5 Ways To Promote Safety in The Workplace

October 05, 2018

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What is a workplace safety to begin with? Is it a safety of personnel from a workplace injury or a break in of a malicious third party to the premises? Is it the safety of your resources in the real or in the digital world? Is it the safety from the external factor or from the danger lurking within? Lastly, is it a safety from harm that comes from a problem, injury and mistake or is it safety from legal ramifications that come from all of this? Well, it’s all of it actually. With that in mind, here are five actionable tips to help you protect yourself on all of these fronts.

1. Training and instruction

The first thing you need to understand is the fact that the majority of problems in the workplace come from one source – a human error. However, this error is not always caused by negligence or bad intent but rather the lack of knowledge. Fortunately, this means that all you have to do in order to avoid the same thing recurring over and over again is take some time to train your staff, instruct them and raise awareness, in general.

2. Respecting both major hazards

The next thing that should get a high priority on your list is the issue of digital vs. physical hazard to your resources. The truth is that you can’t pick which end to prioritize, seeing as how you need to worry about both of them. After all, does it really make any difference whether the client list was stolen from your confidential email or taken directly from the office printer? This is why you need to invest in security on both ends, starting with your IT sector. For practical reasons, this is often best outsourced.

3. Protecting the premises

The next step you need to take (which is something that we’ve already hinted on) is the issue of the physical safety of your premises. This starts at the gate but if you don’t have the gate, looking for an alternative should become paramount. Now, the popularity of methods used for this may vary depending on several factors (including the country, the city and the neighborhood). In Australia, for instance, temporary construction fences are all the rage. This is why an NSW-based business is most likely to go for fence wrap Sydney retailers as the most frugal and pragmatic option available.

4. Stopping employee theft

The issue that’s probably using you the most money is the employee theft, however, this is a complex problem that hurts you on so many levels. First of all, this is a problem that escalates with time, seeing as how the potential thief not only gets more time to steal but also develops their skills and becomes more daring. For this reason alone, you need to cut down this problem in its root. One of the ways to do so is to do a regular inventory. Aside from this, you could also insist on peer monitoring system. Lastly, you need to make some sections of your office off limits to the unauthorized personnel.

5. Preparing for legal ramifications

Lastly, regardless of if it’s a workplace injury or a false advertising accusation, a massive lawsuit is the last thing you need. Even if you’re 100 percent innocent, you need to understand just how serious of a problem may come from the bad press. Therefore, you need to hire a legal advisor as soon as possible, establish a formidable settlement fund and be as careful as you can when it comes to the above-mentioned two areas. In these scenarios, it’s also better to be proactive than reactive. You would be surprised by just how many problems can be avoided this way.

At the very end, you need to accept that your work is never really done. Even the safest equipment might succumb to age or suffer from wear and tear. The defenses of your office may also no longer be adequate in the future, whereas a malicious employee may find a way to exploit your anti-theft system, given enough time. In order to prevent any and all of this from becoming a major issue, you need to constantly innovate, as well. That being said, with the right starting point (provided by the above-listed initial efforts), you’ll stand a much better chance against all of these plights.