Safety at work is something we should all have as a top priority. Avoiding accidents, injuries and risk to others is essential in all workplaces, particularly those environments with hazardous or potentially risky activity such as heavy lifting. How can we ensure safety is embedded in our workplace’s culture and not just a policy?
Safety as the norm
To put safety at the forefront of everyone’s minds in the workplace, it is essential that we normalise it at all staffing levels. This means safety issues are routinely discussed at management level and that management must be visibly involved in, and supportive of, safety matters at all times. Employees should participate in regular safety training – we will come onto this later – and safety should be regularly discussed at team meetings and on a day-to-day basis.
Everyone should have the know-how
Although we can all have safety at the forefront of our minds, accidents can and do happen; therefore, it is essential to have people who can assist in an emergency. Training for staff right through from new recruits to management is the key to this. First aid at work Gloucester is one such example, whereby there would always be someone with the knowledge to provide the first line of care if someone were to fall ill or have an injury at work. Course providers such as tidaltrainingdirect.co.uk/ offer training specific to emergency first aid at work.
It’s not a competition
According to industry expert Safety Stage, it is wise to avoid making safety issues the subject of any sort of competition or incentive, such as incentivising low levels of reported injuries at work. The risk with incentives is that employees could simply not report accidents rather than taking measures to avoid them in the first place.
A safer approach is to have relevant, checked safety equipment readily available for all staff, to hold regular safety briefings and updates, and to make safety the daily norm for staff at all levels and in all roles.
