Safety should always be a primary concern in the workplace. Employee injuries are going to happen no matter what steps you take, but you can minimize their likelihood. Below are four ways you can help to protect your employees from on-the-job injuries.
Keep Up With Maintenance
The best way to keep your employees safe is to keep up with the basic maintenance around your business. As strange as it may sound, most injuries don’t occur because employees are clumsy or because something unusual happens. Instead, they occur because an easily-fixed problem was ignored until the inevitable occurred. Fixing carpet that is coming unglued, replacing old ceiling tiles, and even remembering to sweep the floor can prevent more injuries than you might imagine.
Enact Work Injury Prevention Programs
A good work injury prevention program shows that you are serious about keeping your workers safe. These programs involve not only teaching your employees the ins and outs of safety, but giving them the tools they need to address safety situations themselves. A good program should provide incentives for employees to do their jobs safely and should emphasize that safety is the responsibility of everyone employed by the business. If your employees have physically demanding jobs or jobs that put any stress on their bodies, you can incorporate a stretching or warm-up routine at the beginning of each shift to help your employees avoid injuries.
Don’t Cut Corners on Safety
It can be incredibly tempting to cut corners on safety when safety gets in the way of efficiency. If you want to keep your employees safe—and your business free from liability—you need to ignore these instincts. Simply following the rules can go a long way towards ensuring that many injuries are prevented. Doing so can also help to show your employees that you really do care about whether or not they are safe at work.
Lead by Example
Finally, make sure that you demonstrate workplace safety. This means that you should be the person who is not only the most knowledgeable about safety protocols, but that you are the one who is most likely to follow them even when doing so can slow down the work day. Employees will look to you to see what is permissible, so show them that you are always thinking about safety when you go about your workday.
Keeping your workers safe is largely a matter of using common sense. Keep up with maintenance, don’t cut corners, and make sure that you lead and train your employees in a way that emphasizes safety. Doing so will create a safer workplace that will operate more smoothly for both you and your employees.