The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that non-fatal workplace accidents occur on a yearly basis.
Thankfully, that number is a little bit lower than it has been in past years. But even still, it’s an indication that there are too many accidents at work taking place these days.
If your company is committed to avoiding workplace accidents, you’re going to need to work hard to create a safe work environment for your employees. Even though you might be getting pulled in a million other directions while running a business, you should put employee safety near the top of your priority list.
We’re going to assist you when it comes to preventing accidents by providing you with a list of the best ways in which you can scale back on them. Here are some of the things you can do to bring your total number of workplace accidents way down.
Make Sure Your Employees Receive the Proper Training From the Start
When employees first begin working for your company, they should go through a training program. This training program should include lessons on what your employees will need to do to maintain a high level of safety within your facility.
If you throw your employees into the fire without training them first, you might learn why this is a bad idea the hard way. There will be a much greater chance of your employees being involved in workplace accidents.
Stress the Importance of Safety to Your Employees
Employee safety isn’t something you should mention to your employees once and then leave it at that. You should be badgering your employees about safety and telling them how important that it is.
If you see any of your employees doing things that might not be safe, you should pull them aside and talk to them about it. You’ll need to offer up constant reminders to your employees so that they know what you expect out of them in terms of safety.
You yourself should also practice safety at every turn when you’re on the job. Your employees are going to follow your lead, so you’ll want to set an excellent example for them at all times.
Require Your Employees to Wear Personal Protective Equipment
If you routinely put your employees into positions where their safety could be at risk, you should aim to minimize this risk by setting them up with personal protective equipment. PPE is designed to help keep people safe by protecting certain parts of their bodies.
There are, including hard hats, gloves, masks, and more. You should have more than enough PPE on hand for your employees, and you should tell them that they will need to wear PPE when they’re at work for their own safety.
Post Safety Signs for Your Employees Throughout Your Facility
You obviously aren’t going to be able to stand next to your employees all the time to make sure they’re being safe. You’ll have to fall back and focus on other aspects of your business for the most part.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t remind your employees to be safe when you’re not around. You can post safety signs throughout your facility and make them easy for your employees to spot.
You can also hang up safety data sheets and monitor safety data sheet compliance within your facility. They’ll work surprisingly well and will ensure that your employees are doing their part to stay safe even when you aren’t breathing down their necks.
Create Reports Related to Any Workplace Accidents and Learn From Them
No matter how hard you might work to eliminate workplace accidents from your facility, they’re still going to happen every now and then. Some accidents will prove to be unavoidable.
When these accidents occur, you should have protocols in place that allow you to create reports about them. You should find out why accidents happened, what could have been done to prevent them, and more.
By taking this approach, you’ll be able to learn some valuable lessons from the workplace accidents that happen. You might even be able to steer clear of them in the future because of the things you learned from them.
Keep Your Employees Updated on Your Latest Safety Initiatives
You shouldn’t put a bunch of safety procedures for your employees in place and then leave them the same for years on end. Instead, you should make it your mission to update your safety procedures every so often so that your company is current with the latest OSHA rules and regulations.
You should also meet with your employees every few months or so to go over all of your latest safety procedures. It’ll guarantee that you and your employees are all able to get on—and stay on—the same page as far as safety is concerned.
Stop Workplace Accidents From Taking a Toll on Your Company
Workplace accidents can turn into a serious problem for your company if you aren’t careful. You might end up losing your fair share of time and money because of these accidents.
With this in mind, you should try your absolute hardest to prevent workplace accidents. You should be able to do it by taking some of the steps that we’ve listed here. It’ll make your facility a much safer place for people to work.
Would you like to get some more tips on keeping your employees safe at work? Look for them in the other articles that have been published on our blog.
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