9 Important Tips for Preventing Workplace Accidents

Did you know that there are almost 340 million workplace accidents and incidents each year in the United States of America? Keeping employees safe should be the number one goal of any and every company in the United States. The simple truth is that most workplace injuries are avoidable and preventable if you put the effort into creating a safe work environment.

There are a lot of things to consider when taking steps to create a safe workplace at your business. Little things like teaching and preaching employee safety will go a long way.

If you’re unsure of where to start when trying to prevent workplace injuries then today is your lucky day. You’ve come to the right place to learn all about how to keep your employees safe from workplace accidents.

Keep reading this article to learn more today!

1. Put Together a Safety and Wellness Plan

One of the most important parts of having a safe workplace for your employees is putting together a comprehensive safety and wellness plan. This plan should cover each and every level of employee safety at your business.

It all starts with encouraging your employees to report behaviors and actions that are unsafe in the workplace. Reporting these hazardous activities and behaviors is the best way to put a stop to them and keep your employees out of harm’s way.

2. Conduct Physicals Prior to Hiring

Depending on how labor-intensive the job is, you should consider requiring physicals for any job candidates. A big cause of workplace accidents is hiring employees that aren’t fit or strong enough to handle the job duties they’ve been hired for.

The best thing that you can do in order to prevent workplace injuries due to employees that are out of shape is to conduct physicals before hiring them in the first place. You’ll be able to match candidates with jobs that fit their physical abilities and keep them out of positions where they could cause harm to themselves or others around them.

3. Educate Employees

The easiest thing to control when it comes to keeping employees safe is educating and training them on workplace safety. Make sure that you cultivate a strong culture of workplace safety at your business and set high standards for keeping those under your employment in a safe work environment.

Training your employees on how to stay safe at work is a start, but make sure you go into the “why” behind these methods. Let your employees know that the things that they’re doing are keeping themselves and others at your place of the business safe during each workday.

It is also a wise move to provide training when it comes to body mechanics for employees that have a labor-intensive position at your business. These pieces of training will reduce the strain on their bodies during their job duties each day, and help to protect them from hazardous chemicals. You can find more here about the importance of these pieces of training.

4. Evaluate Your Vulnerabilities

You also need to take time and look at the vulnerabilities of your business when it comes to employee safety. Each business is unique and faces its own difficulties and challenges when it comes to a safe work environment. A great strategy is to look at common accidents and come up with plans for how to prevent or eliminate them.

5. Provide Protective Equipment

Depending on the industry that you operate in, you need to make sure that you provide your employees with the equipment they need in order to stay safe. Make sure that you enforce the importance of this equipment at training sessions and meetings with your employees. These pieces of safety equipment could be face masks, gloves, eye protection, steel-toed boots, and more.

6. Have Enough Employees

Having a shortage of trained employees is a dangerous situation for your business when it comes to keeping employees safe. Employees that are overworked are more likely to sustain injuries and get worn down from a mental standpoint.

Exhaustion could lead to cutting corners in order to get the job done quicker or easier. This also puts your employees at risk because they’re not working with the same level of precaution. Having enough employees ensures that no one is getting overworked or needing to work extra shifts to cover your business operations.

7. Avoid Shortcuts

Shortcuts are a sure way to cause workplace injuries when it comes to keeping employees safe. A forklift driver that looks for shortcuts and ways to cut corners could take a turn too quickly and injure themselves or others around them.

Make sure that you also issue clear instructions to employees rather than cutting corners and assuming that they know what you want. This will prevent a lot of workplace accidents.

8. Maintain Company Equipment and Vehicles

If your company operates heavy machinery and vehicles then you need to invest time and money into maintaining those pieces of equipment. Failure to maintain these heavy and dangerous pieces of equipment is a great way to put employee safety at risk at your place of business.

Workplace driving accidents are much more prevalent than you’d think, and they end up costing businesses tens of billions of dollars each year.

9. Monitory Your Safety Measures

You should also make sure that you take time to monitor the safety measures that you’ve put in place for employee safety. Keeping your employees accountable when they fail to practice employee safety is a great way to ensure that you have a safe work environment.

Do this through the supervision of your employees as well as through training sessions. You should also make sure that you’re rewarding employees that set the standards for employee safety.

Start Preventing Workplace Accidents Today

Preventing workplace accidents is a vital part of running a successful company in the United States of America. It is vital that you teach employee safety to each of your employees and that you have enough staff to manage your business operations. You should also come up with a health and wellness plan for your employees and make sure that they have the safety equipment that they need.

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