Any workplace can be a dangerous one. If you are a business leader, it’s up to you to make sure that every single person working for you is in the best possible place of safety when they are at work. You can’t ever just assume the workplace is safe and if you are assuming that, you’re definitely not doing your job. You should be as vigilant as possible to ensure that your business is, in fact, safe.
Are there chemicals on site? Are there huge pieces of moving machinery? Are there tall shelves? Is there a larger workforce? All of these questions can make a big difference where safety is concerned and so you should be as intentional with your safety policies as possible. Having stickers to label dangerous chemicals and signage that is reflective above exits is just the bare minimum that you should be considering. You should be considering more, and here are the tips you need that could save lives:
- Know your surroundings better. You need to take yourself on a walkthrough of your business premises as soon as possible, clipboard in hand. The first step to safety at work is being aware of the surroundings and what could be dangerous. Walking through yourself helps you to get into the shoes of your employees and can see things from their perspective. This is even more important if you don’t have much time to walk through your business yourself.
- Encourage reporting in your team. You can only be aware of things going wrong and items in your business being unsafe if you encourage your team to report those things. Having a culture of complaint is a worry for some employees, which is why encouraging them to report things that they see is important. You might not think that your workplace poses much of a risk but if you don’t listen to people complaining, how do you know?!
- Provide PPE. Personal protective equipment can mean the difference between your team being injured in the workplace or not. If you do not provide PPE, you’re not providing the bare minimum of what people need to be safe. You should be wearing it on site, too, even if your office is inside. The moment you come up against dangerous goods, PPE should be the norm.
- Don’t ignore the warnings. There should be warnings on machinery and in the warehouse when there are hazards. Ignoring alarms or ignoring these warnings can put you and your employees—as well as your customers—in danger. Warnings are there for a reason, and ignoring them could cause issues and even lawsuits in the future.
- Keep yourself safe. As much as possible, keeping yourself safe is vital. From following safety instructions to using proper procedures, keeping yourself safe makes it easy to go to work each day. Safety prevents accidents and injuries, and if you’re ready to ensure that safety is a priority, you have to model what that could mean for you.
