As a business owner, one of your main duties is to ensure the safety of your workers and keep an eye on their well-being within the workplace. Owing to a large number of people in one location at a time, the number of injuries that take place in the workplace is much greater than you can expect, and that does not even take into account the extra equipment and furniture that a workplace has.
Their mental health and wellbeing are also essential while they are at work, with almost 15 percent of workers reporting that they experience mental health issues while at work. This not only affects their happiness and motivation levels but can affect production and more importantly, can be a factor in their safety and the safety of others around them.
So how are you keeping your workers safe and preventing any serious problems and lawsuits?
Ensure that everyone is communicating with one another
In the workplace, communication is essential, not only for reasons of safety and wellbeing but for efficiency and general organizational purposes. How can an organization run smoothly, after all, if no one knows what is going on? You will normally have an operations manager or project manager to oversee all the day to day aspects of the workplace, but one person cannot possibly see every single thing that is going on, of course.
Make sure there are frequent conversations, and everyone knows their duties and responsibilities, and keep an open communications channel for workers to report any problems they have encountered inside the building or in their own workspace area. This may be a dedicated email address or simply a book to write down problems in a shared area.
You also need to make sure that your staff feel comfortable and safe enough to come to you or their line manager to discuss any personal issues that they may be facing that could have an effect on their safety and those around them in the workplace.
Have an alcohol and drugs policy
Very few workplaces would be okay with one of their employees turning up under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs, but in some places, it is downright dangerous and against the law. Make sure that you have a crystal clear alcohol and drug policy written into contracts and employee handbooks. Look at implementing random drug and alcohol testing for staff as well as reasonable suspicion training for supervisors. Your policies need to lay out what is expected of them in terms of acceptable (if any) levels in their system, what will happen during the testing process, and what will happen if they are found to have drugs or alcohol in their system.
Dress code
Depending on the industry that you are in, what your employees are wearing can have a huge impact on safety levels. If you have a uniform, it is much easier because you can control what everyone wears. Do they need to wear personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks, hard hats, hi-visibility jackets or steel toe capped shoes? You also need to make clear whether they can wear jewelry, and if so, what – in a factory, big hooped earrings may not be wise. Similarly, footwear needs to be considered – can they have heels? Open backs? Open toes? As with your drug and alcohol policy, this needs to be clearly communicated to your staff and updated as and when necessary.
Provide first aid training
There is a law in most places and industries specifying that there should be at least one staff member on-site trained in first aid at all times. However, the more people that can do first aid, even if it just the basics, the better. It might not be a legal requirement, but it means that any injured members of staff get seen to sooner rather than later in the event of an emergency. It is also important to have an accident book available and for everyone to know where it is and how to complete it so that any workplace injuries or accidents can be immediately recorded. Finally, but most importantly, you need a well-stocked first aid kit with in-date and sterile equipment and supplies that is easily accessible to everyone who is on your premises.
Making sure that your employees are safe and happy at work means there will be less chance of accidents happening. No one wants to deal with accidents and injuries – not only does it mean someone is hurt but it takes time and focus away from the business.
