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Last Updated on November 13, 2024 by Alaina
As the leader of a business enterprise, you have both a legal and moral responsibility to provide for the needs of your employees as they work within company premises. Aside from maintaining a comfortable and healthy work environment, you need to look at the current safety situation. Accidents can happen anytime and many of them are avoidable – especially if you take the time to improve workplace safety.
Since you’re the one calling the shots in your organization, it matters to also focus on creating a safer space for the people you hire. Not only is it required by law but ensuring greater workplace safety can help you avoid costly legal consequences which may bleed your company dry on top of destroying a reputation you’ve worked so hard to build up.
With that being said, here’s a guide to help you invest time and money in improving workplace safety:
1. Do a safety audit
When it comes to improving something, you need to check what areas you should focus on. A safety audit goes beyond checking existing protocols and facilities. It must also emphasize the need to assess areas where your enterprise has been underperforming.
Your enterprise may be compliant with occupational safety regulations but you still need to know if there’s more you can do to improve worker protections and mitigating measures. A safety audit reveals gaps and weaknesses and, at the same time, allows you to explore best practices you can apply to address these gaps.
2. Gather employee feedback
Part of analyzing your organization’s current safety situation is gathering insights and observations from people who work on the frontlines. As the boss, you may not know everything that goes on. You can only do so when you allow employees to speak up about potential safety issues that would cost you dearly if you choose to ignore them.
Foster an open-door policy and encourage supervisors to include workplace safety in regular meetings. The sooner you learn about such safety issues, the easier and less costly it will be to resolve them and improve workplace safety in your company.
3. Invest in additional improvements
Once you have gathered all the insights you need to get a full understanding of your organization’s safety situation, you need to invest time and money in improvements. Don’t just focus on fixing active hazards such as a dilapidated ceiling and leaking pipes. You should also opt for long-term investments that reduce your employees’ exposure to passive threats.
If you’re acquiring new office spaces, you wouldn’t want to move into a place that was built from outdated and toxic materials such as asbestos. According to MesotheliomaHope.com, asbestos is often found in older buildings, so you may need to invest in a full overhaul of spaces where it’s present.
4. Provide resources and materials
Even in the face of unavoidable accidents, your organization still needs to be adequately prepared to address the aftermath. For this, it helps if you can stock up on resources to aid injured employees. On top of processing their workers’ compensation claims, you also need to provide additional support by giving them a list of medical professionals recognized by your HMO provider and coming up with a return-to-work program that eases the process of getting back to their workplace. Make these available so you can avoid committing legal errors that may lead to lawsuits.
5. Provide ample training
Workplace accidents may still happen even though the equipment is in good condition and all mitigating measures are in place. These cases are often caused by human error and negligence both of which circle back to a lack of training. Make it a part of your onboarding process to talk about workplace safety policies that include the proper wearing of protective gear and the usage of machinery. It also matters if you can form a compliance team tasked to ensure that everyone is doing their part in keeping the work environment free from accidents.
Endnote
As a business leader, it pays to constantly think about workplace safety and take steps to how to improve existing facilities and policies to that end. Start with the tips in this guide on how to improve workplace safety and begin securing the lives and limbs of your employees.