5 workplace safety tips to share with your employees

Regardless of what you do like work or where you do it, safety and your health should always be a priority, no matter what. This responsibility grows enormously when you’re placed in a managerial position over several employees. At that point, you’re not only responsible for yourself, but morally and possibly even legally responsible for the health and safety of your employees.

However, beyond your legally required safety guidelines and practices that you try to hammer home into your employees’ heads, today we’re going to outline several general tips to help keep your employees safe and engaged with your workplace safety guidelines and best practices. Ideally, you want to create an environment where all your employees are engaged and communicating with one another to create a safe workspace.

Surrounding awareness

No matter where you work, there are inherent dangers that all employees should exercise awareness around. From the obvious of working in a workshop and being careful with tools and machinery, to the less obvious of working in an office and being careful with the coffee pot in the break room, the best way to stay safe is to keep a solid awareness of your surroundings. Activities such as walking around while preoccupied with a cellphone should be discouraged. Keep employees aware of hazards, and they’ll stay safer. Besides keeping employees aware of dangers, make sure to create a clear separation between safe and hazardous zones. Use something like a fence wrap Sydney city deploys around hazardous areas to keep the public out.

Proper posture

Considering that we only have the one body with which to live our lives, you should strongly encourage a culture of proper posture in the company. Proper posture has been linked frequently by science to provide much better life outcomes and comfort overall. After all, it’s incredibly difficult to do any job if you’re crippled by back pain. If you’re stuck at a desk all day and working, improper posture can lead to a humongous list of problems for you or employees. That’s why an industry of ergonomic seating and office furniture has risen quickly the past few years. Ranging from ergonomically designed chairs to standing desks, getting comfortable should be an easy priority to achieve for anyone in the workspace.

Breaks are great!

In all honesty, any job comes with expectations of production quotas and deadlines. However, you should frequently encourage employees to take frequent short breaks to improve their overall mood and productivity. Recent science has shown that humans perform better when taking frequent short breaks as opposed to working long periods and trying to take long breaks to accommodate the long working hours.

Don’t cut corners!

While frequent breaks were recommended in the previous paragraph, make sure employees are aware that those breaks shouldn’t come at the cost of cutting corners for safety procedures that you’ve established. Safety procedures are specifically designed to keep employees safe and while they can sometimes seem a pain and pedantic, try to create a culture of safety promotion where employees work together to check on each other’s safety by making sure they all complete the safety procedures. Emphasize that being safe together is far better than being safe alone could ever be. Encourage employees to report unsafe conditions and practices to management and each other.

Stay updated & informed

Working conditions change over time as the business grows and evolves over time. New employees, equipment, and demands are put in place. This means that you need to make sure that your employees are constantly up-to-date with the latest safety practices. Hold frequent safety procedure update meetings and presentations as necessary.

Ultimately, your goal as an employer is to make sure your employees stay safe and productive before you worry about your bottom line and profits from the business. Work hard to make sure employees are aware of the latest safety practices and changes to their work environment. Make sure you can never allow yourself to accept the answer of “Well, I didn’t know about that” in case an accidental situation ever arises. While you certainly can’t cover every eventuality that might arise, you can do your best. Safety is a serious matter, and it deserves a lot of care and attention. Give it what it deserves and safety will give back for years to come.