5 Steps to Keep Employees Safe In The Workplace

It is an employer’s responsibility to inspect the work premises, compile risk assessment, and ensure that the environment is as safe as it can be for all employees. This doesn’t guarantee that there will be no workplace injuries but it does reduce the risk. 

Workplace injuries can create a huge burden on a company. Financially they may need to cover hospital bills and lost earnings, they may also need to cover emotional recovery and it can also be expensive to have extra staff covering the injured employees shift.

That’s not even all the potential costs, it’s much better to take the following 5 steps and keep your employees safe.

  1. Training

One of the most important things you can do is to train your employees properly in the jobs they need to do. Every training session should be pre-planned and logged, with the employee signing to confirm they’ve had the training.

This ensures they are aware of the risks and what they need to do to mitigate them.

  1. Rewards

A good incentive to ensure safety standards are always met is to offer rewards. This can be a simply bonus in their paycheck for pointing out safety issues or a monthly competition that awards the best safety ideas with a treat, such as a day out, or even extra holiday allowance.

It doesn’t just help to keep people aware of safety, it also improves the morale in the workplace.

  1. Safety Gear

It’s essential that all employees have the right safety gear. This means high vis workwear when working outside or around dangerous equipment, steel-toe capped boots when necessary, and any other measures that will help to ensure your employees stay safe while being able to do their jobs properly.

  1. Risk Assessments

Every business should conduct risk assessments. This involves looking at every process that occurs within the workplace and deciding what level of risk s associated with it. You need to document the risk and how something could go wrong. You also need to document the steps that employees should take to reduce the risk.

 This process highlights any changes that the company needs to make to processes or specific equipment. The resulting risk assessments can then be used in training sessions. This is one time when knowledge really is power, the better informed you and the employees are, the safer everyone is.

  1. Right Tools

In order for employees to be as efficient as possible and as safe as possible, they should have the right tools for the job. You should have established these when creating the roles and continual risk assessments will help to ensure they have what they need.

It’s also a good idea to encourage employees to make suggestions, this will help you to ensure they have the best possible tools for the job, which will help to keep them safe. 

By following the above steps you’ll create an environment where people are aware of risks and confident that their input is appreciated and will be acted on. This is actually the best way of maintaining safety standards.

Adam Hansen
 

Adam is a part time journalist, entrepreneur, investor and father.