Do you know how to keep your employees safe at work? As an employer, you have a legal responsibility to provide a safe work environment for your team. In addition to this, you will want to protect them from a moral standpoint and make sure that they feel happy, safe and confident coming into work each day. So, what can you do to keep your employees safe at work?
Appropriate Signage
One simple step is to make sure that you have safety signs placed around the area alerting people of potential hazards. Signs are important because they keep important safety messages at the forefront of people’s minds, plus it means that new visitors to the site are aware of the dangers without you having to be there to explain to them.
Assess Risk
It is also important to have a risk assessment carried out by a specialist. This is so that potential dangers and hazards can be identified so that you can then find ways to either remove these risks or mitigate them. You might be surprised at how many hazards there are even in a typical office-based business, so it is important to have a risk assessment completed by a specialist.
Train Your Team
Accidents and injuries often occur as a result of mistakes made by employees. Therefore, you need to provide important safety training so that everyone knows how to carry out their role safely and avoid accidents. In addition to training for their job, you should also provide first-aid training so that people know how to respond in an emergency.
Provide Appropriate PPE
Staff must always have access to high-quality PPE that can offer protection while carrying out their job. It will depend on the type of job that they have, but PPE can include protective gauntlet gloves, goggles, hard hats, high viz clothing, masks and steel-toed footwear.
Appoint a Health & Safety Officer
It is also a good idea to appoint a health and safety officer from your team. A health and safety officer can help to create a safer work environment, act as a middle person between employees and management and ensure that health and safety measures are being followed at all times in the workplace.
Create a Health & Safety Policy
It is also important to create a health and safety policy that outlines exactly what steps need to be taken to create a safe work environment for all. This can also provide important legal protection if there is ever an accident at work.
These are a few of the main steps to take that will help you to protect your employees and create a safe work environment. As a business owner, you have a legal and moral responsibility to protect your staff and you will want to do all that you can to prevent accidents.
