When you own a business, you become responsible for all sorts of individuals’ health and safety. Your own, your workers’ and your clients’ or customers’ well being all need to become your prime concern. Every year, hundreds of workplace accidents leave people injured, sick or otherwise incapacitated. So how do you go about avoiding accidents in the workplace? Here’s a quick run through of everything you need to do to ensure everyone is content and well.
Health and Safety Training
You should ensure that all of your staff are health and safety trained before being set to work. Health and safety training will ensure that everyone knows the protocols for hazardous situations. This can take place in a classroom type setting or can be more casual, verbal communication. Providing adequate training will ensure that your employees will know how to get through the day safely without posing a risk to their own or others’ health. This will remove the risk of the distress that accidents and illness can cause in the workplace and will also make sure that you can avoid the financial costs of injury and ill health within your workforce.
Signage
You should ensure that you have all of the apt signage at hand for your business. This should include permanently fixed signs, such as fire action information, evacuation information, fire exit indicators and glow in the dark safety signs in case of a power outage. There should also be temporary signs, such as wet floor and wet paint signs.
Collective Protection Systems
There are certain areas of your workplace that will pose a collective safety risk but cannot be removed. An example could be the roof space of your establishment. Chances are that individuals will be able to access the roof. To prevent accidents from occurring should someone end up on the roof of your building, you could install Edge Protection Guardrail, which can help to prevent individuals from falling or slipping off the edge of a great height.
Ergonomics
If you have employees working in an office setting, you need to ensure that all of the furniture in the space is ergonomically designed. Standard chairs, desks, and accessories can result in chronic health problems within your workforce, such as repetitive strain injuries. Ergonomically designed furniture ensures that your employees’ posture is upright and they have the most appropriate and comfortable working conditions possible.
Fire Safety Equipment
Fire safety equipment is an essential for any business setting. You should have all necessary extinguishers within easy reach and in fully functioning condition. This includes water, dry powder, foam, CO2 and wet chemical extinguishers. If your staff know these items’ whereabouts and how to use them properly, fires can be put out before they pose a major threat to life and property. You could also install a sprinkler system as a back up.
Following these instructions could quite literally be the difference between life and death situations. All of these essentials will result in the creation of a safe and secure workplace in which your employees will feel safe, content and comfortable.