Promoting workplace safety should be a priority for any and all businesses. It has been estimated by OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) that overall, businesses pay about a billion dollars a week in workers’ compensation.
How Can a Business Make a Safer Workplace?
In order to improve safety and reduce the need for a personal injury attorney, you may want to consider the following strategies.
1. Have a Plan
In order to make the most of any safety improvement promotion or tactic, you need a long-term safety plan. Without one, your efforts will be hard to track and structure. You may even end up with competing programs. This can not only confuse management and employees but lead to a lack of comprehensive enforcement.
2. Write Down and Train Procedures
Ensure that all employees have easy access to a hard copy, or digital copy, of all safety procedures. Also, make sure that they are trained in how to make the most of them on a daily basis as well as in an emergency.
3. Inspect the Workplace Regularly
Routine and “random” inspections are necessary to boost enforcement rates.
4. Don’t Neglect Cleanliness or Housekeeping
Within just four hours, a virus can infect as many as 60% of the workers in an average-sized office.
5. Make Use of Continual Training
No one remembers everything they’ve ever been taught. If your only orientation to safety procedures is during the first few weeks of employment, it’s likely that those that have been around the longest, especially if your workplace has been accident-free, have forgotten much of what they were taught. Not only that, procedures may have changed since.
6. Investigate Incidents
In order to ensure that you have accurately recorded every detail of an incident and are able to address all issues, the incident must be thoroughly investigated.
7. Maintain Records
In addition to inspections, there should be a record system and those in violation may need to receive extra training, etc.
8. Enforce Policy
In the absence of enforcement, employees may neglect safety in favor of convenience. This is especially true in an environment where accidents are rare.
9. Additional Safety Measures
In addition to the above safety strategy necessities, your business may choose to go above and beyond to prevent injuries.
10. Incentives and Benefits
While not necessarily proven to be effective, especially in a system that lacks enforcement, small incentives may help boost safety.
11. Get Insight from Occupational Safety and Health Professionals
These types of professionals may be able to identify both safety risks and solutions that many would not consider.
12. Add to the Work Routine
Overexertion and soft-tissue injuries account for the majority of workplace injuries. In order to keep your employees both safe and healthy, it may be a good idea to add “stretch breaks” to the routine, this is especially true for any employees engaged in physical activity. Stretching is a great way to keep response times up and help prevent small accidents. It can also improve overall mobility.
