Worker Participation

Effective safety and health programs tap into workers' collective experiences, knowledge, and insights in order to find solutions to workplace safety and health challenges.

Why Is It Important?

Workers often know the most about potential hazards associated with their jobs. When they are involved in finding solutions, they feel invested in the program. To maximize participation, however, workers must feel free of any fear of retaliation for reporting an injury or hazardous conditions.

Workers can participate in many ways, including:

Developing the initial program design.
Reporting incidents (including near misses) so they can be investigated.
Analyzing hazards associated with routine and nonroutine jobs, tasks, and processes.
Defining and documenting safe work practices.
Conducting site inspections and incident investigations.
Training current coworkers and new hires.
Evaluating program performance and identifying ways to improve it.

Challenges

Speak Up for Safety Challenge

Safety reports contain the information you need to improve workplace safety and health. Use worker participation in this Speak Up for Safety Challenge to review your safety reports with a team.

Take the Challenge

Safety is Our Right Challenge

Acknowledging workers' rights shows that you respect your workers. Learn how to host a discussion about workers’ rights and build trust with the Safety is Our Right Challenge.

Take the Challenge

Response-Ready Workplace Challenge

Emergencies can disrupt your operations, cause damage, and put workers, customers, and the public at risk. Do your workers know what to do in an emergency? How can they help improve your emergency action plan?

Take the Challenge