Have you had a Safety Meeting Recently?

Many parts of the region have passed the half way mark with some nearing completion of ginning. We are near the time of the year that we tend to have a number of our most serious accidents. This year is no exception with a number of bad accidents occurring in just the past couple weeks across the belt. It’s time to review your safety actions!

We have sent out Safety Alerts to our members when we learn the details about serious accidents. As we get details on accidents in other parts of the US we try to pass those along as well. These are excellent tools to use for safety meetings. As my dad used to say… these are TEACHABLE moments.

I’ve had questions as to how to do a safety meeting. Particularly with the language barrier that many face, use a key guy or gal that is bilingual as an interpreter. This works better than you think. I’ve had ginners buy scratch off lottery tickets and give them out at the end. Give aways always lighten the mood too.

One thing that you need to make sure is that you document all of your safety meetings. Get everyone who is there to sign in and document what was covered. Finally, MAKE SURE YOU PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH. If you have a policy for no gloves, make sure you are enforcing that policy. You can talk safety and rules all you want to but if they aren’t enforced they do no good.

Please take a few minutes in the next day or so and conduct a safety meeting. The Topic can be up to you or you can do a short refresher or go over the accidents we’ve seen in the past few weeks. Lets finish this season strong and safe.