Find Your Nearest Location
Apply Today

Tips for Creating a Safe Workplace

Business leaders have a responsibility to maintain a safe work environment for their employees, while also providing high service levels for their clients. Achieving both of these goals at the same time is particularly challenging in manufacturing, where hazards are an inherent part of business operations.Maximizing workplace safety requires constant vigilance and other proactive measures, including the following tips.

Implement Robust Safety Policies

Ensuring that your workplace has robust safety policies is another vital aspect of improving safety. Such policies should adopt a proactive approach and consistently enforce the rules at all times, whether they’re general protocols for that industry or specific safety procedures.

Businesses must also strive to regularly evaluate their safety policies and update them as needed. They should ideally conduct these reviews every three months, although the preferred review period varies considerably by industry. Common reasons for revising safety policies include loss of relevance, obsolescence, and a need for greater detail.

The best procedures in the world won’t improve safety if no one follows them, which is why companies must also conduct regular training. It’s particularly important to thoroughly brief new employees on safety as part of their onboarding process, but existing employees also require refresher training. Companies often provide this training as part of scheduled safety reviews.

Consistent enforcement is also a vital aspect of safety, especially in industries with legally mandated safety requirements. For example, healthcare providers generally have a duty of care for their patients, creating an additional safety burden for these employers.

Practice Effective Risk and Resource Management

Reducing labor costs is a routine goal for business owners and is often necessary for survival. Measures such as reducing staff, increasing work hours, and assigning multiple projects to the same team can accomplish this since they save the cost of hiring and training new employees.

However, these practices also increase the workload of employees, causing physical, mental, and emotional fatigue. The combination of these factors with time constraints is a common cause of work-related injuries.

Businesses routinely incorporate risk management as part of their standard practices for improving safety, especially during a volatile economy. However, they often overlook resource management as an essential part of this process, which is a critical consideration for workplace safety.

A company will almost certainly begin cutting corners on safety when its resources are spread too thin. As a result, learning how to effectively allocate and manage resources is one of the best things you can do to promote safety in the workplace.

Implement Routine Workplace Inspections

Implementing rigorous safety inspections as a matter of routine is one of the best strategies for improving workplace safety. This process requires dedicated planning, time, and effort to identify all possible issues and correct them if needed. Regular inspections also help prevent executives and staff from becoming complacent about safety.

In addition to routine inspections, you should also conduct unscheduled inspections. The possibility that an inspection can occur at any time is crucial for ensuring that workers consistently meet safety standards, instead of getting lax over time.

Summary

Workplace safety is an increasingly important consideration for both employers and employees, as it becomes more highly codified in law. The current shortage of qualified workers also creates a challenge to ensure safety, making it tempting to compromise on this issue. However, maintaining high safety standards not only protects your staff but also protects your company from legal liability.

PRT Staffing has been providing employers with comprehensive staffing solutions since 2010. Contact us today to learn more about how we can fulfill your staffing needs!