As a business owner, you’ll find that you spend a lot of your time thinking about how you can make your business a better place for your customers – but what about your employees? No business would be where it is today without the great employees who have worked hard to get it there, and it’s important that you’re thinking about their safety as often as you can. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in a workplace, especially as your business grows, and you should be ready to make sure no one is going to get hurt while they’re working under you.
It’s not just about incidents, either. If your workplace is unsafe yet no employees are getting hurt, it will still be adding a level of stress to their jobs that could be avoided if you were more diligent with your safety concerns.
Encourage safety culture
First things first is making sure your employees are more safety conscious while they’re going about their duty. They can help you make sure the workplace is safer for them, and you can maintain an open discussion about certain workplace risks that crop up here and there. Making sure your employees are safety conscious means that fewer people are going to be at risk while working, and it’s not just you looking out for everyone.
Providing proper training
Encouraging a more positive attitude toward safety isn’t enough, and it doesn’t hurt to make sure your employees are trained to handle certain situations properly. Make sure they know what to do if there’s ever an injury, or if there are certain hazards that need to be taken care of. Comprehensive first aid training can save a life, especially if all of your employees have undergone that training. The same goes for things like fire safety and handling heavy machinery. Providing this level of safety training ensures that even in unavoidably dangerous work environments, your employees are prepared for the worst.
It’s not just safety training, either, but training in general. If you’re going to have employees handling things like heavy machinery or power tools, you want to make sure they’re qualified to do so. Sometimes it can be stressful to fill the gaps when you’re short-staffed, but you should never have employees fill in those gaps when they’re not ready for it. Smaller businesses can apply for funding to upskill in construction, making it easier to ensure that their employees have the training they need before they’re on the job.
Regular health screening
Your employees are working all day every day, and that doesn’t leave a lot of time for things like regular health checkups. These health checkups can be life-saving, and providing them to your employees during company hours can help them out a great deal. During these screenings, conditions and diseases that are developing can be caught early, and you can adjust your operations to meet the needs of employees who are experiencing these issues.
Sometimes the symptoms of these issues aren’t alarmingly obvious, and it can put people in danger if they’re not caught and acted on as soon as possible. Diabetes, for example, if gone unnoticed can affect how employees go about the day. Employees may experience difficulties with their vision suddenly, which would make jobs that involve operating heavy machinery incredibly dangerous for them and everyone around them. Creating a safe work environment means ensuring your employees have access to the healthcare they need.
Correctly marking hazards
Any known hazards in your workplace should be properly marked and signed for all of your employees to be aware of them. Brightly coloured signage that lets people know that there is a hazard protects unsuspecting employees from harm. Even if it’s something simple like a wet floor, it’s important that signs are put up so that people know to be careful and avoid the area while it’s there. It’s a simple issue, but you could save an employee from a serious injury with a sign bright enough to draw their attention before they put themselves in danger from a potential hazard.
Providing safety equipment
No matter your workplace, you should ensure that the equipment provided to your employees is sufficient enough to keep them from getting injured while they’re working. This is true for every work environment, even an office space. Employees working around heavy machinery should have protective gear, as well as high-visibility clothing to prevent them from being unseen around said heavy machinery.
In an office, it’s a different matter, but still important to consider. While the risks aren’t as high, having employees spend all of their time at a desk that encourages poor posture isn’t going to be good for their health. Employees may experience back issues and muscle strain, even if all they’re doing is working at a computer. Understand that the equipment you provide employees can change a lot in the workplace.
Encourage breaks
While some employees might prefer to keep on working when they feel like they’ve gotten into the flow of things, taking breaks is essential in keeping everyone safe. Overworking can lead to employees getting tired, which can make their job much more dangerous than it needs to be. Taking breaks gives them time to recharge, and refresh their mind before they get back to work.
Breaks shouldn’t be optional, and you should ensure that employees aren’t being overworked throughout the day. It might seem like working through breaks is more efficient, but for most people, breaks are a much-needed refresher before continuing with work for the rest of the day.
Employee safety should always be one of your top priorities as a business owner, and without your employees, your business wouldn’t stand a chance. For the sake of keeping employees safe, as well as reducing employee turnover – your business needs to be as safe as possible. Even if you feel like you’re being a little too strict with your safety rules, if it can save a life in the workplace, it’s worth enforcing.
