Safety steering committees have a big job. They can play a crucial role in safety implementations, and they also have a huge influence on safety sustainability. An effective steering committee can help make safety feel like a constant positive presence in the workplace by keeping safety issues at the top of people’s minds on a daily basis.

But not all steering committees are created equal. Some can keep up the safety momentum, even if there aren’t any big ongoing training initiatives happening. Others seem to struggle to gain meaningful traction among employees, especially in the long term.

The difference between a productive steering committee and one that needs improvement can come down to several key elements. Of course, the individual soft skills of committee members can play a major role in how well the group functions. But there are several other considerations that also differentiate the most effective teams. Here are three important things to keep in mind when trying to get the most from an organization’s safety steering committee.

Make it fun

Even when safety is perceived as a core value, it can feel like a chore. But just because safety is important doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. One hallmark of successful safety steering committees is the ability to inject a bit of joy into safety sustainability.

There are a number of ways that a steering committee can make safety fun. Contests that give out gift cards to workers who practice a safety habit, share a safety story with a colleague or demonstrate their safety knowledge can get people thinking and talking about safety in an enjoyable and relaxed way.

Safety-related games can also be run at company-wide meetings or work functions. These could range from silly pin-the-hard-hat-on-the-worker games to more competitive safety quizzes. The specific format doesn’t matter as long as it gets people thinking and talking about safety in a different and more relaxed way.

Focus on family

Most workplace EHS interventions are, unsurprisingly, focused on keeping people safe in the workplace. But that attention may be misplaced. According to the National Safety Council’s Injury Facts, the vast majority of injuries occur at home or on the road. The statistics are grim, with approximately 79% of all injury-related deaths last year happening at home or in communities. That number represents over 175,000 injury-related deaths, and there were an additional 52.6 million medically consulted injuries that occurred in communities and homes in just the previous year.

One of the biggest safety challenges of our time is to bridge the gap between safety in the workplace and safety at home. Fortunately, the safety steering committee is in an ideal position to do so. The safety steering committee could provide safety-themed materials like coloring sheets or spot-the-hazard drawings for workers to take home to their kids. The committee could also help educate workers on the benefits of talking to their loved ones about safety. A good training initiative like SafeStart even provides take-home safety material, because they recognize that helping employees keep their families safe is both the right thing to do and a great way to get buy-in for workplace safety training.

Talking to workers about safety at home can have multiple workplace-specific benefits, too. Preventing injuries at home means fewer workers will have to take time off because someone in their household was hurt over the weekend. And demonstrating care for workers’ families is a proven way to improve people’s attitudes towards their employer.

Check the calendar

Safety messaging can tend to feel stale after a while, especially if it’s familiar and repetitive. Ask any EHS manager and they’ll tell you that it can feel incredibly difficult to keep refresher training feeling, well, fresh year after year. A big part of that has to do with the natural process of complacency, which not only waters down the efficacy of training but also puts employees in danger by making familiar hazards seem less dangerous than they actually are.

There’s no silver bullet for slaying complacency. But safety steering committees are well-positioned to help mitigate the dangers of this invisible human factor by offering timely health and safety reminders that don’t feel like the same old thing. And one of the best ways to get ideas for those reminders is to look at the calendar.

In many workplaces, the hazards are largely the same from week to week and month to month. If a piece of machinery is dangerous in March, it’s also going to pose a problem in October. But outside the workplace, hazards fluctuate with the season. Driving may be more dangerous in January when the roads are icy, while the risk of drowning spikes in the summer months. Daylight saving time is a big problem twice a year. Hunting, ticks and sun exposure are all seasonal hazards. So are holiday-related safety issues.

Many of these topics may not pose a direct risk to your workplace (although fatigue and stress caused by the holidays and daylight saving time can bleed into the workplace). But we know that safety outcomes at home can influence employees’ attendance and attention at work, which in turn affects their ability to manage risk-multiplying human factors. Plus, getting people to think about safety at home will make them more attuned to thinking about safety at work, helping foster a 24/7 attitude toward wellbeing.

Safety steering committees can lean into seasonal issues by running just-in-time initiatives, such as an email, poster or handout to remind people about a specific seasonal safety concern. It doesn’t need to be complicated; the most important qualities are for it to be both timely and relevant to employees.

In the same way that microlearning aims to teach employees about safety in small doses, a steering committee can task itself with providing short bursts of safety reminders when workers might need it most. In doing so, the committee can effectively encourage people to keep safety top of mind, making the workplace that much safer.

Keeping a steering committee productive, proactive and engaging can be a tall order in the best of times. But by incorporating elements of fun, family and freshness into the committee’s operations and activities, it’s possible to turn your team into a major asset when it comes to keeping people protected around the clock.