For every hundred people in occupation, three of them were impacted by illness or injury from work in 2015. When you consider just how many millions of working people there are in the country, that’s a staggering number. Failure to properly address dangers in the workplace can potentially expose employers to liability for an injury claim through worker’s compensation.
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Industry leaders and employers have been doing a lot better in recent years, but there are still ways to go. Everyone who manages or employs people needs to learn the essentials of health and safety, which we’ll talk about here.
Assess Your Risks Often
A proper approach to health and safety begins with a laundry list of dangers that could be costing you down the line. That is the nature of the risk assessment.
You can’t be sure that you’re covering yourself and your employees without first finding out what all the risks are.
You need to identify the risks and the people at risk. Not just your employees but the public, customers and everyone else.
After all, you’re the one who is reliable, regardless of the victim.
Maintaining Your Environment
Once you’ve outlined the strategy to a safer workplace, you need to make sure that standards are kept.
You shouldn’t be the only one monitoring and checking the environment and the people in it. Everyone should be able to highlight a risk when they see it. This means repeated training and perhaps even assigning safety officers.
Make sure that doing something in the workplace that could lead to risk, like not cleaning up a spill or leaving clutter, is considered an offense with some kind of reprimand. There are only so many warnings you can give when it comes to health and safety.
Shortcuts can’t be allowed.
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Understand The Compliance Of Your Specific Workplace
It’s vital that you understand the particulars of your workplace, not just the broader kinds of danger.
If you work with cars, this means preventative maintenance and regular checks on the vehicles themselves. If your business is on boats or in shipping, then you need to check things like gas leaks with great gas detection systems. If you work in construction, then you need to know what protective gear rules are in place.
Make sure you’re compliant with the needs of your specific industry.
Get Your People In The Conversation
When talking about eradicating or limiting risks, you can’t keep the conversation to yourself.
Get the people who work face-to-face with those risks in on the conversation. Talk to them and find any risks you might have missed or see if they have any ideas on work practices to get around them.
It’s important to talk to them about their own health, as well. Some people might be at more risk of doing certain jobs than other people.
Make sure that your door is kept open for anyone who has a condition that risks exacerbation by certain tasks or environments. People might fear to look unproductive, so you need to get rid of that fear for them.
Understanding is the most vital element in health and safety. Understanding of the risks, understanding of compliance and understanding of your people. Build that understanding and health and safety won’t be anywhere near as confusing or bothersome as before.
