On the people side of the house, just because your staff are dealing with white-collar roles doesn’t necessarily mean they’re immune to risks and hazards faced by their counterparts in the blue-collar department.
Workers who need to work long hours trying to beat deadlines run the risk of dozing off while driving home from work, which, needless to say, can lead to fatalities or life-threatening injuries.
Even while inside company premises with seemingly adequate security measures in place, theft and burglary can happen. A faulty wiring system can end in a fire, or a sick colleague can cause half of your workforce to follow him all the way to the hospital, impeding the continuity of your operations pretty significantly.
Your ability to map out such risks and uncertainties in a hazard register complete with forms, lists and templates to help you analyze, manage and devise measures to mitigate such risks can go a long way.
Workplace hazards
Ensuring employee safety doesn’t end within the company’s premises. If your business is located outside the city or in an unpopulated vicinity, especially if street lights are few and far between, your employees’ safety is at risk. If an armed altercation or a robbery is happening in the same building as your office, your employees are at risk, too. |
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To keep situations from getting out of hand, consider the following:
- if your employees need to come to work very early or leave the company premises very late, be ready with company-sponsored transportation
- come up with probable risks that employees face whenever they deal with a good amount of cash
- install security cameras within and near the office
Communicable illnesses
Whenever the flu season comes, it’s normal to expect a lot of your workers to either call in sick or cough and sneeze while trying to get some things done. This doesn’t do much good for your department’s operations, especially if those who were not previously sick are now also sick because of all those coughing and sneezing, and can result in delays and missed deadlines.While constant reminders about taking extra precautions during the cold winter months help, the fact remains that some things just cannot be helped, especially since companies grant their employees limited sick days.
The following measures can be taken to mitigate this risk:
- separate work area for sick staff
- more flexible sick leave policy
- seasonal vaccination schedules for employees
- health and safety trainings
Driving-related fatalities
Aside from sleep deprivation, employees can get themselves involved in fatal or life-altering vehicular accidents because of depression. Depression, as we all know, can be caused by stress brought about by:- too much work with impossible deadlines
- life-work imbalance affecting familial relationships
To prevent this risk from happening, the following may actually help:
- ensure standard and expected employee work hours
- devise ways to ascertain work-life balance through adequate vacation time-offs, child and elderly care where necessary
Final word
Your employees are your most important assets. Ensuring their safety at all times isn’t just a legal aspect you have to comply with. In combination with other well thought-out corporate initiatives, it’s a sound strategy to guarantee business longevity.
MaricelAbout the Guest Author:
Maricel is a freelance web writer with over 10 years of freelance writing experience. Currently, she writes web content for Comindware, a corporate solutions provider.