As an owner or manager, do you sometimes rack your brain trying to develop new ways to make the workplace safer for everyone? In companies of all sizes, it’s important to focus on safety for legal, ethical, and practical reasons. Perhaps you want to minimize the chance for legal trouble, make sure all your employees are as safe as possible while on the job, or simply wish to minimize the risk of hazards.
Whatever the rationale behind your desire to make the workplace a safer one, hazard training is an apt place to begin. Additionally, you can look for improvement in other areas, like fleet management, routine site inspections, and emergency medical services. Some owners offer employees financial incentives for long periods of accident-free performance. It’s up to you to choose from a long menu of items that can bolster the safety factor for all the people who work for the organization, including yourself. Here are some suggestions for getting started.
Hazard and Safety Training
Your insurer can offer relevant techniques for helping build hazard and safety training into monthly schedules. Most workers are familiar with things like fire and tornado drills, but there are many other events that pose potential threats to physical wellbeing. Consider holding regular seminars and hands-on training sessions so everyone in the building knows what to do in the event of an armed robbery or shooting incident. Likewise, prepare for natural disasters like floods, electrical storms, earthquakes, building collapses, spills of hazardous waste or chemicals, and more.
Fleet Management
Fleet management systems offer dozens of practical ways to make drivers safer. At the same time, these versatile apps and programs deliver usable data like real-time incident detection, asset tracking, in-cab coaching for drivers that help prevent accidents, AI dash cams that can lower the cost of operation, and other features that maximize safety, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. Advanced fleet tracking lets managers know where every vehicle is, whether there are problems with weather or heavy traffic, and when each vehicle is due for its next scheduled maintenance service.
Third-Party Inspections
Hire private inspection organizations to perform on-site tests for things like slip-and-fall hazards, potential chemical leaks or spills, fire safety violations, the structural integrity of the building, purity of drinking water from fountains and faucets, and other common safety-related factors. Often, local fire departments and insurance carriers will perform these tests for free or for a very low fee.
On-Call Medical Assistance
If you have more than 10 employees, consider hiring an on-call nurse who can perform health assessments when needed. Likewise, many outcall nursing agencies offer to do basic medical checks for ill employees who need immediate attention or who must be transported directly to a hospital.
Financial Incentives
For more than a century, production companies have offered monetary bonuses to workers who go so many days without a safety violation or on-the-job accident. This can be a way to boost productivity in the workplace as well. Think about giving your employees, individually or as a group, a financial reward for each week or month in which all safety goals are met or exceeded.
