As the National Safety Council turns 100 years old this year, it is also preparing for National Safety Month in June. This year’s theme is “Safety Starts with Me,” and the NSC is providing free downloadable materials and resources to help increase safety in the workplace. There are 6 themes this year (preventing slips, trips and falls, employee wellness, emergency preparedness, ergonomics, summer and driver safety) that the NSC is focusing on, and this week I would like to take a look at how you can incorporate the NSC’s free resources into your employee safety incentive program.
Communicate Safety Topics via Email
With help from the NSC, you have access to many different one page pdfs that cover all 6 themes for National Safety Month. Converting these pdfs into emails for your employee incentive program participants would be a simple way to communicate about preventing slips, trips and falls, workplace emergency preparedness, ergonomics and other safety topics. At Awards Network, all of our incentive program clients enjoy unlimited, complimentary email blasts and direct access to automated emails 24/7 on our administrative dashboard. This makes it very easy to prepare and send out emails to all of your safety program participants.
Organize a Safety Meeting each Week in June
If your employees don’t have computer access at work, it probably makes more sense to hold a safety meeting to discuss the safety topics the NSC has prepared. If you are running a points-based employee incentive program, then you can give employees an incentive (points) for attending. If you don’t have a points-based program currently, then you could give employee safety awards to people who attend all the meetings and draw a winner for each meeting to help reward attendees and encourage more people to attend.
Invite Employees to Test their Safety Knowledge
After you have sent out your emails and scheduled your safety meetings, why not give employees safety awards for perfect quiz scores? Awards Network employee safety incentive programs include free quiz programming and many of our clients include a 10 question monthly quiz for employees to take. If you haven’t already started quizzing employees, you can turn to the NSC’s free resources and make up questions very easily. I’ve even created a sample 10 question safety quiz using many of the resources the NSC provided and you can download it for free. Your employees will enjoy testing their safety knowledge because it will be a new way for them to earn more points they can use to purchase brand name items, gift cards and travel experiences.
Plan a Special Wellness Event
Aren’t you excited that summer is almost here? With the warmer weather, there are so many wellness events that your employees will want to participate in. From bringing a brown bag lunch and biking to work to organizing a healthy company picnic and a company sponsored walk/run event, there is a lot of variety and levels of commitment for people to choose from. If you don’t already have an employee wellness program, use the tips from the NSC and do a test event this June.
Start a Pre-Work Stretch Group
Ergonomics is one of the safety themes the NSC is focusing on this year, and as a part of this theme, they are providing a free pdf with the basics of stretching and sample stretches to share with your employees. Many of our safety incentive program clients give points to employees who attend pre-shift stretching groups. Once employees start to attend, I have heard they are very happy with the results: more safety awards and less sprains and strains.
Celebrating National Safety Month is super easy this year with all of the free resources the National Safety Council is providing. You will be able to increase safety awareness and possibly even prevent accidents. Employees will be interested in your new safety incentives and help you spread the word about being safe. Let’s all take “Safety Starts with Me” seriously and see what a difference we can make.