them to limit their scope of what they feel they need safety training on.”
Focus During Training
On all of our onboarding training for new employees and our annual training for all of our employees, we go over a set of “Non-negotiables” for everyone. The first thing on that list is “Obey all safety regulations.”
We put safety first and expect our employees to do the same, so everyone can work in a safe environment, and feel safe doing their job here at Swiss-Tech. If everyone works safe, we’re able to control costs for our customers by maintaining staff and decreasing any expenses associated with employee injuries.