Encouraging the management of health and safety at work with your supervisors and line managers

How can you prioritise health and safety at work when supervisors and managers have so many other responsibilities?

We recently attended Safety, Health and Wellbeing Live, where industry professionals discussed recent health and safety hot topics. In particular, Dee Arp, Chief Quality officer at NEBOSH, spoke about how the values of health and safety can be so often overlooked by busy management and leadership teams.

Make time for health and safety in daily routine

Embed health and safety values into daily operations to make them integral to workplace culture.

For example, one approach is to make time for safety discussions during regular meetings. Incorporating health and safety as a standing agenda item helps to reinforce its importance and encourages open dialogue among staff. Managers can share updates, address concerns, and recognise positive safety behaviours. This practice keeps health and safety front of mind, and encourages management/supervisory level leaders across the business to follow suit.

Support the team

Equipping supervisors and managers with the right training is another crucial aspect of promoting the management of health and safety at work.

Knowledgeable leaders set a positive example and understand potential risks. Providing accredited training, such as NEBOSH qualifications and basic first aid, keeps key personnel up to date with best practices. Empowering leaders in this way encourages a proactive stance on identifying and mitigating potential risks.

Develop your work culture

Engaging employees in meaningful conversations about safety can also help to identify gaps and develop practical solutions. By asking open-ended questions and involving staff in health and safety assessments, organisations gain valuable insights that might otherwise be overlooked.

This also nurtures the sense that employees can speak up when concerned about their health and wellbeing and contribute to a healthy workplace culture overall. Collaborative problem-solving sessions give employees a sense of ownership over workplace safety and can lead to innovative improvements.

Why does this matter?

Making this effort with your team could be the difference between an accident and near miss; between a break-in and safe environment; between a sick employee and a healthy one. If you think you’re already there, consider whether you are doing so inclusively – “your team is only as safe as its most vulnerable member.”

If managers aren’t prioritising safety, make it part of the daily routine—not just a checklist item. After all, your team wants to feel safe and looked after at work; being given the space and support to encourage that culture will allow them to actually prioritise it.

As Arp succinctly put it, “You don’t do health and safety to people—you do it with them.”

3B provides professional and accredited health and safety training courses, eLearning and NVQs, to bring your team up to scratch.