Doing business in Illinois and elsewhere is never easy. It requires a lot of patience and effort, but it is always fulfilling especially if you are able to reach your goals and make a considerable profit. As a business person, you should be able to realize that other than just your capable leadership, the success of your venture also lies in the hard work that your people put in.
Now, many advisers will tell you that one of the things that you need to make sure of if you are to start a business is to get the support of competent individuals. They will be the ones who will realize your ideas and put your words to action.
Given the importance of these individuals, the least that you can do to is to ensure their safety within the workplace. In this article, we discuss the steps that you should take so that workplace safety won’t be an issue for you.
Conduct the appropriate safety training
When a person is hired, the first thing that the Human Resources department in any company does is to give that new employee an orientation. The employee is introduced to the company as a whole, with particular focus on its vision and mission and all other details that are important to the identity of the company. As the boss, you should ensure that your employees are adequately protected by providing your employees with safety training like the OSHA 10 and OSHA 30 courses, which is vital in ensuring that they are properly aware and trained about workplace hazards. Having the education about safety can decrease accidents, injuries, and even smooth your company operations.
If you use machines in your operations, and such machines are situated on a site that employees see or come in close contact with, all employees should be given the proper training for it, even if they don’t operate the machinery directly. As you know, accidents happen more frequently to those who are not familiar with equipment than to those who have the proper training.
After the training is delivered, you should be able to assess your employees’ knowledge of the safety procedures. Knowledge checks are usually good enough, but if your resources allow it, it will be a lot better if you are able to give practical tests to see if what they know really translates to what they do.
Safety signs should be up
Signs help people adjust to certain situations, even if they are as temporary as wet floors. Of course, a person who is better able to adjust ensures more of their safety. You should realize that a person–regardless of whether they are an employee or a visitor–who gets injured after slipping on a wet floor can sue the company if it’s proven that no signs were put at the time of the accident.
Sure, the person will need the help of the finest Champaign slip and fall lawyers to win their case, but this is totally besides the point. The fact alone that legal action can be taken against your company in situations as preventable as this example should be enough to motivate you to be extra careful.
Keep safety manuals, and make sure that you follow them
Having workplace safety manuals will help refresh the minds of trained employees, especially on what to do in special or uncommon situations. Also, since we’re already talking about litigation, these safety manuals can be your best defense in court, so you should never underestimate the power of proper documentation. If for example, an employee gets involved in a meat grinder accident, you will be declared free from liability if it’s proven that you have a safety manual with proper instructions, but the employee just failed to follow them.
