How to Improve Safety in Your Small Business
Safety should be a critical concern for businesses of all sizes, but it plays a particularly important role in small businesses. This is because a workplace safety issue could lead to a series of resulting problems, including legal action, which can seriously threaten the future of your organization.
To ensure you are able to protect your staff, your customers, and your company, it is vital that all small businesses learn how to uphold the highest safety standards at all times.
Conduct Thorough Risk Assessments
Risk assessments are critical for ensuring the safety of all your workplace operations. You should have a dedicated member of the team who is trained to be able to carry out comprehensive risk assessments whenever a new piece of equipment or technology is introduced to your organization.
It is also vital that you identify where your area of expertise ends. While you and your team might be fully trained and able to carry out risk assessments in your place of work, you might struggle with remote teams, like a fleet of delivery drivers. This is when you need to ask for outside assistance. Using specific services like a fleet safety training provider to monitor workplace safety and conduct relevant risk assessments is critical for improving safety in your small business.
Educate Staff
Conducting risk assessments will not, in itself, protect you from health and safety problems. To improve safety, you will also need to educate your staff. You should train staff on the importance of workplace safety as well as how to best conduct themselves in the workplace. It is vital that you update your training whenever you introduce a new piece of technology into your business. You should also remember to retrain staff so that they maintain awareness of safety procedures over time. If you’re looking for reliable training partners, you can get in touch with the professionals from Ottawa First Aid Training and CPR.
Reduce Workplace Stress Levels
When you think of health and safety issues, stress probably isn’t the first idea that springs to mind. However, stress can be a real problem in the workplace. In fact, studies have found that stress is one of the most common causes of health problems that are reported in the workplace. This is because not only does stress lead to illness in itself, but it also causes employees to become distracted and overly tired, which increases the risk of workplace injuries.
Reducing stress levels in the workplace can help you to both improve safety levels and improve worker wellbeing.
Provide First Aid Training
No matter how thorough you are with your training and risk assessments, sometimes an accident cannot be avoided. In this situation, it is vital that you have trained members of staff that are able to respond quickly to limit the impact of a situation. In a small business, you should have a fully stocked first aid kit and at least one member of staff that is a trained first aid responder. While all business owners hope that an accident will never occur on their premises, it is always better to be prepared for the worst, just in case.
