Stop Tragedy in Its Tracks: Top Six Ways to Enforce Safety in Your Business

Did you know the OSHA safety standards are over thirty years old? These standards help businesses keep their work environments safe for the employees. Before this, employers didn’t have a clear guide to aid in creating a set of safety standards.

If your business doesn’t have a safety plan in place, then you are putting the entire company and everyone’s job in jeopardy. It is vital that you implement these workplace safety tips to prevent injury.

1. Give Clear Instructions

If the safety procedures aren’t understood, then they won’t get followed. Provide clear and simple instruction for your employees to follow. Then review the safety instructions regularly to ensure everyone understands.

• Read: 5 Ways to Improve Construction Company Safety Culture

2. Involve Your Employees

For a safety plan to be successful, you need everyone on board. To accomplish this, involve your employees in the planning process. If your employees take ownership, they are more likely to take action and enforce the safety policies.

3. Focus on the Main Issues

It can be overwhelming trying to correct all of the potential safety problems right away. While it is important to correct them, do so in a purposeful way.

Start implementing your safety plan by focusing on the major safety concerns. There are rare accidents that cause major injuries. Then there are the small safety violations that cause minor injuries often.

You want to create a plan for the big accidents, but also create policies to prevent minor injuries.

4. Clean Everything

A clean work environment is a safe one. Clutter creates potential safety hazards and an inefficient work environment. Dirt and grime can create a layer on surfaces. This layer can reduce traction and cause employees to slip and fall.

5. Maintain the Machinery

When your machinery isn’t up to par, it can make getting in and out of and using machinery dangerous. Large machinery requires your employees to climb over and around to get in and out. This creates a potentially dangerous situation is the machinery isn’t properly maintained.

Using machinery that isn’t maintained can create a dangerous situation. Cables can grow weak and snap. Metal can rust and fall apart.

6. Use and Maintain Safety Equipment

For some businesses, it isn’t about the machinery, but the equipment needed to get the job done. This could include fall restraints, rope access systems, fall arrest systems, or rescue systems.

The American Society of Safety Professionals first published equipment safety standards in 1992. Since then they have developed a safety code to help businesses identify a single standard for safety.

Use These Workplace Safety Tips

By following these six workplace safety tips, you can ensure that your employees are safe. The best thing you can do is include them in creating your plan.

Be sure to include cleaning, maintaining, and repairing your work area, machinery, and equipment. If it is all overwhelming, focus on the issues that cause the most injuries.

Do you know the 5 most common ways that people get injured at work? Learn about those injuries in order to help prevent them.