The answers given to employee safety survey questions can help to keep workers focused on this issue, as well as provide owners and managers with valuable feedback about issues in the workplace.
About Employee Safety Surveys
An employee safety survey helps to identify how well the current safety plan is working and helps identify specific areas that need improvement. The survey is something that should be repeated at regular intervals so managers can keep track of the progress the safety improvements made over time.
How to Conduct an Employee Safety Survey
To get the most accurate results, employee answers to the survey should be confidential. This will allow the worker to be honest in his or her answers. Having a third party conduct the survey can help to maintain employee anonymity, but this will add to the cost of gathering this information.
Participating in the survey should be voluntary, but everyone in the workplace should be encouraged to do so. Workers who are not native English speakers, who are dyslexic or have difficulty with reading or writing should be accommodated so that they can participate as well.
The questions could be read to them or a person can be assigned to scribe for the employee. This must be done with tact and sensitivity so that the employee feels comfortable and the worker must be reassured that his or her answers will be kept confidential.
Topics for Employee Safety Survey Questions
The employee safety survey questions should cover the following topics:
- Site management: The company will want to get an idea of the employees' perception of whether company management is committed to workplace safety.
- Supervision: Are the company supervisors actively involved in keeping the workplace safe.
- Staff ownership: These questions are designed to reveal whether the employees feel they have a part to play in workplace safety.
- Training: Employee safety survey questions should also address whether the workers feel that they have received adequate safety training from the company.
- Barriers to safety: Employees should be asked about any perceived barriers they come across when trying to work safely or reporting safety issues to management.
- Accident reporting: These types of questions deal with the employees' perceptions of whether workplace accidents are investigated properly. The questions should also deal with near-misses in the workplace, as well as hazardous situations.
Survey Format
The employee survey questions may be presented as a series of statement that the employee rates in degrees according to whether they strongly agree, strongly disagree or are neutral. The worker should also be able to indicate if they are not able to answer the question because they are not able to observe the situation the question is asking about in their work.
Making Changes in the Workplace
Conducting an employee safety survey is a valuable tool for employers, but the data they provide will not be any use to the company unless it is analyzed appropriately and used as the basis for making changes as necessary.
Everyone in the workplace should be concerned about safety issues. Accidents mean lower productivity and employee morale. They also mean higher costs for employee health benefit plans.
Taking appropriate steps to make sure that all workers have the training and equipment required to perform their duties in a safe manner makes good business sense. The answers to the questions on the safety survey can help to identify issues in the workplace that need to be addressed. Repeating the survey at regular intervals means these situations can be monitored appropriately.
