You’ve had to listen into a lot of safety meetings at work. Why is workplace safety important and what can you do to promote it? Keep reading to find out.
Did you know that every 7 seconds a worker is injured on the job? This might not seem like a lot at first glance, but if you break it down and do the math, that’s over 4.5 million people per year.
So, why is workplace safety important? The statics bear the answer.
The vast majority of workplace injuries (and even deaths) are entirely preventable with adequate workplace safety measures. Workplace safety can save your employees a lot of pain and even save their lives. It can also save the business a lot of money.
It’s easy to neglect workplace safety, especially if you’re in a field that doesn’t really see a lot of conventional injuries. A “safe” industry might feel that workplace safety is all obvious, often until it’s too late.
To learn a little more about workplace safety, its importance in your business, and how you can help promote it, keep reading!
Why Is Workplace Safety Important for My Business?
Workplace safety is an essential part of any business, but you might be wondering why it might be important for you and your team.
Maybe you don’t work with heavy machinery. Maybe the heaviest thing your employees pick up is a particularly thick stack of papers. Maybe your employees rarely get up from their roller chairs.
Regardless of your situation, ignoring basic workplace safety training and guidelines is going to be a bad move. You don’t know what you’re missing until it’s too late. Let’s talk about the different parties that benefit when you improve your workplace safety.
Employees
When your employees are working in less-than-safe conditions, they’re putting themselves in danger whether they know it or not. In some ways, you’re putting them in danger.
Over 5,000 workers died on the job in 2018. Even one of these deaths being prevented by more advanced workplace safety training could change the entire world for that person and their loved ones.
A job doesn’t have to be explicitly unsafe to require workplace safety guidelines. If there’s clutter on the ground, exposed wires, or anything that can accidentally cause harm, you have workplace safety issues that will impact your employees.
Your workers want to be safe while they’re performing their jobs.
Customers
Workplace safety also allows for customer safety.
If you have an unsafe business, you’re putting your customers and clients at risk. For instance, a customer could trip and fall on a faulty staircase, injuring themselves in the process.
An unsafe workplace (either for customers or for workers) isn’t an appealing place to patronize. If you see an unsafe environment, do you want to return to that place of business? Probably not.
You as the Business Owner
How is workplace safety important to you as the business owner?
Well, for one, you want to keep your employees safe and happy, right? Happy employees are productive and more likely to be loyal. an unsafe workplace reduces employee happiness and satisfaction, which means they’re likely to leave your company.
Replacing an employee costs more than retaining one and likely costs more than any workplace safety training you could attempt to implement.
Unsafe work conditions can end in more workplace safety incidents. As these incidents happen, your worker’s compensation insurance will get more and more costly.
Even if you don’t see things through the eyes of your employees, seeing them through the lens of a business person should be easy.
Encouraging good safety habits saves you money and lets you maintain both your customer base and your best workers. Being stingy or careless with your workplace safety will only hurt you and your business in the long run.
How Can I Promote Workplace Safety?
How can you encourage your employees to participate in workplace safety?
Well, the truth is that it all starts with you. You’re in charge and you’re going to have to do some delegating, some rule-changing, and some leading by example.
Here are a few ways you can encourage safety in the workplace in the long-term.
Frequent Education
It’s important to do workplace safety training with your staff. It’s even more important that they retain that information. This can be the hard part.
There are a few ways to encourage frequent learning and application of knowledge. One of them is by trying to make workplace safety training at least somewhat enjoyable. Workplace safety games can be one way to try to get workers to participate willingly.
People tend to benefit from some kind of experiential learning. When it comes to workplace safety training, this can be kind of hard. Learning by doing sounds a bit dangerous. Let’s not learn by doing things the wrong way.
Games are another type of experiential learning that can be done safely. They work on different parts of the brain than standard education tools. These games, even if they’re simple and a little bit juvenile, encourage more thought and interaction than the basic videos, powerpoints, or seminars that your learners might be used to.
Try it out and see if you discover more growth with a game versus a standard training session.
Group Efforts and Responsibility
Making one person feel responsible for the group can be a great way to encourage workplace safety.
This might seem a little extreme, but it doesn’t have to be.
If everyone is responsible for workplace safety, everyone feels at least a small part of the weight. When that weight is spread out, it’s easier to carry.
There are ways to encourage people to carry their own weight, like running safety ambassador programs (learn more about those here). Or by assigning small responsibilities to everyone until the group is running like a cohesive machine.
Humans are social animals, and we want to be able to work together to reach a common goal. When that common goal is safety, it shouldn’t be hard to get everyone to be on the same page.
Encourage Cleanliness
Even if you’re in a “safe” workplace, cleanliness is one way that everyone can contribute to workplace safety.
A cluttered space, any spills, or even just office messes can lead to accidents. This might not seem like a big deal until it happens. People can slip and fall and really harm themselves.
Encouraging employees to keep a tidy space is easy and it’s something that most businesses already do. Making it a rule to keep a relatively neat workspace is a way to encourage safety without actually calling it workplace safety.
You can help facilitate the safety conversation by leading by example. You can also delegate specific tasks to go alongside the “group responsibility” idea. It’s also a good idea to keep garbage bins within a close distance to every single employee, preferably in a place where they don’t have to leave their station.
Allow Workers to Rest
Many workplace accidents happen become workers are fatigued.
It can be tempting to overwork employees. Sometimes you might not even be aware you’re doing it. You have deadlines to meet, they’re willing to work overtime (or at least they seem that way) and maybe you miss a break or two accidentally.
This is a mistake that will bite you when you least expect it.
Your workers need a chance to recover. A worker that’s too tired on the job is a hazard to the workplace.
Allow your workers sufficient breaks to rest and eat. If they’re ill, allow them to stay home. Don’t keep them past their hours too often and always pay for their extra time. Your workers aren’t machines and they need to fuel back up so they’re at full potential the next time they return to work.
Make Some Adjustments
Are there any safety hazards in your workplace?
Maybe you have some wires that are loose or some outlets that are hanging open. Maybe your roof leaks or your floors are especially slippery.
What kind of things can you do to make these situations safer?
Making some adjustments to your workplace, whether it’s through replacing faulty equipment or building materials or even buying extra safety precautions, is a great way to show that you’re taking safety seriously.
You might think it’s a bit much, but it will save you a lot of trouble.
Workplace Safety Matters
Keeping a safe workplace is good for you, good for your employees, and good for your customers. While it might seem like overkill to take such extreme precautions, it only takes one accident to realize just how crucial workplace safety can be.
Next time you’re wondering “Why is workplace safety important?” just take a look at average workplace accident statistics. If you don’t want to become part of them, take safety seriously.
For more posts like this, explore the rest of our site.