In every workplace, employees should strive to comply with established safety guidelines. This is because working safely can protect them and customers from injury and in some cases, death. In certain industries, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) imposes specific safety requirements. Other industries are not held to any additional safety requirements beyond the general guides that OSHA enforces.

Many employers create work safety days to focus on safety training for their employees. Good work safety day ideas include activities that engage all participants and workshops that give employees the opportunity to think critically about the safety guidelines in place rather than hearing lectures about safety. Playing safety incentive games is an effective way to train employees to follow established safety and accident-reporting procedures.

Work Safety Day Ideas

A few effective work safety ideas to bring to the office include:

  • A safety gear fashion show.
  • Interactive safety skits.
  • Safety scavenger hunts.
  • Safe-T-Word.
  • Safety games.

Safe-T-Word is an ongoing activity that operates similarly to bingo. Each employee is given a card that lists multiple safety slogans. Every workday, a new safety slogan is posted in a public area of the office, and employees mark it off on their cards. The first employee to get five in a row or another pattern determined by management wins a prize.

Other work safety day ideas include having a safety scavenger hunt, where employees have to collect safety items and correct unsafe setups throughout the workplace. Another is interactive safety skits, where teams of employees act out common unsafe scenarios and rely on audience participation to correct these scenarios. A safety gear fashion show can be a way to not just show off the latest in eye, ear, hand, foot and head protection but to model how to wear it correctly.

Safety Incentive Games

The top incentive for following safety procedures is keeping all your digits and limbs intact and leaving the workplace alive and without burned or bloody clothing. Other incentives include improved productivity, remaining in good standing within your industry and in many cases, avoiding fines imposed by OSHA for failure to comply with safety standards. Safety incentive games engage employees and build skills like communication, teamwork and critical thinking while teaching them how to work safely.

Safety games should always focus on what the employee should do to minimize the risk of injury to herself and others in a given situation. The purpose is to train the employees to take safety precautions automatically rather than potentially create scenarios where they need to think about how to approach a situation safely and potentially make mistakes.

Safety Game Ideas

The right games for a team to play depend on a few factors. These include:

  • The safety hazards present in their workplace.
  • The amount of time they have to devote to safety training.
  • The number of people present for the training.
  • The amount of space they have in which to play the games.

A few safety game ideas include:

  • Safety charades.
  • Safety bingo.
  • Safety jeopardy.

Employees can play these games individually or in teams. These safety game ideas are ideal for workplaces that have limited time or space to conduct safety training. For companies that have more time and space to devote to safety training, multiple activities such as one or two of these short safety games and a longer safety activity like Safe-T-Word can be the right choice for ensuring that safety lessons stick and employees learn how to stay safe at work. Employers can be creative and tailor safety training to their teams’ specific needs, having fun with the training and making sure everybody learns.