As an employer, it is your responsibility to make sure that you ensure your employees are always safe. If employees end up getting injured at work then they will hold you responsible. A common consequence of workplace injury is a lawsuit. If employees mount a lawsuit against you then you could end up losing your business. In addition to lawsuits, employees that are injured because of negligence on your part will seriously impact your reputation. People will not want to work with you in the future and nobody will want to buy products from your business. Consumers are very selective about who they do business with nowadays. Any bad press about your business can be detrimental to its sales.
However, the vast majority of workplace injuries are not actually the employer’s fault. More often than not they are caused by the negligence of other employees. For example, cleaners sometimes forget to put up hazard signs warning of wet floors. Other times, employees do not notify others of potentially dangerous objects, i.e., copy machines that give people electric shocks or chairs that are broken and could potentially collapse. As an employer, you need to make sure that your workplace is totally safe and that there is a culture of communication, so issues like the aforementioned are quickly raised and resolved.
This post will tell you how you can ensure the safety of your employees:
Contacting A Lawyer
If you have been injured, you need a lawyer’s help. Under no circumstances should you ever attempt to take your employer to court for compensation without one. Independent claims rarely work out. It takes years of experience to be able to navigate the complex world of personal injury claims. Whether it’s injury lawyers in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, or New York, make sure you hire the most talented and experienced one that you can. A good way of telling whether a lawyer is worth hiring or not is to read their reviews. A lawyer’s reviews can tell you a lot about their commitment to their work.
One thing you will be pleased to know is that the vast majority of personal injury lawyers offer their services on contingency bases. A contingency arrangement basically involves paying for your legal services once you have won your case, rather than before. One of the best things about these arrangements is that you don’t have to pay if your lawyer doesn’t win. Because of this, they are also called no-win-no-fee plans.
Ensuring Workplace Safety
The first thing that you need to do if you want to ensure that your employees are safe is to systematically go through your office or warehouse and look for any potential hazards. If you do not have the time to do this yourself, then you can hire a hazard inspector to do this for you. Hazard inspectors are abundant online. If you are planning on employing such an individual then in addition to reading their reviews, you also need to take a look at their portfolio. Try to only hire hazard inspectors who have worked for big multinational companies in the past. While such individuals will be very expensive, the level of care and attention they put into their work will be unparalleled.
Of course, not all business owners are in good enough financial positions to justify hiring hazard inspectors. If your business is not generating enough profit to make hiring such an individual worthwhile, you can go through your business’s physical locations yourself. As long as you exercise some common sense and take great care you should be able to identify potential hazards. Any that you do notice should be resolved immediately. Delaying repairs could lead to people injuring themselves.
Signposting Potential Hazards
If you notice any potential hazards at work then you need to make sure that you signpost them immediately. The sooner that you put signs up notifying people of the danger that these hazards pose, the better. If you are aware of potential hazards in your workplace and do not put up signs, anybody who injures themselves could claim a massive amount of compensation back from you. By signposting, you have protected yourself legally. Then, if anybody does injure themselves it is entirely their responsibility. It is a good idea to ensure that you have cameras throughout your office or warehouse so that if anybody does injure themselves in areas where signposts have been put up, you’ll be protected from legal action.
You also need to make sure that you instruct employees to put up signs whenever they notice any hazards also. If your employees are not proactive and pushing up signs then potential assets could go ignored. In addition to asking them to put up signs, you should also encourage them to come to you and notify you of any dangers. Make sure that you institute a system whereby employees who do not notify you of any damages are punished. By punishing employees who do not notify you of dangers to other employees, you will motivate all of your employees to come straight to you.
Culture of Safety
As noted in the previous section, you need to make sure that your employees report directly to you whenever they notice anything that could be a potential hazard to other employees. Creating a culture of safety in your workplace should be one of your main priorities as an employer. Unfortunately, lots of employers today have absolutely no consideration for the safety or health of their employees, and as a consequence, never pay any attention to potential hazards.
Motivating employees by fear is one of the most effective ways of cultivating a culture of Safety at Work. In the previous section, reference was given to the fact that you can motivate employees to report to you when they notice hazards by punishing those who do not. In addition to punishing people, you should also incentivize reporting hazards by giving people bonuses and gifts when they do. Giving people bonuses and gifts is one of the other most effective ways of creating such a culture.
When you are in charge of a large business, it can be hard keeping everybody safe. However, in spite of how challenging it is, it is still your responsibility as an employer. You can keep your staff safe by following the tips set out here in this post.