As a business owner, you have a lot of responsibilities, some more challenging than others. One of the most important duties is creating a safety culture in the workplace and protecting your employees from different hazards on the worksite.

Industries such as oil and gas, transportation, construction, and factories present the greatest risk of injuries, so you should keep your workers safe if you’re running such a business. Employee safety is essential for a well-functioning manufacturing or warehouse environment, but ensuring it is sometimes easier said than done. Some of the most common injuries that employees can suffer in the workplace include falls from heights, slips and trips, being struck by or against an object, electrocution, and respiratory issues, which are often related to ladders, forklifts, machinery and work equipment.

Protecting your workers will not only allow you to meet your legal obligations successfully, but it will also minimise the risk of fatality, lower injury rates, and enhance employee well-being. Moreover, you can increase productivity – the safer and healthier the employees, the better their focus.

Hire safety-oriented individuals

When it comes to your team, ensure you’re only hiring the best of the best. That is not always related to work speed but quality. Don’t even think about hiring people just because you lack staff – even if you hire fewer individuals, what matters is for them to be competent and safety-oriented. This way, you avoid accidents regarding machinery or equipment use. If you employ people who don’t share your safety philosophy and put them into positions where safety is imperative, this will inevitably affect your entire business.

Keep in mind that an incompetent employee who is not aligned with safety measures is more prone to get injured. Workers must understand all these rules before being charged with tasks involving more profound knowledge and skills. We know that it can be difficult to ensure you hire the right people, but our advice would be to carefully screen candidates to determine their experience, abilities, and expertise. You should also pay special attention to their resumes and cover letters to keep up to date with their education and professional experience.

Provide proper safety equipment and PPE

Hiring a competent team is important, but providing them with proper equipment is crucial. Personal protective equipment (PPE) is a priority every employer should be aware of. Employees exposed at risk must wear protective equipment like eye and hearing protection, gloves, face masks, harnesses, personal steel toe boots, safety glasses, or helmets. Depending on your business, ensure your staff is properly equipped before giving them any duties. If something happens to them, you’re liable for their injuries. Moreover, employees suffering injuries at the workplace can file an accident at work claim to obtain compensation for the injuries acquired because you failed to provide them with adequate PPE.

Communicate the importance of safety culture

Your goal is to make everyone see safety as a standard, not a formality. For that, it’s not enough to hire competent workers but to also make them understand safety measures and promote them. Ensure everyone from the CEO and board members to the newest employee respects safety measures and prioritises them. If you or other managers don’t promote safety at the workplace, be sure that neither will your staff. Therefore, don’t foist the responsibility of maintaining safety standards only to your Environmental Safety and Health (EHS) team – everyone in that company should be concerned about safety.

Provide safety training

If you’re still counting on common sense regarding workplace safety, it’s time to change the habit. One of the most (if not the most) effective practices to ensure workplace safety is to provide your employees with proper and regular training. Being polite as an employer is essential, but you also need to be assertive to ensure every team member aligns with your safety expectations. Thus, consider training your employees before they begin working and make them aware of the risks an accident or emergency implies. Teach them how to wear PPE, operate industrial equipment, handle emergencies, and discuss workplace ergonomics. For employees working in dangerous areas, it’s imperative to know all these things before starting to work so that they can make the right decision: will they take these risks or not?

Training should consist of theory on hazard awareness and response and practice, too. Therefore, ensure you incorporate hand-on learning techniques to prepare your workers in case of a workplace incident or emergency. Activity-based learning proved a more effective method in many cases, but if you combine it with peer-to-peer instruction, be sure you’ll have even better results. So, include employers charged with handling such events in your training so that your trainees will learn from someone with experience.

Schedule regular maintenance on machines and equipment

Smoothly running machines are the recipe for success, especially when talking about factories. These ensure the quantity and quality of production, so your work efficiency will significantly decrease if some equipment breaks down. Plus, defective machinery and tools are unsafe, putting employees at risk of injury or fatality. That’s why we highly recommend providing regular maintenance of machinery and equipment to avoid any unpleasant situation or incident at the workplace. Ensure every piece of machinery is in the right place and frequently inspect for a malfunction so that you can take any broken machine to repair in good time.

Prioritise mental and psychological health as well as physical

You surely didn’t expect that, but yes, employee psychological health is essential in a workplace. If we recall the latest events related to the Covid-19 pandemic, we announce with great concern that more and more workers around the world have experienced greater stress at work, some of them even leaving their jobs. Burnout and dissatisfaction are common causes of workers’ unproductivity, which is directly related to a business’ success. Consider promoting good mental health practices and encouraging employees to take a few (or more) days off to recharge their batteries and work with fresh forces. Trust us; a happy workforce is more efficient than a burned-out one!