Safety Tip Archive

Free or Low-Cost Safety Ideas You Can Use

How do you improve your safety program without spending a lot of money? Below are some ideas from a STARS member of PLANET, Willamette Landscape Services, Inc., in Tualatin, Oregon.

Make it EASY for your crews to be safe. Have in stock all of the personal protective equipment (PPE) your employees may need and make sure all equipment is in excellent shape. Spend a little money to maintain such items as safety switches, hand grips, operator controls, and tires in “like new” condition. Note: Federal OSHA requires employers to provide nearly all PPE to employees at no cost. The rule contains just a few exceptions for ordinary safety-toed footwear, prescription safety eyewear, logging boots, ordinary clothing, and weather-related gear. (For more information, visit osha.gov.)

Ensure that your vehicle operators are prepared. Create a "truck packet" for each vehicle. This packet should include basic safety information, your company’s most often used material safety data sheets (MSDS), a map with hospital locations and phone numbers, a note outlining "what to do in case of a collision" or other vehicle-related incident, and company information that may need to be shared with police, emergency responders, physicians, or other authorities. By training to these packets, each company driver receives additional reinforcement that we want to be safe, and if something does happen, the procedures are not a mystery.

Give your safety committee authority — and a budget. Give your company’s safety committee its own annual budget, and give it free reign over using those funds for safety initiatives. Some ideas for initiatives are awarding monthly and annual prizes to persons submitting the top safety suggestions via the company’s safety suggestion box or holding "thank you for being safe" barbecues when the company has had injury-and incident-free months.

Never "low ball" a bid opportunity. Bid your work to get the job done well without rushing or taking chances. If a project is underbid, there is a tendency to push too hard to meet budget, and that’s when injuries and other incidents occur. In the end, the cost of the incident will likely wipe out any benefit received from having landed the contract at a lower price (than a competitor).

CONSTANTLY communicate safety. The lowest cost impact on safety is made through effective communication. Communicate safety not only in such formalized settings as tailgate training sessions and other safety-related meetings, but also in every conversation you have with your employees.