5 Health And Safety Tips For Your Workplace

Whether it’s a local restaurant, a multi-story office block or the international space station, every workplace needs an occupational health and safety strategy. This is a set of rules and guidelines that help staff to prevent and respond to injury and emergency. A strategy will generally cover fire regulations, accident reporting, first aid and other emergency response procedures. It is not enough to simply establish this strategy; it must also be strictly implemented.

Many companies choose to hire safety consultants to help them identify hazards, evaluate risks and satisfy government regulations. These consultants tailor a strategy for a specific industry or a specific company. Whether you decide to hire safety consultants or attempt to do it yourself, here are a few tips to guide you.

 1. Eliminate or Expose Hazards

Hazards exist in every occupational envrionment. Identify all of the potential hazards in your workplace and either eliminate them, e.g. tidy away wires, or expose them, e.g. put up signs indicating the presence of harmful chemicals. Some hazards to watch out for include: dangerous substances (e.g. solvents, pesticides, asbestos, explosives, heavy metals, acids etc); electrical wires; bacteria; psychological stress (e.g. caused by sexual harassment or discrimination); wet floors; repetitive strain injury.

3. Train Staff

All staff can be given general training relevant to their duties and a select few staff can be given advanced training so that they can act as health and safety reps in their department. The role of a health and safety rep would be to inspect fire extinguishers, lead evacuations, report accidents etc. Some areas where general training can be given include: proper use of machinery; which protective clothing and equipment to use (e.g. harnesses, eyewear, guard rails; hard hats, gloves, steel-toe boots, overalls etc.); manual handling; first aid.

4. Establish Emergency Response Procedures

Make sure to establish emergency response procedures for your company and inform all staff about these procedures. Who should lead an evacuation? What are the exit routes? Are all exits clearly marked and lit? Where is the assembly point? Who will do a head count? Who should operate fire extinguishers? How should staff respond to a bomb scare? Who can administer first aid? Who will phone emergency services?

5. Comply With Regulations

There is an abundance of legilsation governing occupational health and safety. Regulations exist to regulate noise levels, pollution, hygiene, number of hours that staff can operate machinery, air temperature, air quality and many other variables. The best way to ensure that you are complying with regulations and to avoid fines is to ask a safety consultant.

6. Monitor Progress

There is no point in establishing health and safety protocols unless they are going to be adhered to. Companies should assign a set of duties to their health and safety reps. These duties could include: checking that fire extinguishers are not expired; restocking first aid kits; replacing the sign in sheet when it is full; testing fire alarms; carrying out mock evacuations; patrolling the building to check for new hazards; reprinting accident report forms as needed.