8 Tips to Prevent Workplace Injuries

In today’s COVID-19 traumatized world, the saying ‘An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure’ takes on a whole new dimension when it comes to protecting the safety and health of your employees at the workplace.

If you follow this advice and apply it to your workplace you will be better off in terms of:

• Preventing injuries by minimizing accidents
• Saving costs of litigation if injury is caused due to your negligence
• Preventing disruption of work
• Saving costs of replacements of workers
• Improving customer satisfaction
• Improving your bottom line

It is therefore very beneficial if you can organize your workplace in such a way that it prevents workplace injuries.To that end, here are 8 steps that can set you on the road to prevent workplace injuries:

1. Train

The Practices for Safety and Health Programs recommended by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is an excellent place to begin. Ask a team to make a booklet on the practices and distribute it to all your employees. You should also periodically update any new amendments issued by the authorities. If you fail to comply with OSHO guidelines, you will risk paying a heavy price when either an employee or customer is injured on your premises. Slip-and-fall accident lawyer, Jonathan Rosenfeld warns that these kinds of lawsuits can cause significant financial and reputational damage to businesses, sometimes even resulting in their permanent closure.

2.  Place the right person for the right job

Often, you can get carried away with job rotation strategy and transfer workers into uncharted territory. This needs to be implemented carefully by choosing the workers with proper attitude and aptitude and provide them proper training and induction programs to handle the new assignment competently and safely.

3. Equip individual workers properly

Ensure that you provide the workers with proper equipment and tools to perform their jobs safely. Some of the common safety and protective equipment could include face protection, goggles, gloves, safety shoes, hard hats, earmuffs and earplugs, computer safety screens, safety harnesses and high-visibility clothing. However, some jobs and task may require specialist safety equipment. For example, in a confined space and worker will require a gas detector like the Gasalert Microclip XL by Honeywell. Other specialist safety equipment may include voltage stabilizers, respiratory protective equipment and chemical protective equipment.

4. Provide injury prevention training

It is worthwhile to hire a professional injury prevention trainer who can train your employees to learn the correct techniques which will help them to reduce fatigue, muscle pain and cumulative trauma disorders. Professional trainers such as physical therapists, athletic trainers and ergonomic evaluators who have expertise in their fields can impart the necessary training.

5. Use Case Management Software

When technology is available you should use it to your advantage. Case management software is one digital technology tool that you can use to investigate fatalities, accidents, trips, slips, falls, exposures, near misses and fatalities. This software is compatible with OSHA regulations. The software can help you identify recurring safety issues and detect trends. Overall, the software helps you to reduce hazards and improve employee safety. 

6. Revisit safety and health policies regularly

Safety and health policies are dynamic in nature and you keep learning and evolving as newer technologies are introduced. You should charge your safety officer with the responsibility of keeping all safety protocols up to date.

7. Involve employees in safety policies

Your employees will respond better to safety policies if they are a part of decision making and implementation strategies. They will be proud to adopt the policies as their own and will comply with the policies 100% helping to provide a safe and incident-free workplace.

8. Set up monitoring protocols

Safety is of paramount importance and close monitoring of the implementation of the safety policies should become a mandatory task for your senior management team.

Apart from the above and with the participation of your employees you will of course come up with more ideas that you will implement to make your workplace a very safe place well within the confines of the OSHA guidelines.