When we own and operate an office, it’s essential for us to care for the health of our employees. Here there are no ‘ifs,’ ‘ands,’ or ‘buts.’ This is something that must be taken care of, no matter what. It is something that must be appreciated, no matter what. And it must be something eternally understood. But of course, when opening your office you will familiarize yourself with the important legalities of how you must conduct things. You know you must have first-aiders available on the site. You know that fire safety must be adhered to. You know that the setup of your office shouldn’t block off access to entrances and exits, and that temperature control should be carefully applied. You must also hydrate your employees.

But of course, safety is one of those things that you can never be too sure of. This means that instead of simply adhering to the legal expected practices, the call to go above and beyond can ensure the likelihood of injury or worse is absolutely minimized, and then minimized again for good measure.

Let us consider how you might approach this:

Hazards

Speak to any worthwhile health and safety professional, and they will tell you that safety first comes from identifying what hazards there are in the environment. Looking around an office, you will be able to tell. There are perhaps more hazards than you might know how to solve. For example, a sharp corner to a table might be a hazard should someone fall. It might be worth sanding that to more of a circular nub, just in case. It might be that your staircase carpet leading up to the office is lose, and metal grip ends for each step could help a shoe better connect with it when going up and down. It might be that your corridor is somewhat impeded by the storage lockers you have for your staff. Perhaps your outside circular staircase that serves as a fire escape is worryingly frozen in the colder weather, and would be a trip hazard should an evacuation need to take place.

Identifying your hazards diligently and doing what you can to either find a solution or prevent the problem is important to give yourself more room for safety. After all, you can train every single person in the office in first aid, but if your fire escape is faulty? It might all be for naught. Remember that hazards can grow at all times. It might be your electrical circuit is overloaded, and having your system inspected is the best option to prevent that from happening in the future.

Your Policy

It is strikingly important to ensure that your business has an appropriate health and safety policy they can use to show staff their best practices. This might include parking conduct outside of your office, how to escape in the event of a fire, how to report issues or the conduct of another, and what the behavioral expectations at work are. This might be enough for an office, provided you clearly outline how and why best legal code might be followed.

But when it comes to, say, a dangerous job, or perhaps working in the restaurant trade where your work might have a direct impact on the health of others, it’s important to ensure your health and safety policy is extremely stringent. Issues such as stipulating hygiene standards, equipment safety checks before use, insurance rights and policies and how this might change in the future is essential to get staff up to speed.

For example, let’s further that restaurant example, although this could apply to a range of businesses. Restaurants often adhere to health inspections, and are granted a score for the front of their building. Instead of simply waiting for the official health inspection, ensuring that you hire the services of a regular, more stringent company inspection can help you adhere to the best practices possible, and also give yourself enough room to mitigate issues as they arrive, or prevent them from ever springing up again.

Staff Training

It is essential to train your staff diligently. They not only need to know their responsibilities, but the functional skills that help them meet those responsibilities. As mentioned above, sometimes helping key members of the office become overqualified in matters relating to safety can also be quite essential in the positive outcome of any issue. For example, a solid BLS certification could potentially help save the life of one of your office members. We could not imagine an outcome as favorable as that.

It could also be that diligently inspecting your staff for drug consumption, or having them list out their health conditions well before adhering to the certain staff insurances you might have can help you ensure a more appropriate course of action. Some staff members might have certain needs, also. Perhaps you have hired two wheelchair-bound individuals. Training certain staff in how to help them down the stairs in the event of a fire (elevators will be out of action,) is essential to ensure they are protected.

It might also be that you wish to increase the awareness pertaining to a certain issue in your firm. For example, it might be that a staff member has quite a significant skin condition. While it may not affect other staff in the slightest, they are likely to notice and potentially comment on it. Sometimes, the best staff safety training is to help everyone become aware of unique needs, and to feel at home around them. This way everyone can focus on remaining a collaborative and comforted part of an office family. While this might not pose a direct lift to physical health, it can certainly help the emotional and social health of those within.

Working Conditions

It might be that the central hazards of your office have been nullified, and your staff are equipped to handle any issue that occurs. But you have them working 14 hour days, with only the smallest legal time allotment for breaks allowed, and are piling the work on harder and harder. It’s unlikely that those working conditions are going to be healthy. Improving the general safety of your office means improving working conditions, to ensure a healthy work/life balance.

Stress is one of the biggest contributors to early death than any other emotional state, and it can truly fracture a person should you put too much on their shoulders. That, or they’ll just quit. This means not only ensuring your staff are well taken care of is important, but encouraging a healthy office atmosphere, encourage a sense of mutual care between the members of your office, and allowing staff to report health issues or work complaints confidentially when necessary.

Investigation

You’re not going to prevent absolutely every workplace accident that could happen. Sometimes a simple unnoticed leak could lead to someone slipping in the bathroom. What matters that you are able to learn from the issues that slip through your fingers. Investigating and inspecting the matter at hand, what contributed to it, and how that might be prevented in the future can be essential.

This can also lead you to tailoring your safety policy, help you write a quick memo to your staff members about renewed safety, and, most importantly, give you time to help the injured party become slowly helped back to health.

With these tips, you’re sure to improve the general safety of your office.