Does your facility have a policy to only allow escorted customers into the vehicle service area? What’s the policy at your facility? Do you forbid customers to enter the vehicle service area? Do you allow them in on their own? Or do you allow them to be escorted into the vehicle service area? These decisions may seem minute, but in reality they play a huge roll in safety of your employees and your customers.
(more…)
PPE Hazard Assessments, otherwise known as Personal Protective Equipment Hazard Assessments, are required at all auto facilities. What are they? PPE Assessments evaluate any hazards that may exist in your shop, what your employees do on a regular basis, what they’re exposed to, and what personal protective equipment they are required to wear.
It is possible to write your own Hazard Assessment, or, some companies, such as KPA, will provide Hazard Assessments for you.
(more…)
OSHA has instilled a variety of requirements for shops that have employees who wear respirators. This applies to any facility that conducts any spray coating operations including painting, priming, or rustproofing. To stay in compliance, make sure that you adhere to the following:
Not every dealership has a forklift onsite, but if you do, you are subject to the OSHA Powered Industrial Truck regulations. Review your OSHA paperwork and make sure you are compliant with the following laws:
Keep your files up to date and your employees trained to avoid OSHA forklift fines!
When it comes to building a safety culture, here’s a piece of advice most dealers have heard many times: All your safety programs, processes and action items need to be written down.
“That’s obvious,” you might say, “But why do I have to invest so much time keeping records?”
Written records are necessary to follow up on minutes from safety meetings and prove due diligence during inspections. But there’s more to it than that. Written records prove to your most important constituents –your staff – that you:
Pay special attention to number 3. Employees who see management making consistent improvements to safety problems they’ve reported are less likely to take their concerns to OSHA. (KPA’s observed an increase in the number of employee complaints to OSHA in recent years.)
Don’t give your employees reason to pick up the phone and tell OSHA, “They’re not doing anything about XYZ…” Show them you’re making progress.
If you’re doing that already, what’s working for your dealership? How do you measure and report progress?
Resources related to this blog post:
Webinar: “How to Develop a Positive Safety Culture” by Nick Hardesty
Blog posts on safety culture: Defining a Safety Culture, Tip #1 –Senior Management, Tip #2 –Safety Coordinators, Tip #3 – Accident Follow-up, Tip #4 – Return-to-Work Policies, Tip #5 – Employee Feedback
Let’s say you’re trying to implement a more effective safety culture at your dealership. You’re running down the checklist: Senior management team’s on board? Check. The safety coordinator’s been assigned? Check. Quick follow-up on accidents? Check. Return-to-work procedures? Check.
Employee feedback?… Uh oh.
It’s easy for a “safety culture” to become a stream of top-down orders from management, without much feedback being sent back up the corporate food chain. And employees who don’t give feedback are less likely to report accidents in a timely manner, or new risks they’ve observed. What can you do to get them engaged?
If you’re a supervisor who’s trying to get your employees to provide more feedback about safety, you may find that your HR manager becomes your closest ally. That’s because employees who know their feedback is valuable to management tend to stay longer, produce more, get hurt less, and refer their friends for open positions. HR will love you!
Resources related to this blog post:
Webinar: “How to Develop a Positive Safety Culture” by Nick Hardesty
Blog posts on safety culture: Defining a Safety Culture, Tip #1 –Senior Management, Tip #2 –Safety Coordinators, Tip #3 – Accident Follow-up, Tip #4 – Return-to-Work Policies
Injuries happen. Auto dealers who have successfully implemented a positive safety culture have created effective procedures for helping an injured employee get back to work. A lot can be done to communicate to the injured colleague that they are valued and wanted back.
Here are a couple of scenarios where it’s important to encourage employees to return to work:
So how do you make sure people in these situations know they can – and should – come back? Have a written return-to-work policy and give it to your employee. Set the expectation that they are wanted back, if at all possible.
This is a win/win approach to an injury: Employees feel appreciated and are more productive. Employers gain from lower workers’ comp premiums and lower staff turnover. By the way, this topic can get complicated. If you have questions, contact your HR consultant, or consider signing up for our Human Resources Management consulting service. (Just email Kathryn Carlson – kcarlson@kpaonline.com).
Resources related to this blog post:
Webinar: “How to Develop a Positive Safety Culture” by Nick Hardesty
Blog posts on safety culture: Defining a Safety Culture, Tip #1 –Senior Management, Tip #2 –Safety Coordinators, Tip #3 – Accident Follow-up
Even in the safest auto dealership, accidents happen. In fact, what happens in your dealership in the hours following an accident is an excellent test of your positive safety culture. Here are a few things to look for:
Did you notice how these four factors work together? If a Service Manager has a track record of being tactful and fair during accident investigations, employees are more likely to report accidents to him truthfully and promptly. This, in turn, allows the dealer to handle claims in a timely manner, and find ways to prevent future accidents by holding investigations when the incidents are still fresh in everyone’s mind.
Even though accidents aren’t good, the way they’re handled can actually reinforce morale. Also, each accident is an opportunity to gather important information that may help prevent similar incidents in the future.
Has your dealership discovered some good techniques for accident follow-up? I’d love to hear them.
Resources related to this blog post:
Webinar: “How to Develop a Positive Safety Culture” by Nick Hardesty
Blog posts on safety culture: Defining a Safety Culture, Tip #1 –Senior Management, Tip #2 –Safety Coordinators
We’ve all seen the slogan: “safety is everybody’s business.” No argument there. A positive safety culture requires teamwork. But there’s a funny thing about teams: if no one’s in charge of the action items, everyone assumes that it’s “someone else’s business” to take care of them. And nothing actually gets done.
Every effective safety program has a safety coordinator. In some cases, the coordinator is a GM or high-level executive. If that approach works for your dealership, stick to it, because senior management involvement is key to a positive safety culture. However, many dealerships find that the safety coordinator position is most effective if it’s filled by someone who works closely with employees on the shop floor:
A safety coordinator leads the charge each month, coordinating meetings, deadlines and action items, making sure people are assigned and accountable… basically, making sure that safety really is everybody’s business.
KPA’s seen a variety of effective approaches to this position. What’s your group’s approach? Who do you assign to the safety coordinator position?
Resources related to this blog post:
Webinar: “How to Develop a Positive Safety Culture” by Nick Hardesty
Blog posts on safety culture: Defining a Safety Culture, Tip #1 –Senior Management
When we try to create a “safety culture,” we often start with the people on the shop floor, where obvious hazards lurk, like electric shock and oil slicks. Actually, one of the most effective places to begin creating a safety culture is the boss’ office. (And if you are “the boss,” thanks for reading this post.)
For a safety program, the difference between success or failure is often defined by the level of senior management team involvement. When GMs, owners or CEOs are involved, the safety culture takes off. Here are some of the important ways bosses make a difference:
Safety requires teamwork, from the top to the bottom of a dealer’s org chart. In the case of your dealership or dealer group, what can you do to help management’s relationship with the safety team?
Resources related to this blog post:
Webinar: “How to Develop a Positive Safety Culture” by Nick Hardesty
Blog posts on safety culture: Defining a Safety Culture
