As part of National Safety Month, the Equitable Food Initiative is encouraging fresh produce grower-shippers to prioritize worker engagement to drive workplace safety and improve the bottom line, according to a news release.
The National Safety Council first designated June as National Safety Month in 1996 with the goal of motivating workers and managers to look at how they can keep their workplace free from danger. The total cost of work injuries in 2021 was $167 billion with a cost per worker of $1,080, the National Safety Council reports. About 100 farm-related accidents result in injury every day, costing the agricultural industry millions of dollars per year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
With the agricultural industry facing labor shortages, EFI is using National Safety Month to underscore the opportunity to engage the 2.6 million U.S.-based farmworkers in strategies to increase safety, drive efficiencies and boost retention and recruitment.
Studies have found that engaged workers deliver better customer service and quality, drive cost reductions and productivity, and reduce injuries, according to the release. A study from Gallup found that employees who are less engaged are 64% more likely to have a safety incident.
“Workers are on the front lines, so they are the ones who know where policies might be getting overlooked or corners cut in ways that could lead to injury,” LeAnne Ruzzamenti, EFI’s director of marketing and communications, said in the release.
Workers are often the best positioned to offer suggestions to make the workplace safer, Ruzzamenti added.
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EFI-certified farming operations that have engaged their employees in worker-management collaborative teams have implemented a range of worker-led safety initiatives, according to the release.
Teams have improved lighting in parking lots, access to drinking water, traffic flows and speed, ladder design, tractor use in the fields, air circulation in the packhouse, COVID-19 protocols and sanitation. Teams also create repetitive motion injury prevention plans that introduce exercises and stretches to reduce muscle strain, apply ergonomics to repetitive motions, and ensure equipment is helping alleviate injury and strain, the release said.
“One of the easiest ways to begin engaging employees is to integrate worker voice into business improvements — whether regarding safety, productivity or quality,” Ruzzamenti said. “The hard part follows, where management must build trust by responding to and acting on worker suggestions and maintaining open and collaborative communication across the operation.”
EFI is capacity-building and certification organization that partners with growers, farmworkers, retailers and consumer groups.
