Nothing is ever 100% safe. Staying home and hiding under your bed has its own set of dangers. The same is true for your small business. No matter how hard you try, you will never make things 100% safe for your employees. There will always be workplace hazards, accidents, and security breaches.
The reason you establish safety protocols is to reduce the risk by as much as possible while maximizing convenience and productivity. There will always be a conflict between convenience and security. You have to constantly adjust the balance between the two.
You can never get too many security tips for small businesses. But proper business security is about more than a few scattered tips. You need a cohesive plan that demands the compliance of everyone in the company. For the plan to work, no one can be above it or beneath it. Security has to be systematic. If it is to be meaningful. If it is hit or miss, it is all miss. If it is only for some people, then it is for no people. So the first order of business when implementing safety strategies is to think of it as universal within your company, and the people who visit your local offices. Other strategies for a safer workplace must include the following.
Training
Nothing happens in a company by accident. If you have a productive staff, it is because you have a well-trained staff. You gave them the software and tools they needed to be their most productive. The same is true with safety. No one has a safe workplace by accident. You will have a safer workplace when you provide the best employee safety training software and tools you can get.
There are all types of safety issues that can be reduced by better training. Your workforce cannot be expected to just figure out the best course of action in the middle of an emergency. They have to already know what to do and where to go. That information comes from training. In a fire, people have a hard time finding the front door to the house in which they lived for more than a decade. The smoke, noise, and adrenaline do bad things to cognitive functions. Don’t force your workers to have to figure out where the emergency exits are or how to use the fire extinguisher. Make it a matter of training so that their subconscious has a chance to kick in when the time comes.
Drills
Workplace fires happen all the time. Sometimes, it is a woodchopping plant where a fire might be expected. Other times, it is an office building where a fire is the furthest thing from the minds of people fighting with a slow internet connection and another boring meeting on the calendar. You need to have fire drills to enhance the training you have already begun.
Training is just words on a page or screen or speaker until it becomes a matter of muscle memory. It needs to become a reality that lives deep down in the bones. Telling someone where the fire exits are is not the same as hitting those exits at speed while the alarms are sounding.
It is about more than just fires. You should have similar training for storms if your office is located in storm country. There is nothing you can do about a storm if it hits. But there is plenty you can do about how people react. To be useful, training has to be more than an information dump. It also has to be practical as people get a chance to practice what they have learned.
Health Safety
People generally don’t know when they’re sick until they’re contagious. Forget about the pandemic. An outbreak of the common cold or flu can wipe out a significant portion of your crew for several weeks and set productivity back accordingly.
Read Also: How to Select a Forklift Training Course?
One of the simplest and most important things you can do is have an infrared thermometer available so that anyone can get a temperature check in seconds. Whether or not they have a temperature, make it easy for them to go home and use their sick time to cover the loss of work. Don’t risk the health of all your employees in the name of getting every last drop of work from one who is sick.
The work of safety is never done. Continue that work by providing additional training, practice drills, and an easy and graceful way for sick people to go home.
