Health and safety isn’t the most exciting topic, as it often conjures up thoughts of boring bureaucrats with clipboards and stacks of paperwork. Yet, it’s not something to take lightly as a business, as doing it badly can have severe and costly repercussions. If you own a small business, read on to find out what important safety tips you should know, especially if you’ve only just started.
Give Clear Instructions
Always give clear instructions to your employees. This is the only way they will know what you want done and how you want it done. Your workers should know about your safety concerns, so it’s a good idea to give them clear, written instructions. Also, by giving them written instructions, your employees will be able to look back at them whenever they need to remember how things work.
Carry Out A Risk Assessment
It’s important to know what you’re getting into when starting any kind of business. And that’s where something like a job hazard analysis or risk assessment comes in. This is the initial stage in establishing a company-wide safety program.
The smooth running of your business will depend on the solid groundwork you put in place as your startup matures. Documenting every possible risk linked with each task performed by your staff is an important step in the process of understanding the safety hazards you face. It also means you can put measures in place to reduce or eliminate these risks.
Provide The Right Safety Equipment
Knowing safety protocols is useless without also having a firm grasp of the correct safety gear. Conducting a job hazard analysis, in which you examine the potential dangers of the workplace and the best strategies to prevent them, is the best way to decide the precise equipment you should be using.
However, this is not enough. You’ll also need to ensure you provide that equipment. You can’t ask your team to do work without giving them what they need to stay safe, and you can’t ask them to provide the equipment themselves (unless they are subcontractors, for example).
Check Your Electrical Equipment
Worn-out electrical components might be a safety hazard. If your company’s electrical equipment breaks, not only is it a danger to your business, but it’s also a danger to your staff and customers. Damaged electrical wiring, for instance, poses a fire hazard to your business, employees, and customers. Finding a local professional electrician to do tests and inspections on your appliances is recommended.
Those in the know when it comes to electrical maintenance will check to see that your electrical gear is up to code and won’t cause any problems in the workplace. Additionally, having your electrical equipment routinely inspected can guarantee peak performance with no interruptions. This means that there will be no slowdown in output due to performance problems.
Encourage Employee Feedback
One of the best ways to discover potential safety issues in the workplace is to have employees raise their concerns about them. If an employee has something to say about safety, you should investigate it and take appropriate action right away. It’s crucial you encourage employees to speak up about any issues they might have so you have a chance to put things right.