If you are to make sure that those who work for you are as happy to do so as possible, there are a number of things you need to look into and make sure you are doing properly. One of the most important of these is that you are doing everything in your power to keep your employees safe, as this is both a moral and a legal responsibility that you have as their employer. Of course, they also have a responsibility to keep themselves safe, but you still always need to keep up your end of the bargain. In today’s post, we are going to discuss some of the most important and valuable ways you can do so, in order to ensure that those who work for you can do so in peace and without fear of danger, and so that your business can ultimately thrive.
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Protecting The Premises
A big part of ensuring that your employees are safe is doing whatever you can to protect the premises. Generally, as a rule anything that protects the premises is also going to effectively protect the employees, so it is worth looking into some of the more important things in this regard. One of the bigger concerns that you need to focus on is to ensure that you are keeping the premises safe from particularly large problems such as the occasional natural disaster. It might seem unlikely to happen, but that is exactly why you need to think about it – so that you are protected for even those extremely rare circumstances. You never know when you might get an earthquake, so a seismic retrofit for your building is not a bad idea. Similarly, keeping safe from fire and flood and so on is absolutely a wise move to make, as it ensures that your premises will be safe during those times, and that your employees will be too, most importantly.
That’s not the only way in which you might need to protect the premises however. One of the most common problems you are likely to run into is that of break-ins. These come in many forms, and sometimes they are not quite as violent as you might imagine. They can actually be very subtle: it can be a case of someone managing to sneak in during the day who doesn’t have a right to be there. This is always going to be a potential threat to your employees, so you need to make sure that you are keeping a watch on the entrances and exits with your security team. Similarly, make sure that everyone has ID so that they can be checked upon entering, just in case.
Of course, sometimes it will be a burglary in the dead of night. This might not immediately cause harm to your employees, but they will feel much less safe if this happens, so you will want to make sure that you do everything you can to avoid it. Alarm systems, locks, security outfits and the like are all bound to do just that. Make sure you don’t skimp on any of these if you are hoping to keep your premises secure. As long as your premises are safe and secure, your people largely will be too. But there are many other practices and concerns which you are probably going to need to think about too, which are also worth looking into here.
Health & Safety
You should already be well aware of the importance of the issue of health and safety. Your health and safety is something which you need to focus on all the time, and so does everyone else in the business. There will be certain legal responsibilities which you need to be aware of here, but generally actually they are only the minimum of what you should be doing. If you want to make sure that you are keeping your people as safe as possible, you need to do as much as you can with regards to health and safety to make that a reality. Let’s take a look at some of the more important elements of this.
First of all, make sure that you have risk management protocols for everything that you can. You need to do this every year, so it is worth doing as fully and completely as you can. That will mean that you know exactly what potential risks there are for your employees in different situations, which is hugely valuable knowledge you can use to keep them as safe as necessary. Part of this is ensuring that there is a decent fire safety protocol, and this needs looking at every six months. You need to make sure that all of your employees know what to do if there is a fire – where to go and so on – as well as how to make the chances of a fire occurring in the first place as small as possible. If you can do that, you will find that you are much more likely to be able to keep your employees happy and safe, as fire is something that concerns most people more than many other things in the office with regard to safety.
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As well as that, you need to make sure that you provide regular health and safety training for your employees. Although they might find such sessions boring, they are a necessary and integral part of keeping the employees safe, and yourself safe, and you should make sure not to overlook this essential legal process. You will also find that having someone in charge of health and safety to champion it is going to really make a huge difference too. As long as you do all that, you are probably doing whatever you need to from a health and safety perspective, which is one of the most important parts of keeping them all as safe as possible.
All of that will add together to ensure that your employees are as safe as possible at all times at work, so it is important to focus on as best as you can.
