It’s that time of year again! Drop everything you’re doing, run to your workplaces, and start preparing for the wonderful and joyous celebration of… Safe+Sound Week!?
The “What” and the “Why”
So what is Safe+Sound Week, again? And wait, why are we even celebrating it? Shouldn’t we value workplace safety every week of the year?
Safe+Sound Week is a national safety campaign run by OSHA every August to encourage the implementation of safety programs in every workplace and celebrate their past successes.
And, yes, safety is still very important every other week of the year! Designating a week to focus on our safety programs gives us another reason to review our plans, improve our methods, and ensure standards are efficient and effective.
Three Facets of Safe+Sound Week
Safe+Sound Week includes three main facets of a successful workplace safety program: management leadership, worker participation, and finding and fixing hazards.
- Management leadership, the first facet of Safe+Sound Week, centers on the importance of an educated company leadership committed to employee safety. This can look like developing a safety policy statement, providing resources to implement safer standards, and/or rewarding employees who follow safety procedures well.
- Worker participation, the second facet of Safe+Sound Week, emphasizes the value of individual experiences and creating opportunities for employees to have their voices heard. This can look like including workers throughout the whole process of developing safety standards, encouraging employees to report incidents, and working with employees to define what safe work practices look like.
- Find and Fix Hazards, the third facet of Safe+Sound Week, highlights how hazard maintenance is vital to a successful safety plan. This could look like conducting inspections to help identify possible future hazards, reviewing information about possible hazards on the job site, and checking that existing safety controls remain effective.
2025 Focus
This year, OSHA has designated emergency preparedness and response as the main focus of Safe+Sound Week. The event aims to raise awareness about the importance of having robust emergency action plans in place to address unexpected workplace events that could cause harm, disrupt operations, or cause damage. We’ve gathered some resources to help you ensure your workplace is prepared for any emergency thrown your way.
Resources for improving Emergency Preparedness at your organization:
Four Simple Ways to Tighten Up Your Emergency Response Plan
An organization with a comprehensive, systematic emergency response plan can minimize risks and save lives before, during, and after any emergency.
Do you know the key components of an emergency response program and employee emergency response training? Is your organization well-equipped in the event of an emergency? Find out by taking Novara’s Emergency Response Pop Quiz.
The Three Ps: A Safety Manager’s Toolkit for Extreme Weather Prep
Stay safe during extreme weather conditions by following the three Ps. Learn about extreme weather safety and how to protect your workforce.
Learn – and train workers on – how to perform CPR and use an AED
“It’s really important to know how to do something,” said Carrie Bush, a first aid expert and program manager at the National Safety Council. “You never know when you’re going to need to use it. You’re more likely to save a life if you do something other than just calling 911.”
Why Safety Matters
Okay, all that sounds great, but… why should we care about safety again? It seems like so much extra effort for dangers that may or may not even happen.
Aside from the obvious ethical reasons, the way you implement your safety programs can have a huge impact on your company.
Here at Novara, each of our employees has their own reason for caring about safety. We recently did an interview with Novara Regulatory Compliance Manager Zach Pucillo, where he shared when and where he found his own appreciation for the safety field. In the episode, Zach describes a memory where knowing a small piece of safety information saved him from a house fire. Because of an educational school visit from a firefighter, a young Zach knew to put out an oil kitchen fire with a fire extinguisher instead of water.
He then shares how this influences his motivation to be involved with workplace safety trainings, and explains,
“So when I have somebody come up to me after a class and say something like, I never knew that, it takes me back to then. It’s like maybe, just maybe, I might have helped them prevent a fire in their own home. Or, you know, save them somehow, somehow just with a little piece of information.”
Zach realized the importance of education about safety procedures and learned that even the smallest piece of safety information might be enough to save a person’s life.
Listen to the full interview:
From increasing worker morale and productivity to expanding business success, thorough workplace safety programs can change how your whole company functions. It is up to you to decide whether that change is positive or negative.
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