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Talk is cheap. We all know that.
It's also no secret that the majority of industrial workers are not gullible either. Just because they don't use the big words and flowery phrases their bosses sometimes do, doesn't mean that they don't have a clue. Quite the opposite is true. Often the operators are the ones who are more in tune to what's safe and what's not in the workplace. The reason is because they're the ones "in the trenches", and know the territory much more intimately than their Safety Director does.
So you talk about safety. What else do you do? Are you doing enough to get a buy in from your employees? It's nice that you order posters and make sure that the first-aid kit is restocked, but there's a lot more to the job than that. Sure, you do a lot more than that, but can people see what else you're doing? You have to get people believing that you take safety seriously. And that's going to take a lot more than just words. The saying, "actions speak louder than words", applies here as much as anywhere else. Your actions communicate much more about your safety mindedness than your words do.
The first and most important thing is this: You have to come out of your office. It's not enough to sit around and arbitrarily write policies and adopt safety slogans. Your employees need their Safety Manager out in the plant looking for danger, asking questions, and getting people involved with initiatives which will make your facility a safer and more productive place to work. In short, you need to communicate with them.
If you think you're going to delegate everything, and still have operators on the floor take you seriously - you're in for a big surprise. It's just not going to happen. This isn't to say you can't delegate at all. It just means that anytime you delegate, you're going to have to spend some quality time following up appropriately. Remember, people need to see you before they'll believe you.
When you receive a safety complaint, how seriously do you treat it? Are you truly interested in assessing the situation and then taking the appropriate action? Do your employees automatically assume that this will be your attitude? They certainly should. If they don't feel this way about you, it's time to start asking yourself why.
In addition to assigning regularly scheduled departmental safety audits - do your own as well. You should also sit down with each department once in a while to discuss any safety concerns they might have. Keep in mind that this practice will only be seen as safety rhetoric if your safety challenges stem from a substandard plant or equipment which is beyond the point of safe use. Such issues must be promptly addressed in order to gain any sort of buy in from your employees.
What you communicate about safety is of great importance to the well-being of your employees. Seeing is believing. When they actually see you being serious about safety - that's when they'll start believing you.