Workplace safety is vital because hazards can happen anytime, anywhere. It can lead to various tangible and intangible business losses. For example, violent crimes cost businesses more than thirty-six billion dollars every year. Similarly, other issues regarding workplace safety cause financial, reputational, and other losses.
Thus, it is important to properly secure the workplace and even the surrounding areas to ensure that the employees and even the customers are safe. This blog discusses seven ways that can help improve workplace safety.
Creating a Safety Plan
Although it seems essential, not many businesses have a workplace safety plan to handle emergencies. This causes various issues when such situations arise as companies don’t know what action to take. Thus, to combat such problems elegantly, there needs to be a safety plan outlining the steps required to be taken in such cases.
For example, suppose the workplace is located in a violent neighborhood. In that case, there needs to be a safety plan that includes hiring armed security guards to protect the workplace against armed robbers and thieves. Similarly, you can also consider training your employees to protect themselves in violent situations. You can instruct your employees in firearms at evolve range solutions to provide the best firearms training.
Practicing the Safety Procedures
Once you have the safety plan in place, you need to practice the procedures to ensure they are designed correctly. If not, you will need to make changes to the guidelines. It also lets you know whether the employees know what to do in emergencies.
For example, you can carry out a mock safety drill ahead of time to test whether the employees know what steps to take in case of a fire hazard. You can create a scenario of a fire hazard in a particular area of the workplace and test whether the employees evacuate the premises safely. Similarly, you can test various other situations and check your employees’ preparedness to handle such situations.
Invest In Security Equipment
You need to secure your workplace by installing monitoring and security equipment like CCTV systems, smoke detectors, sprinklers, and others. Having such systems helps in improved management of emergencies and better protects the workplace.
For example, having a CCTV system at the workplace can easily identify thieves if a break-in happens at the office. Similarly, smoke detectors can alert you against a fire hazard and help better manage the situation.
Improve Identification Procedures
Make sure that only authorized personnel are allowed to enter the office premises. This can be done by making your employees wear photo identification badges and have security personnel check them at entry and exit points. Similarly, you can have biometric authentication systems like iris or fingerprint scanners to take employee identification to the next level.
Additionally, if any guests, clients, or unknown person enters the workplace, have them sign the entry and exit register and provide them with a guest badge. Similarly, ask them to present an identification document, for instance, their business card, to validate their identity.
Avoid Employees Working Alone
It would be best if you don’t have any employees working alone at night as that increases the safety risk. Ensure that all the employees leave the premises on time, and if an employee needs to stay back outside work hours, they must notify their seniors, supervisors, and security personnel.
Additionally, while leaving, the employee must ensure that all the doors and windows are correctly locked. They must also inform the security personnel and their seniors about leaving immediately to improve transparency. This will be helpful in case any unfortunate incident happens after the employee leaves the premises.
Provide Periodic Training
Regular training and practicing safety procedures are essential to ensure the highest level of safety at the workplace. Periodic training helps bring behavioral changes to employees. They also learn new and efficient safety practices that can significantly improve workplace safety standards.
Various organizations provide employee health and safety training. You can research and choose an organization that offers numerous safety training based on your preferences.
Regularly Check Your Safety Measures
Workplace safety is not static. You need to regularly check the implemented measures and safety plan to ensure the highest safety standards at the workplace. By reviewing the current safety plan, you can find out what is working and what is not. You can then make changes to the safety plan accordingly.
These seven steps can improve workplace safety easily. However, there might be other steps that you need to take to improve workplace safety based on your circumstances. Whatever the case, having a robust workplace safety culture is necessary, and workplace safety can’t be ignored.