As an employer in the US, you have a legal responsibility to ensure that your working environment is a safe place to be for your workers. Safety and health are an important factor in any business, regardless of the type of venture you run. There are rules and regulations regarding these matters, and here are a few tips to make sure you do not fall foul of the laws.
Assessing the Risks
The first thing that needs to be done is establishing what the likely hazards are within your workplace. No employer wants a call from a personal injury lawyer because their employee was injured while they were at work, and finding any dangers is the first step to avoiding this.
You need to examine every area of the work involved and record when and what you find. Involve your workers in this process as they may well have noticed a hazard you have not spotted. There are also companies that specialize in these matters who will come and complete a risk assessment for you. Whatever hazards are found, you should act to eliminate them as far as possible.
Walkways
It does not matter if your business is office based, a warehouse, a shop or a factory, it will have walkways. These should be kept free of obstacles and spillages at all times to prevent workers from tripping over something. In an office, they could fall and bang their head on the corner of a piece of furniture and sustain a nasty head injury, and it goes without saying how badly injured they could be if they work in a factory and fall into a piece of moving machinery.
Protection
It could be that your work involves chemicals or abrasive substances, and most employers know that in these circumstances the employees should be provided with protective clothing to keep them safe. There are sometimes protective measures needed in other workplaces too. Machinery should have safety guards that are maintained in good working order, and you should ensure that your employees do use them. In an office environment, damage can be caused to the eyes of people that sit at a computer all day and their wrists can be harmed by constantly working on a keyboard. Regular breaks are important to lower the risk of this happening.
Training
Training your employees to do their job might seem obvious, but you also need to train them on how to stay safe while they are at work. You should have a health and safety policy in place. Make sure all your employees have a copy of it and that they know how to implement it. Each time an employee breaks the safety and health rules, they are not just endangering themselves, but the people around them too. It is for this reason that many employers treat breaking these rules as gross misconduct and deal with the employee according to their policies for this.
The way to avoid a workers’ compensation claim against your business is to keep it a safe place to be. That way none of your employees should be injured while they are at work.
Establish and Update Safety Protocols
Spaulding Injury Law explains that every company needs to take action sooner or later when it comes to establishing and updating safety protocol in the workplace. Most companies fail to address this issue for a number of reasons, and that’s why it is so important to take proactive steps and make sure that you’re not ignoring your own employees’ health and safety needs.
If a company doesn’t have a good workplace protocol in place, it’s likely that the staff will not know what to do when something goes wrong and will be more likely to get injured. It is also likely that a lack of training in setting up and maintaining the protocol may result in the staff being negligent in their duties, which could lead to injury.
Here are some tips when establishing and updating your workplace safety protocol:
- A good workplace safety protocol should be easily understood and clearly laid out. A good protocol should include a clear definition of what the protocols are meant to do and why they are there. For example, in a building maintenance job, include a protocol that says you will only open a door when necessary work continues.
- It’s also imperative to keep track of the protocol because it’s important to ensure that everybody is on the same page. This makes it easier to address an issue if it arises, and that can mean saving time and money.
- Another important aspect of a workplace safety protocol is that it’s up-to-date. If it has become dated or outdated, it is likely that it needs to be replaced or revised to reflect what is going on today. The protocol should outline what is expected of your staff and clearly explain the consequences of failing to carry it out.
