Mature safety programs move past the narrow scope of using tools, equipment, and PPE (personal protective equipment) to keep workers from sustaining physical injuries. While still core to the mission of safety, we can look to a broader objective of the
well-being of the workers in our charge.
Worker well-being is a concept that recognizes that our employees’ quality of life is impacted by environmental, organizational, and psychosocial factors in the workplace, and attempts to provide constructive conditions that provide a positive impact
on these factors. NIOSH’s Total Worker Health and other systems are attempting to make these approaches more adaptive and approachable.
Improving worker well-being
As your organization’s safety and wellness committees and leadership teams look to focus on – and improve – worker well-being, consider ideas focusing on using programs and systems your safety program may have already created towards
the holistic goal of improving worker well-being. Here are ten ideas to consider:
- Implement industrial athlete programs
- Substitution of hazardous chemicals with safe alternatives
- Ergonomic risk assessments, especially for field workers
- Stretch & flex programs
- Healthy buildings and facilities
- PTSD prevention and resources to public safety officers
- Using your organization’s Safety Committee towards well-being goals and activities
- Education and outreach efforts – have safety leadership talk about the goals of well-being and how it makes a difference for employees
- Actively respond to reporting safety issues
- Positive cultural support and buttressing by executive and departmental leadership