Safety Signs & Whiteboards -- An Essential Tool in the Workplace

Safety is one of the highest priorities for manufacturers. An excellent safety record keeps costs and production disruptions low, helps prevent issues with OSHA and keeps employee morale high, but the most important reason to stay focused on safety is because it protects the company’s most important resource – its people.

Safety doesn't just happen – it requires diligence and effort to ensure that safety stays top of mind despite the drive to deliver products quickly and cost effectively. One of the easiest ways to ensure that safety remains a high priority is to measure safety and to post safety records prominently where everyone can see them. Magnetic whiteboards are a superb tool to address this need because of their flexibility and proven ability to boost safety awareness and improve the overall safety culture within an organization. Here are a few ways to use magnetic whiteboards to measure and improve safety records.

Everybody takes pride in setting a record; so posting safety records helps direct the team to ensuring they beat prior safety records. As employees see that the company is close to setting or matching previous safety records, they may be motivated to take extra care to ensure that they exceed the previously set record for maximum days between safety incidents.  When workers put the day's magnet on themselves they feel pride in building a green accident-free year. As this task is delegated, your safety goals will be embraced by your departments and employees.  They also alert workers to any pattern of body-part injuries that may not otherwise be apparent, which with proper discussion can often trigger early preventive safety fix-it actions.

"A motivational and educational force"...This board was just what our safety committee was looking for. We have a lot of visitors that walk through the plant. We knew that we wanted to have safety boards up as a motivational and educational force for the workers, but we didn't want something that would show too much detail for outside eyes. These were the perfect solution.

Safety Manager - Manufacturing Company, Akron, OH

Safety Awareness

Safety boards are a hugely important safety awareness tool. Magnetic safety signs can cut accident rates by keeping employees engaged 24-7.  They help keep attention focused on safety every day of the year, shift-by-shift and month-by-month. Utilize the safety board’s in weekly or monthly safety meetings, safety training or just continually update a safety cross for continuous manager-to-employee communications. For best results, prompt employee interaction.

They are an important part of our Safety Awareness program… a good tool for increasing awareness within the department because nobody wants to have someone from another department come by and see red or yellow marks in their area. We often see them in other plants when we do our benchmarking events.

Safety Manager - Auto parts manufacturer, Holland, MI

Lost hours

Employees take pride in meeting or exceeding expectations, and they want the company to do well. Posting lost hours on a magnetic whiteboard helps motivate employees to take precautions to prevent injuries or lost time. Magnetic whiteboards are easy to change, so you can quickly update incidents and incident response processes which ensure that employees have quick access to the right actions to prevent injury which can be extremely costly and detrimental to profits and employee morale.  Magnetic whiteboards are an effective tools for posting pertinent safety information and data around the factory floor. You can easily place one near each workstation with reminders about proper safety procedures and actions to protect operators from injury or accidents.

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These suggestions are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to using magnetic whiteboards to improve safety records. Managers know that what gets measured improves, so measuring and displaying safety information and safety records will result in a safer work environment. Once you discover how flexible and effective magnetic whiteboards are for improving safety, you will find numerous additional ways to use these tools to improve your company’s safety performance.