As a business owner, it is vital that you do everything you can to ensure that your workplace is a safe space for you, all of your employees and any customers or clients who pay you a visit.
If your workplace isn’t as safe as it could be, then you could risk being hit with a lawsuit should someone become injured due to your negligence, which is the last thing you want; even if you have insurance, it’s bad publicity for your company, and it can really impact staff morale too.
So, it’s fair to say safety in the workplace is important, but how do you achieve it?
Commercial Building Inspections
Ideally, when you’re buying or renting your commercial property, you should have it inspected, to ensure that it is structurally sound. You should then schedule further commercial building inspections every few years to ensure that all is well. After all the safety of any space starts with its very structure.
Comply with Health and Safety Regulations
Wherever your company is based, there are going to be rules and regulations about how you must operate if you want to operate safely. Not only should you seek these out and follow them in order to ensure your workplace is a safe space, but also because you could get into a lot of trouble if you do not.
Train Your Staff Well
Staff training is essential if you want to keep everybody safe, especially if you use a lot of heavy machinery or otherwise potentially dangerous equipment. Training should be comprehensive, covering every possible angle of safety and correct operation of equipment, and it should be repeated regularly to ensure that it sinks in.
Set Up CCTV
Having CCTV in and outside of your workplace isn’t a bad idea because it can help to prevent the wrong people from getting into the place where they could compromise the safety of your employees. Of course, this will only work if you employ someone to monitor them – so many businesses invest in expensive CCTV, but fail to employ anyone to keep an eye on it, thus rendering it useless!
Teach First Aid
Having a professional come in to teach first aid and having at least one designated first aider on each floor of your building is a good way to not only deal with accidents and injuries safely, but to ensure that colleagues who take very ill, perhaps with heart attacks or seizures, etc., get the help they need rapidly.
Use Signs
Using signs and labels might be pretty low-tech, but that just means that it’s affordable, and more importantly, it’s a very effective way of warning people in the workplace about potential dangers. You can also use signs and labels to let them know what they should do if an emergency occurs.
Never Get Complacent
Last, but by no means least, you should never allow yourself to get complacent about safety in the workplace. Letting things slide even a little could put your employees at risk of injury and you at the risk of a hefty lawsuit – it really isn’t worth it.
Stay Safe!
