In any business, but perhaps in industrial and manufacturing businesses most of all, ensuring that you’ve got a safe and healthy work environment is vital – it’s going to have to be one of your biggest priorities as a business owner. Keeping your employees safe, protecting your equipment and the investments you’ve made in it, and protecting any members of the public who come to your workplace means you’ve thought things through and you’ve got a good system in place – but how can you get to that point? Read on to find out.
1. Have Good Training Programs
One of the best ways to make sure you’ve got a safe and healthy workplace for everyone is to make sure your team (and you) get trained on how to keep things running in the right way. Regular training sessions can be carried out that go into detail when it comes to safety protocols and rules, emergency procedures, and how to use machinery in the right way, and this won’t just help to prevent accidents, but it can also help your team feel much more in control of what they’re doing.
This last point is actually more important than you might think because when your workforce feels as though they’ve got control and autonomy over what they’re doing, they’ll generally be a lot more productive and have a good attitude to work, making them not just happier, but more likely to stay with you too.
2. Check Your Ventilation
If you work in an office, indoor air quality is something you’ll need to consider, but it’s quite easy to deal with – add a good HVAC unit, include some indoor plants, and carry out regular cleaning, and it should be fine.
If you have a warehouse or manufacturing area, however, keeping your air quality at a good, healthy level is harder, and you’ll need to make sure you’ve got measures in place to help your team stay well. One good idea is to check your ventilation systems and make sure it’s doing what it should be to remove harmful fumes, dust, and other airborne particles. Plus, you should also invest in more specific tools, depending on whatever it is you do – if you weld, for example, having custom welding fume extractors is going to help hugely.
3. Carry Out Regular Audits
Having lots of good safety measures in place is excellent, and it’s definitely worth the time and money you’ll need to invest to ensure you get it all ready and everyone understands, but remember that over time your needs when it comes to safety might change (especially if you add more processes and machinery to your business, for example), and that’s why you need to carry out regular audits as well – don’t just assume you’ve done all you needed to and leave it there.
If you’re going to carry out a safety audit (and you really should), you can’t rush through either; it needs to be thorough and cover all aspects of your business, from machinery to your electrics, and even down to your emergency exits. If you can spot risks that don’t have a safety protocol attached, you’ll be able to fix the problem before it becomes too serious.
