Injuries are bad for everyone
Whether you’re an employer or an employee, workplace injuries are good for no one. This is why it’s in everyone’s best interests to make sure injuries are prevented all around. If your co-worker is injured, someone will have to cover for them, and if you are injured you will lose out on your paycheck! So management is responsible for making sure everyone is in good health, and not being put in danger of poor practices around the workplace.
Don’t skip out on safety
Trying to cut costs on the job can have a really bad outcome if you end up missing essential equipment, especially in manual labor, so make sure you look out for what’s important. A lot of workplace accidents can be caused by poor equipment, and skipping out on costs can very well guarantee that your equipment won’t be up to scratch. Depending on the faults you have, accidents could end up being lethal, and there’s no cost worth cutting when it comes to another person’s life, so take the hazards seriously.
Proper weathering provisions
If you work up high or on some kind of elevated platform, you really want to make sure it’s going to be slip-proof. The last thing you want is your job being made difficult and dangerous due to the weather, so having a waterproofing system may be a necessity to ensure there are no falls or injuries. Electrical damage is another issue to consider. If you’re working outside, are there electrical outlets or appliances that would be affected by the weather? Not only can this be a direct danger to the employees, but you may even be vulnerable to electrical fires and ruined equipment, so being ready for poor weather is a must.
Follow the regulations
Not all workplaces will have the same health and safety regulations, it’s important to find out what practices you should be following. Not only are the regulations a legal requirement, but they are in place to ensure the safety of employees on the legal side. Safe work method statements would also be shown to employees to make sure that everyone is following the legal methods that the company is following, this way if someone is injured while they weren’t following the conduct, then they are liable for what’s happened. A lot of the time, management may try to cut corners to save where they see fit, but with legal requirements put in place, it ensures the bare minimum for what you might need to prevent injuries.
Equipment checks
Standard equipment checks can be important in any workplace, as faulty equipment of any kind can cause stress or casualties. In a lot of cases, companies are required to have their electrical equipment tested and confirm it’s safe to use in the workplace, but what about damage on the job? If you have to rely on machinery to do your job, you don’t want any of it to backfire or malfunction. That could set everyone back! In some cases, it could even be a health risk depending on what equipment is malfunctioning.
Individual protection
A lot of the time it is required that employees wear protection in a manual labor environment, this could be anything from gloves to hard-hats just to make sure that should anything fall on you, or if you came into contact with sharp objects; most people are safe from injury. These standards are put in to make sure the employees are protected for when things do go wrong and can prevent accidents a lot more than you would expect. Your job might require you to wear a high-vis jacket, because if people can’t see you, they may think that the area that you’re in is clear for falling objects, or vehicles.
Keep the workplace tidy
There’s no regulation that tells you to clean up after yourself, but keeping the work area tidy should just come down to common sense. In all forms of work environment, it’s pretty important to make sure there’s not clutter all around. Not only can the mess cause a lot of stress when trying to work around it, but there’s also a trip hazard, which can turn out more serious than just a simple graze. A lot of the time it may be easy to avoid tripping on any mess left around because obviously, you would be aware of it, but if you’re focusing on your work it’s easy to forget about your surroundings, and a fall can be made a lot worse when any kind of tool or sharp object included.
Check on your employees
When you work as a manager, it should be a priority to know how your employees are doing health-wise. It could be that an individual has been diagnosed with a disease or condition that makes them prone to fainting or heart failure for example; which are issues that you could do without dealing with on the job. It’s unsafe to rely on someone who could be suddenly affected by a health condition, so it may be best to ensure they’re brought back to health, or possibly put out of harm’s way. A lot of the time, if working as a group, that kind of affliction can affect everyone making it a danger to all around them.
Don’t overwork
It’s very easy to fall under the weather when you’re under too much stress, so it’s important that employees aren’t overworked at a constant rate. Like mentioned before, it can be hard to rely on someone who is affected by some kind of condition or injury, and in some cases overworking can contribute to their issue. If your employees are fatigued, it can really dull down their alertness around dangerous equipment, and make the job a lot harder to keep up with. It’s also easy to cause physical damage from overworking because putting too much strain on a person’s body at any one time can cause strained muscles, and in worse cases possibly even broken bones.
It should be a top priority to employ good health and safety in the workplace, as the individual should always come before the job. Whether your concern is employee safety or work efficiency, making sure your employees don’t come to harm would be most efficient, because injured employees will likely be out of work, and maybe even wanting to sue if you were responsible for their accident.
