How To Keep Your Employees Safe At Work

Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash

 

Safety at work is one of the most important aspects of being an employer and should be one of your top priorities. 

 

Different workplaces have different needs in terms of their safety needs, 

CCTV

A well designed CCTV system is vital for businesses for a number of reasons. Its main purpose is to protect your business premises and equipment from theft and damage. The presence of the CCTV itself will deter a lot of potential burglaries and criminal damage due to the increased risk of being caught. If anything does happen to your business, then you have video footage that you can give to the authorities and insurance companies. 

 

Another advantage of CCTV installation is its role in keeping employees safe. Having CCTV in public areas of your building, or potentially dangerous areas (such as car parks), can make your employees feel more secure as they carry out their roles. 

Health & Safety Policies

Every workplace has its own set of health and safety policies that are relevant. You don’t have to run a factory or with heavy machinery to put a focus on health and safety. Even a standard office can be filled with risks. 

 

Have someone at your company responsible for the health and safety of your employees. If you don’t have the resources for a full-time person, hire a consultant to do a risk assessment of your business and help you get your policies up to scratch. 

 

These can include: 

  • Fire hazards and evacuation procedures 
  • Safe storage and handling of equipment 
  • Working at height
  • Manual handling
  • Correct set up of VDUs and office chairs 
  • First aid
  • Major incident response

 

There’s a lot to think about, even for a relatively standard office environment. 

 

Regular Staff Training

The most well thought out, comprehensive safety policies in the world aren’t going to do any good if your employees aren’t trained properly. Good health and safety practices hinge on people knowing what to do and when. 

 

So rather than your latest health and safety update being a bland email or a forgettable part of an induction process, try and incorporate ongoing training into the fabric of your business. 

 

When you introduce a new policy, have a video or quick online training guide created that employees need to complete. Put it on the company intranet so that people can see it and always include time for any health and safety issues at the end of each team meeting. 

 

If there is a health and safety incident in the workplace, and your employees didn’t respond as you’d hoped, rather than instigating a blame culture, double down on your efforts to improve training. Employees who are too scared to talk to their line managers about issues to do with health and safety can be a big issue further down the line. Potentially big problems could be swept under the rug. 

Conclusion

Keeping your business and your employees safe is a must whether you have one employee or 1000.  Getting the basics right and frequent communication with employees is the key to a safe and happy workplace

 

Jeremy

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