9 Ways To Have a Safer Workplace

 In Personal Injury Assistance

If you own a business, there are bound to be a million things that you worry about day in, and day out. There’s always something to think about, but one of the most important things you can pay attention to is workplace safety. It’s not hard to be doing things wrong, but there are several easy processes you can implement to make things better.

Here are 9 ways to have a safer workplace:

Learn the Rules

Before attempting to create a safety plan for your business, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) guidelines. At the end of the day, they’re the ones who will be checking in on you and can fine or shut you down if you don’t comply with their rules. From a legal standpoint, all other guidelines are secondary to theirs. Though don’t let this be where your safety plan begins and ends.

Put Someone in Charge

It’s impossible to have your eyes and ears everywhere around your business, so instead of trying to be in charge of everything, appoint a person to lead your safety efforts and empower them to make changes in policy and rules as necessary. This safety captain should also have the ability to recruit others to help in their efforts. Safety is everyone’s responsibility.

Train Employees on Safety Basics

As part of the employee on boarding process, make sure to have some basic safety training in place to accompany other job training materials. As safety is a continuous process, provide periodic training for all staff members that is a requirement to be completed. If you get new, potentially dangerous equipment, hold training on that too and reinforce it with email updates to employees.

Regularly Practice Safety Measures

Once you’ve provided safety training and have set some general safety rules in place, make sure to also practice good safety. This includes practices as general as fire drills, but should also be more specific when you have dangerous equipment and other potential safety hazards on-site. Don’t just practice once a year – make it a regular part of what you do.

Recruit an Expert

Entrepreneur suggests that you invite someone like a law enforcement officer, or firefighter, to inspect your place of business and provide feedback for making things more safe. After all, who would know better than someone who’s continuously concerned with safety best practices?

Special Equipment Deserves Extra Attention

Do you have any potentially dangerous machines or equipment at your place of business? If so, you must take extra measures to protect employees from the possible dangers these machines possess. Make sure to train and remind employees about the machines, but also install guards and post attention-grabbing signs near and on the machines.
Speak Up
The International Labour Association states that safety is everyone’s job, not just the business owner and the people they’ve empowered to be in charge of safety best practices. No matter where you stand in the organization, if you see something wrong, speak up! You may just save someone’s life.
Don’t Let Yourself be a Hazard
If you’re tired or impaired in some way when you attempt to operate dangerous machinery, you’re not just putting yourself in danger, but all the people around you. Don’t put yourself (or anyone else) in that position, even if it means staying home from work.

Audit Your Business

Once you’ve got a good system in place, with clearly defined rules and policies, a team of safety officers, training, and practice, you should think about starting a periodic audit of your business. Create a checklist of different things to inspect and go over them.

If someone gets injured in your business, or you get injured in someone’s business, make sure that an incident report gets filled out. This is one of many measures to track safety policy effectiveness.

You and your employees deserve to be happy and healthy. Do you part to make this possible.

If you’re concerned about your legal rights in a case where someone gets hurt in your business, or aren’t sure what to do next, make sure to give your local “Attorney Big Al” a call at 1-800-HURT-123 or visit www.HURT123.com

Recommended Posts

Leave a Comment

Contact Us

Please use this form to contact us and one of my representatives will be reaching you as soon as possible.

Not readable? Change text. captcha txt

Start typing and press Enter to search