Workplace safety issues can be present in any industry, but are especially prevalent in fields such as construction, manufacturing and transportation. However, it’s not just physical or manual work that can present a risk, with retail outlets, schools, and offices all coming with various hazards to be aware of. Promoting a workplace safety program, increasing safety awareness, and being committed to a safer workplace is essential no matter where you work. Here are some of the main things that you can do to improve your workplace safety program and reduce the risk of hazards.
Clear Guidelines
When it comes to processes such as incident reporting or hazard reporting, it is important for all employees to be able to follow clear guidelines that tell them which steps they should follow when they discover an incident or hazard. Many workplace accidents and other situations are caused because employees were not sure what to do if they notice something that could be potentially dangerous to themselves or others, or they assumed that somebody else was responsible for doing something about it. You can significantly reduce the risk of workplace accidents by ensuring that all employees understand they are responsible for reporting incidents and hazards, and how to go about it.
Safety Culture
A culture of safety in the workplace is the best approach when it comes to improving your safety program. By making safety everybody’s concern in the workplace, you can get the best from the effort that will be made by both individuals and groups to meet safety guidelines, change attitudes towards safety in the workplace, and ensure that all guidelines are adhered to effectively and proficiently.
Make Changes to Measuring Safety
Creating an effective culture of safety in your workplace and improving your safety program will need to address the way in which safety incidents are measured. While incident rates are always going to be a metric that businesses need to learn more about how effective their safety measures are, they need to be just one of multiple factors. Focus on putting together a checklist of safety actions for the workplace to prevent injury and harm, and keep a record of what people are doing to make the workplace safer for all. By doing this, you can help ensure that safety is a top priority in the workplace at all times, rather than only being a topic that comes up when an accident occurs.
Establish a Safety Hierarchy
While it’s important to make sure that your safety process for the workplace is designed to hold every person responsible for keeping the workplace safe, there should be an emphasis on leadership and management. For example, when reporting hazards, employees should be clear on the next step in the hierarchy and who to go to when they need to make sure that something is done about a situation that could turn dangerous. Make sure that all employees are clear on who is accountable for which issues or which departments.
Prepare for More Reports
Always reporting is essential to measure how well your safety program is working. Ensure that all employees are made aware that reporting anything from near misses to first aid procedures, even for minor injuries, is significant in ensuring that the safety policy works well. If your workplace currently has an atmosphere where very few reports are made, it’s important to prepare for an increase in reported incidents at the start. Eventually, this should balance out as everybody is able to adjust to the changes to safety policies and the safety culture.
Improving your safety program for the workplace is not only essential to keeping employees away from harm; it can also have many benefits for your business as a whole.