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    6 Tips To Help Prevent Injury At A Workplace

    Workplace safety is no joke. Billions of people get up and go to work every day to earn a living and provide for their families. While, in theory, people can always quit an unsafe job and find something else, a plethora of factors like the economy, cost of education, cost of living, and personal disposition make it a much harder thing to do in practice. If someone knows they’re going to struggle to make ends meet if they lose their job, they might keep quiet and do something that deep down they know isn’t safe. This scenario is tragic and completely avoidable, provided workplaces do their due diligence to help prevent injury and harm to both their employees and their customers. The following will explore a few things that you can do to help reduce the risk of injuries occurring in your workplace.

    Address Workplace-Specific Threats

    No matter what industry you work in or what sorts of tasks your workday is filled with, there are going to be threats to your safety. It’s a good idea to look at what sort of chemicals or devices you’re using and what could go wrong with them. Hairdressers need to think about scissor safety, for instance, whereas in most other professions, scissors don’t come up too much. If your work involves the presence of bullets or firearms or the possibility of dealing with a crime involving these items, safety experts at Bullet Proof Supply Store suggest taking appropriate bulletproofing precautions. Even if something is unlikely to go wrong in your workplace, you need to understand that across hundreds of days and among countless employee interactions, there’s a high chance that the day will come when someone is tired or distracted, and an error takes place.

    Clear Up The Clutter

    While messiness doesn’t immediately scream danger to most people, a clean workspace reduces the risk of someone tripping, falling, or knocking into an object. Schedule a regular clean-up of all shared and personal spaces and set a good example of tidiness for all your employees.

    Stay Hydrated

    Staying hydrated is vital for human health and wellbeing. Dehydration can lead to brain fog and a lack of alertness. Focused employees with access to their mental faculties are far less likely to make a foolish mistake or not notice a potential danger. Find ways to ensure that fresh, filtered water is readily available to all staff whenever they feel the need to take a sip.

    Understand Posture And Ergonomics

    More people than ever are spending their days working at a computer or desk. While this sort of task is generally considered safe, it can lead to some serious health problems later on in life if proper steps aren’t taken to ensure adequate posture. Things like carpal tunnel can cause severe pain in a person’s life and are the responsibility of the workplace. This means that even if employees are working from home, they have a right to compensation should they have bodily damage from doing the tasks required of them. Find high-quality desks and chairs, and be sure to educate all staff on proper posture and positioning as part of their onboarding and training process. 

    Think About Air Quality

    Like dehydration, poor air quality can result in poor focus, concentration, and memory. The good news is that air quality is a relatively simple thing to address, provided there aren’t workplace-specific contaminants you need to worry about. Get some plants for the office (they oxygenate the air and help remove toxins), open windows when appropriate, and seek out an air filtration system if the other two options aren’t possible for your particular workplace. As a bonus, having contaminate-free, oxygenated air in the workplace improves levels of creativity and people’s mood, which can lead to higher rates of employee satisfaction as well as some fantastic work performances.

    Make It Easy And Culturally Acceptable To Report Small Incidents

    There’s a reason smaller incidents like cuts, scrapes, bumps, and bruises aren’t reported: reporting takes away valuable time employees have to get their work done. Beyond this, most people don’t want to seem like complainers when they’re at work. Creating a company culture where small incident reports are welcome and making the process incredibly easy (like a simple one-line email to a particular person) can end up helping everyone out quite a bit. It might turn out that everyone has been cutting their fingers on a super sharp hand railing for months or that a simple door stopper can be purchased to keep heavy doors from slamming into people’s heels.

    The above list should have given you a few ideas for how you can make your workplace safer for everyone. If you’re dealing with dangerous tools or chemicals, it is vital that you follow all appropriate regulations and protocols in addition to the above.

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