It’s National Safety Month – What Can We Learn from the Top Safety Violations of 2016?

From on-the-job injuries and fines to workplace fatalities, workplace safety violations affected businesses and employees in 2016.

While accidents and other workplace injuries can cost your business thousands of dollars annually in fines or workers’ compensation claims, the real cost is to your employees who can experience life-changing injuries – or worse, loss of life or livelihood.  It’s critical to provide complete workplace training to help keep your workplace safe and prevent injuries while reducing your business’ exposure for incurring hefty fines. This is especially important if your employees work in high-risk environments or positions.

So, What Can We Learn from the Top Safety Violations of 2016? How can you prevent workplace injuries?

Start by Identifying the Risk

Certain risks, such as hazardous spills, are easily identifiable. But risks, such as faulty equipment or machinery, tend to fly ‘under the radar’ and are significantly more difficult to detect.  It’s important to routinely perform preventative checks on your business’ tools of the trade to ensure peak efficiency.

Report Identified Risks

Once you’ve identified a potential risk for workplace accident or injury, you need to report it. Reporting potential hazards is the only way you can eliminate the risk. By doing so, you’ll make your workplace safer for employees, and you’ll protect your businesses from additional liability.

Eliminate or Resolve Risk

After reporting the risk, it’s time to look at the best way for reducing or resolving the risk. Reach out to professionals if you’ve identified risks with far-reaching impact – think gas leaks – and implement any recommendations quickly. Always follow up to ensure the problem has been completely resolved, with little chance of recurrence.

Hold Regular Scheduled Safety Meetings

Hosting regularly scheduled safety meetings is a wonderful way to remove or reduce risks of on-the-job accidents or injury. Informative and informal meetings are best. Safety meetings give all employees an opportunity to remain current on workplace best practices, raise overall safety awareness, and address any relevant issues they have.

The Bottom Line On Safety

Every business owner understands the potential risk for loss as the result of workplace injury or accident. Investing a little time and effort now, before injuries occur, can help your business

• Attract top talent
• Increase productivity of current employees
• Improve workplace morale
• Avoid legal fines and penalties
• Improve overall employee retention

Workplace safety can impact your bottom line. If you have questions about how you can improve workplace safety, reach out to the specialized recruiters at Inter-Connect Employment Services. Because when it comes to workplace safety, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.