Business Insights: How to Improve Workplace Safety

Workplace safety is a priority for the smooth running of every organization.

As the company manager, you’re responsible for the safety of your staff. One of the effective ways to ensure their welfare is to institute a workplace safety program. This is a significant tool for your business’s performance. If your workers are healthy and safe, your business can be more productive.

Thus, you may find this article valuable as it discusses five ways to improve safety in your workplace. Read on for details.

1. Set Up a Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Station

One of the leading causes of workplace injuries is that the victim was working without protective gear. This could be because they didn’t have proper access to safety equipment. To prevent such incidents in your company, you should make the gear more accessible to them by establishing a PPE station. This is a section inside your organization that’s strategically positioned and reserved for storing PPE. 

For instance, you may locate it at the entrance of your business premises so that as your colleagues stream in, they collect their PPE. Some stations include:

• Dispensers: You may mount these on walls to store liquid soap, sanitizer, face masks, gloves, shoe covers, head caps, or other PPE items that fit in these containers.
• Hooks and hangers: You can fix them on the walls or closets in a locker room. You can use these as a storage area for helmets, overalls, goggles, gowns, and other suspendable PPE.
• Box cases: You may store PPE items such as face shields, boots, safety harnesses, and lines, among other equipment.
• Vending machines: You may store PPE in these machines and allow staff access to them via mobile or key card technologies. This measure enhances safety by preventing physical contact with the machine- a pathway for virus and germ transmission. 

Having a PPE station might be crucial in any organization as it centralizes the safety gear so that your colleagues can easily access them. This way, they can protect themselves from workplace hazards better.

2. Train Your Colleagues

   

You should take your colleagues through comprehensive training as a form of emergency preparedness. For instance, you may:

• Take them through a training exercise where they’ll learn to use safety equipment, such as fire extinguishers or other implements relevant to their work posts. 
• Conduct regular drills to train them on swift responsiveness to hazards such as fires, earthquakes, and other natural or human-induced calamities.

A training exercise can teach your staff the necessary skills that may reduce the risk of potential hazards. It can also impart ways to control them before they become unmanageable. Consequently, the number of accidents in your company may significantly reduce.

3. Engage Your Staff in Safety Decision Making

In most scenarios, it’s your staff that engages in potentially hazardous activities while at work. Thus, they might know the situation better than you do. Since workplace safety involves their wellbeing, it would be wise for you to engage them when making decisions about your organization’s safety protocols.

By discussing their working conditions with them, you gain more insight into the state of their safety. You can then use this information to make more informed decisions on the areas you need to touch up to ensure their general upkeep.

Implementing these improvements will show your colleagues that you appreciate them and are concerned about their well-being. Resultantly, they’ll increase their zeal while working and ultimately increase their productivity.

4. Conduct Routine Inspections

By conducting regular checks, you can identify the potential workplace hazards that pose a risk to your staff’s safety. You may do this by inspecting their tools to ensure that they’re functional and are cleaned. These tools should be serviced regularly to maintain their condition. Those that are broken should either be repaired or replaced.

Equipment inspection will reduce the number of machine malfunctions that might lead to life-threatening accidents in the workplace if left unchecked.

5. Establish Hazard Control Measures

You may have taken all the necessary precautions to ensure workplace safety. However, you might still run into emergencies from time to time. Due to this, you should make sure to prepare yourself by instituting hazard control measures to help mitigate the situation. Some of the courses of action to take include:

• Setting up a fire assembly point, safety rooms, or other venues where you and your team will gather for safety in case of a hazard.
• Placing alarm systems and intercoms around your premises so that all your staff will be alerted if a hazard occurs.
• Training a select team, such as safety leaders, on first aid skills to help administer first aid to an injured colleague.

These measures will ensure your and your colleagues’ safety even in an emergency.

Conclusion

Workplace safety is a priority for the smooth running of every organization. So, as an entrepreneur or manager, you can establish a program for your staff. You can work on improving it in different ways. You can set up a PPE station, engage your staff in decision-making for their safety, train them, conduct routine inspections in your workplace, and establish hazard control measures.

When you implement these measures, you’ll build a strong workplace safety program that’ll be there to guide and protect your team from health hazards at work. This way, you will have a team of healthy and productive staff that can help the business grow.