With almost 3 million non-fatal injuries taking place in US workspaces every single year, improving health and safety practices should be of the utmost importance to your office managers and employees.
A workplace accident can cause significant strain within your office and raises the risk of litigation against your company. This can be hugely damaging in the long term for your business.
The good news is that with the right safety recommendations and practices in place, you can limit the risk of injury to both your employees and your business.
If you are interested in improving the safety practices used by your company, follow these 9 tips for how you can create a safe working environment.
1. Simplicity is Important
When you are creating the health and safety rules and regulations for your office, there is one golden rule: Simplicity above all is the most important factor.
You must work hard to create a set of rules that is short, simple, and easy to follow. The more complex the rules are, the harder they are to follow.
After you have drafted your rules, give them a closer look and some extra scrutiny. Do they make sense? Are there any rules that are slightly contradictory to other rules?
Conflicts make confusion, so make sure your rules are watertight. If you are unsure then you can seek out professional help.
A company like this can assist in drafting rules, as well as training your officers and staff on the best practices.
2. Clear Out Clutter
If you asked anyone in your office, they will tell you that they've tripped or stumbled at some stage when they were working in the office during their career. If not multiple times, then at least once.
Whilst this will amount to nothing most times, it can be extremely dangerous in some scenarios. The worst thing about trips and falls like this is that they are totally avoidable.
Paperwork, litter and other detritus build up quickly in an office environment. You must create a working culture where these things are quickly removed.
It can be easy to forget good practices when working at a startup, but this policy will save you a big headache.
3. Get Advice From Your Employees
At the end of the day, it is your employees who will be responsible for taking care of themselves and using the safety procedures that have been put in place.
This means that they will have plenty of opinions and advice on how the safety practices in the workplace can be improved.
For this reason, you should involve them in the planning of the health and safety regime. Their suggestions could help make things safer for everybody.
Plus, they will feel more involved in the management of their office space.
4. Focus on Common Problems
It's all well and good having complex plans in place for extreme scenarios. You never know what could be around the corner.
That said, your safety practices in the workplace should focus on the most common dangers that people face.
Trips, hazards, and any equipment used pose the most dangers on a normal day. Focus on these to make sure people stay safe.
5. Clean Means Safe
If you keep your office space tidy, then you will automatically improve the safety of your workers. Some of the messier workers in your office will doubt this fact, but it really is true.
With desks, floor space and common areas, the mess can build up quickly and easily. With a clean office policy in place, you can avoid many of the potential pitfalls which lead to accidents.
In a neat office, it is easier to spot risks. This means your employees can steer clear of them and stay safe.
6. Foster Team Relationships
If your team is close to each other, they will look after each other. If you can foster close relationships, you can prevent accidents from happening in many cases.
Make sure that you plan team away days. These fun days out can build vital relationships within your team. And despite perceptions, they don't have to be extremely expensive.
Once your work colleagues become close, health and safety automatically become more important. This should help eliminate any potential incidents.
7. Provide Adequate Training
It goes without saying that any workers using highly technical or specialized equipment should be adequately trained before using it.
But you should also make sure that all workers receive basic training on all of the equipment in the office.
Whether this is simply how to use the copy machine correctly, or how to lift heavy boxes correctly, training can prevent accidents.
8. Watch Your Back
One of the most common injuries suffered by American workers is back pain. In fact, it is predicted that at any one time, 31 million Americans are suffering lower back pain.
When working in an office environment at a computer, the risk of back pain is always right around the corner.
Make sure that office workers are aware of their working posture at their desks. This can be the difference between a painful working and pain-free life.
9. Update Your Safety Recommendations Each Year
Nothing is every perfect and every working situation can change. This is why you should always check back and make sure that your workplace safety practices are up to date.
Perhaps you've had a minor incident during the year. You can use this to tweak your guidelines to avoid any repeat accidents taking place.
You can also check the latest practices on the internet, and learn from them to improve your office safety.
If you stand still, you are effectively going backward compared to the latest standards.
Safety in Numbers
The best way of keeping people safe in the office is to get them all involved. If your employees feel and believe that the safety recommendations have been created collaboratively with them, they are more likely to follow them.
Taking a collaborative approach to safe working practices in the office will also allow employees to feel as if they are a more important part of the company. The thoughts and opinions will have been taken on board.
The good news is that once you have working practices in place, you can improve them continuously and they should make your office safer over time.
