7 Essential Tools & Training for a Safer Workplace
SPI6/18/2024
Employee safety training: it’s one of those things we recognize as necessary, but what really makes an employee safety training program effective?
Employees in various industries face different degrees of danger in the workplace every day. From healthcare settings to construction sites, there are great risks for everyone. In fact, studies show that 68% of workers globally do not feel completely safe working in their employer’s buildings. As a business owner and employer, you have a responsibility to your employees toward a safe and healthy work environment.
To avoid work hazards, learning about some of the most essential tools and training are in order.
Why is Workplace Safety Important?
Creating a safe workspace is arguably the employer’s most important job. A safe place to work means employees have little to no risk of developing an injury or illness while on the job. The Occupational Health and Safety Act requires employers to provide a safe work environment for all their workers by law.
Health and safety are critical factors for all industries to encourage the wellness of employers and employees. It is the company's duty and moral responsibility to protect its workers. For that reason, it is critical to make safety a top priority and ensure all workers are returning home safely every day. Additionally, employees work much more efficiently when they can finish their job or task without compromising their safety.
The 7 Tools and Training for a Safer Workplace
Proper training is necessary for all employees, especially if there is a risk of potential injury associated with a job. Safety shouldn’t be an afterthought; it’s just as important to a successful business as customer service, inventory supply control, and financial planning.
A commitment to health and safety makes good business sense because it’s the one way to protect your greatest resource — your people! These 7 helpful tools and training can prevent potential workplace hazards and increase work productivity, and it all begins in safe work environments.
A lot goes into ensuring proper respiratory protection. Breathing safely in a dangerous environment involves extensive training and appropriate personal protective equipment. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is a type of equipment used to prevent or minimize exposure to workplace hazards including airborne particles or bloodborne pathogens.
Surgical masks, N95, or self-contained breathing apparatus are types of respirators for tasks that can cause inhalation of harmful materials to enter the body. Choosing the right protective respiratory equipment, wearing it correctly, and ensuring it fits are all critical considerations. Comprehensive respiratory protection programs can ensure that you have all the tools you need to work safely.
Confined spaces are enclosed or partially enclosed areas that are big enough for a worker to enter but are not designed to be worked in regularly. These can be dangerous areas that frequently contain potential hazards such as lack of oxygen, extreme heat, and fall hazards. If you have to work in a confined space, you need to understand how critical it is to have the proper training to ensure your safety.
Determining the risks associated with a specific type of confined space can help workers make better decisions in regard to the equipment needed to ensure safe working conditions. Increasing awareness of the dangers of confined spaces makes workers more alert to these dangers and results in them exercising increased caution, which results in fewer injuries, and more lives saved!
Machine and Electrical Safety
An industrial building requires a lot of power for machinery, tools, and systems. Since electricity is common in industrial work, it’s easy to forget the potential electrical hazards of using it. Mishandled electricity and machinery can cause serious injury or death, so keeping electricians and mechanics safe at work requires the use of the proper techniques, protective clothing, and training.
Machine and electrical safety training enable workers to make smart decisions when working with electricity and machinery. Safety glasses provide eye protection from external debris, and insulated gloves and anti-vibration gloves provide protection from high-frequency vibration and voltage. It's when engineering controls and administrative controls are not feasible to reduce the risks to acceptable levels.
Fall protection is a set of methods and systems designed to prevent falls and injuries in the workplace. Because falls are one of the most common causes of workplace injuries and fatalities, fall protection is vital to keeping employees safe in a variety of industries, ranging from construction to shipyards.
An effective fall protection program and the inspection procedures of proper protective equipment ensure that employees are adequately trained to know and prevent workplace fall hazards. Anticipating risks enables employees to implement proper fall protection before injuries occur.
An important part of a safe work environment is to know and enforce the rules for using, operating, servicing, repairing, and maintaining all your electrical equipment. Safety Lockout/ Tagout is a method for preventing damage that can be caused by an unauthorized person entering an area of risk.
Employees will learn about hazardous energy control to protect themselves from injuries caused by the unforeseen start-up of machinery or equipment. Lockout/ Tagout training ensures you have the tools and protective equipment to safely lock out your machines using safety standards, processes, and procedures.
The COVID-19 outbreak has made industrial hygiene, the science of protecting workers’ health and safety, more important than ever. Industrial sites may contain a wide range of physical, exposure to chemicals, and biological hazards, which, if not checked on a regular basis, put workers at risk.
Health workers in industrial hygiene wear isolation gowns and examine the effect of the work environment on the health and well-being of those in the workplace. Access to supply even promotes better air quality, reduces employee exposure to infectious diseases or infectious materials, and prevents injuries from repetitive and strenuous physical tasks.
Prevention Management
Preventive maintenance is a maintenance program with a complex design where maintenance tasks are performed routinely in order to avoid larger, costly fixes down the line. When equipment isn’t working in optimal condition, it creates exposure to hazards, unsafe working conditions, and even emergency situations where workers are injured.
Protective measures like preventive maintenance improve the safety of equipment and therefore the safety of company workers resulting in fewer on-the-job injuries and accidents.
Take your workplace safety training to the next level with our user-friendly courses. Our user-friendly safety training courses are designed with accessibility and practicality in mind. Get your workplace safety certifications by learning at your own pace and in your own environment! Whether you're a healthcare worker or a mechanic, you can get certified, be compliant, and keep your team safe whenever and wherever you want!
Implement a Safer Workplace for Everyone with SPI Health and Safety!
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