Businessman presenting work safety concept, hazards, protections, health and regulations
Each year, injured workers cost businesses in the United States $62 billion dollars.
As an employer, it’s up to you to decide how you want to preserve health and safety in the workplace.
Developing safety policies or a basic safety program for your employees to follow is a great way to educate workers on recommended OSHA safety practices.
OSHA is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and ensures the health and safety of employees across the United States. They’re in charge of enforcing employers to offer their employees a safe work environment.
Improving your workplace health and safety won’t result in an overnight transformation of your company’s safety culture.
It may take a bit of time to see a complete transformation, but in the long run, you’ll be decreasing your chances of an injury related lawsuit.
Here are 7 tips for improving your company’s health and safety practices:
The biggest step that you could make towards addressing health and safety issues in your workplace is creating a safety committee.
Encouraging the development of a safety committee at your work helps to inspire the collaboration of a variety of backgrounds. It gives people that work different jobs the chance to speak on an open platform about different risks or challenges they’re facing. Together, the goal of the safety committee is to work towards eliminating safety risks.
Don’t forget to include people with a background in safety in your safety committee, although it is beneficial to have a team that’s made up of those who are equally passionate about safety.
As I talked about earlier, OSHA is responsible for ensuring that your employees have a safe place to work.
A great way to avoid possible OSHA fines is to have a solid understanding of what rules and regulations OSHA has for all employees and if there are any special rules that apply to you, based on the niche of your business.
If you feel like starting your own safety committee is too big of a task or if you don’t feel like you have enough safety experience, you should look into hiring a safety manager.
A safety manager will have training and certifications to make them an expert in both workplace health and safety. Your safety manager will be the person responsible for handling any accident claims, creating a safety culture, properly train your employees in safety practices, lead safety meetings, and handle safety audits.
Not only will hiring a safety manager to ensure the health of your employees, but it’ll also help to take some of the stress off of your shoulders!
We all like to be rewarded, right? Developing an incentive for your employees to work towards is a great way to uplift your team’s morale.
Not only that, but it gives your employees something to look forward to for their safe working behavior. Whether you decide to make team-based or personal incentives based on safe working practices.
A few ideas could include:
Depending on what type of niche your business is in, having your equipment inspected on a regular basis can help to prevent machine malfunctioning. However, more importantly, having your equipment inspected by an authorized official can help to prevent accidents.
Not having your equipment properly inspected is an OSHA fine, and depending upon the size of your business, could leave you in a severe financial rut. Even if you aren’t passionate about safety and are more concerned about the financial aspect of your business, having your equipment properly inspected and maintained can actually help to extend the life of your machinery.
Trained employees are employees that know how to protect themselves without a safety manager constantly looking over your shoulder.
Even if you can’t afford to bring a safety manager on your team, you can have a safety consultant come in and lead monthly safety meanings to educate your employees. Hiring a safety consultant won’t be as expensive as hiring a safety manager, but a safety consultant won’t manage your workplace health and safety.
Getting your employees trained on techniques such as safe lifting practices, first-aid training, and CPR training can help to educate your employee on how to properly react in emergency situations.
Not only that but encouraging your employees to have a better understanding of what exactly unsafe work practices are is a great accident prevention measure to take. You can train your employees on what to look out for before an accident and what to do in the case that an accident does happen!
You and your employees could get a better understanding of the best health and safety practices by attending the Safety Conference of 2019.
A workplace that’s messy increases the likelihood of an unnecessary accident. Making sure that floors are free of trip hazards and any materials that could cause someone to slip.
Another great way to ensure that your workplace is clean is to keep clutter surrounding your workplace at a minimum and that any machines that aren’t in use are locked up.
Discovering how you want to preserve health and safety in the workplace can not only help to save you and your business money, but it’s also vital to ensuring the safety of your employees. Building a safety culture that you and your employees are proud of is a great way to develop team building skills and boost morale!
What are some tips that you think are vital to creating a safe and healthy workplace? Leave your thoughts or questions in the comment section down below!
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Your advice to get health and safety training and certifications from a manager is a good idea. In order to do this, you'd probably want to research local companies and professionals that offer these services. This could help you learn about their program and qualifications to determine which one can provide the training and certification you need based on the work you do and the equipment you use.