Summer's on its way and we're feeling hotter than ever -- which means the pressure's on! You could say every week is Safety Week at Bomber Eyewear, but we're paying special attention to team trainings this summer. 

Give your team a leg up on workplace safety (and just, like, generally not getting injured) with us! Pro tip: If you're looking for more hands-on experience for your team, we're booking in-person Safety Week training sessions with our founder, Tommy Bonacci, all year round. These sessions include general safety lessons and best practices, as well as a comprehensive focus on eye safety. Send us an email and we'll see what we can do! 

In the meantime, let's break down Safety Week and why it's something to add to your team's roster, like, yesterday!

Everything You Need To Know About Safety Week

Way back in 2014, a group of more than 40 national and global construction firms created the Construction Industry Safety Initiative and the Incident and Injury Free CEO Forum. Together, leaders from this group organized the first official Construction Safety Week, a dedicated time to educate and empower team members on job sites around the world.

An amazing thing about Safety Week is that we don't just seek to remind people about boring procedural stuff during this time... Instead, Safety Week is all about promoting a unified culture of empowerment, recognition, and action when it comes to potential risks. 

According to the folks behind Construction Safety Week, "Safety Week is a show of force, an opportunity for people, companies, and even competitors, to work together and celebrate the incredibly hard work by people in our industry who make safety the foundation of everything they do."

What should we do during Safety Week?

The OG Construction Safety Week focuses on four pillars: empowerment, recognition, partnership, and impact. Let's go through these pillars step by step, along with some ways to promote each pillar during your team's safety week. 

EMPOWERMENT: Focus on education, not just so everyone "knows the rules," but so that anyone on the job site who recognizes a potential safety risk has the confidence and empowerment to step in, speak up, and keep everyone on the job site -- including themselves -- safe. 

How to focus on EMPOWERMENT:

• Run educational seminars and meetings about industry safety risks. 
• Establish procedures, identifying phrases, and other quick forms of communication so everyone knows what to do in the event of an emergency.
• Encourage your team to speak up, so they feel comfortable to say something if they see something. Safety is everyone's job, not just a site supervisor's. 

RECOGNITION: Make sure each and every team member recognizes the signs of a potential safety issue and knows how to respond when something happens. Recognition is all about teamwork, and knowing that you have each other's backs. 

How to focus on RECOGNITION:

• Engage your team in practical demonstrations and exercises.
• Run safety drills, where everyone on your team gets a chance to recognize and act on an issue. 
• Share videos, pictures, and statistics related to common worksite safety issues and make sure everyone understands the potential risks. 

PARTNERSHIP: Partnership goes beyond being a "team player" and leans into communication, leadership, and support. This is the "people" part of Safety Week, where how to keep an eye not only on our job sites, but on our friends on duty. This pillar is all about staying alert, focused, and supported, no matter what you're working on. 

How to focus on PARTNERSHIP:

• Encourage team-building, whether that's through in-person exercises or just a pizza night. 
• Quiz team members on the warning signs of exhaustion, heat stroke, visual impairment, and other things they could spot in a coworker and intervene before disaster strikes. 
• Take suggestions from your team on ways to improve trust and communication on the job site. 

IMPACT: Finally, let's talk about impact. The concept of impact plays into that culture we mentioned earlier, the growing culture of education and empowerment on safe job sites. It's all fine and dandy to run through a week of safety and security trainings, but this pillar makes time for future opportunities: how to make every week Safety Week, for everyone on your team. 

How to focus on IMPACT:

• Take time to schedule your next six months' worth of safety trainings. 
• Create and hand out on-the-job references for common site safety risks -- not flyers people might lose or throw away, but reusable, dependable guidelines to be posted around your workplace.
• Ask your team what THEY want, whether that takes the form of new safety certifications or investing in high-quality gear for everyone.

Get A Jump Start With Your Own Gear

Would we be Bomber if we didn't plug our shades at the end? We've learned so much over the years, but especially that you can't skimp on eye safety. Our ANSI Z87+ safety-rated work gear, from sunglasses to safety glasses to glasses that pull double duty, is designed for PROTECTION FIRST.

We're here for you, and we want to make sure everyone on your team has the gear, know-how, and confidence to make every job site a safe one. Get in touch with us to talk about team-wide discounts for orders of 25 frames or more -- and get Tommy on site with you for in-person Safety Week trainings!