According to statistics, in the USA alone, there are more fatal and non-fatal illnesses and injuries caused by various workplace hazards reported in the private sector than in the state and local governments. This is purely due to the neglection of health and safety practices in the workplace by most players in the private sector with their main focus being to make huge profits and beat competitors.
However, this is so wrong, every workplace should engage in the best health and safety practices. This has several advantages;
- Reduces employee absenteeism.
- Increases production.
- Makes your workplace, home far away from home.
- Promotes the future health of your employees even after retirement.
- Reduce the cost of insurance premiums etc.
Generally, this bold move works to your company’s and employee’s advantage. Moreover, it also makes your workplace a conducive place for employees to work. And as we all know, there is no one productive enough than a happy and comfortable employee.
So, how do you actually engage your workplace in health and safety practice?
If you really care about the health and safety of your staff and customers, adopting the idea of health and safety practices should not be something that you do to comply with work health and safety laws and regulations. It should be something you do from within.
Below is a guide to use to make sure that your company adopts the best health and safety practices;
Bring the senior management on board
You cannot do this on your own; you need the support of your administrators. You have to explain to them the need to adopt health and safety practices in the organization no matter how big or small it may be. A single seminar should be enough to convince the management that a health and safety software can be useful for the whole company.
Involve employees
These health and safety practices are mainly for the good of your employees. Creating a workplace that they feel safe and comfortable to work in. However, this can never be successful until you have sold the idea to them. You can create an awareness campaign in the workplace to sell the idea to your employees and make sure they are convinced to adopt the concept.
Employee training
You can then come up with training sessions to dig deeper into the health and safety practice. In training, you can then come up with the organization’s health and safety committee to help in coming up with the necessary steps and health & safety practices.
Job hazard analysis
Let the employee-based committee analyze the job hazards in the organization. This is because they may understand the workplace environment hazards more than you do. You can also dig in into your organization’s health records to check the most recurring health cases among your employees.
The job hazard analysis should also check the work related emergencies that may be common in the workplace. For instance, if the company is set up in a place that is prone to floods, put this down as a safety concern in your workplace.
Come up with a health and safety plan
After coming up with a comprehensive list of the specific work-related health and safety concerns, come up with a plan. The committee, with the help of a work health and safety expert, should then come up with a procedural plan to deal with health and safety issues in the organizations. This should contain;
- Recommendations for a safer workplace.
- Health practices to promote a healthy workplace such as office taps with clean water.
- Emergency evacuation plan.
The emergency evacuation plan should contain evacuation procedures, drills, and people to implement various evacuation practices such as fire warden, etc.
Engaging your workplace in healthy and safety practices might seem inconveniencing and expensive, but it is actually worthwhile.
About the Author
Holly Shaw is a member of the content team at Effective Software. Holly has worked in the health and safety industry since graduating from university. When not writing about health and safety practices, Holly can be found researching new travel locations.