6 Tips For Preventing Injuries In The Workplace
Workplace injury prevention is a win-win for everyone involved. For employees, workplace safety ensures that workers can do their jobs with a sense of security and well-being. For employers, proper workplace safety measures protect companies from lawsuits and negative attention that can hurt their bottom line.
Our experienced workers’ comp attorneys have helped countless workers across all industries obtain compensation following a workplace injury.
Although California workplace injury lawyers earn a living helping people who have been injured at work, most would be happy to see workplace injuries eliminated altogether. Here’s the list of six ways of preventing workplace injuries.
#1. Come Up With A Workplace Safety Plan.
Consider the following formula for developing an employee safety/wellness plan:
- Inform employees regarding the benefits of safety and the importance of a plan to benefit everyone in the workplace.
- Assess any workplace risks or hazards.
- Next, start to create your workplace protocols and guidelines for employee safety based on the hazards and risks that have been identified.
- Once your workplace safety plan is finalized, share it with employees and educate them about its guidelines.
- Implement your safety plan and continue to evaluate it.
#2. Implement Clear-Cut Policies Around Safety.
Once you have a safety plan and have evaluated the effectiveness of that plan, you must implement workplace safety policies that are clear and easy to follow. Again, proper communication will be the key to preventing workplace injuries and ensuring everyone is on board with your workplace safety policies. That is why it is imperative that employers keep an open mind and always encourage their employees to ask questions, especially if aspects of the workplace safety plan and policies are unclear to them.
#3. Provide Workplace Safety Training To Your Employees.
Workplace safety training programs significantly cut down on injuries and accidents. Health and safety training is critical in many industries using large equipment, heavy machinery, or toxic substances, including mining, construction, manufacturing, or other sectors.
In addition to providing new employees with proper workplace safety training, existing employees should have refresher training regularly, allowing you to outline new guidelines or innovations that may have changed since they last received training.
#4. Foster An Environment Of Wellness.
Employers should encourage workers to remain physically and mentally fit, enabling peak workplace performance.
- Consider the following:
- Set an example.
- Let them know you care.
- Invest in their well-being.
- Address their overall well-being.
#5. Always Foster An Orderly Work Environment.
By maintaining order in the workplace, you can reduce hazards that can result in a workplace injury. However, an orderly workplace also has many other benefits, including increased productivity and mood enhancement.
Consider including an orderly work environment section in your safe workplace plan and give your employees pointers on maintaining such an orderly environment, encouraging cooperation among your staff.
#6. Conduct Regular Emergency Drills
Don’t confuse emergency drills with workplace training. While training is usually announced ahead of time, a workplace emergency drill will not be.
By holding surprise emergency drills, you can assess the readiness of your employees and how well they understand your existing safety plan and policies.
Ensuring Workplace Safety: The Bottom Line
After implementing these six tips for preventing workplace injury, create evaluation metrics to help determine how well your employees are understanding the guidelines and procedures that you have put forth. Then, you can set up re-training protocols for anyone who might fail your evaluation.
You can prevent on-the-job injuries by creating plans and policies, properly implementing them, and making sure everyone understands them.
Worker Compensation Attorney
