How to Avoid Accidents in the Workplace

‍Workplace accidents are an ongoing problem in the UK, despite a decades-long campaign to reduce their impact and incidence. Accident rates can drive down productivity by dampening morale and pushing up rates of absenteeism.

They can expose a company to legal risk, too: if you’re a victim of a workplace accident, then you can easily hold your employer to account with the help of a no-win, no-fee solicitor.

High accident rates can also inflict reputational damage on a company. If an organisation is known for being insufficiently serious when it comes to worker safety, it might have difficulty attracting the best workers.

So, what steps might we take to drive down accident rates? Let’s take a look at a few key things to do.

Conduct a risk assessment

Your first step toward a safer workplace is a risk assessment. This is a process of identifying risks, and outlining steps that might be taken to minimise them. Your risk assessment might be conducted internally, or you might bring a specialist third party in to do it for you. You might even extend your risk assessment to home workers, who are exposed to risks of a different kind.

What really matters is that your risk assessments are conducted periodically and consistently. Each assessment should examine the recommendations of the last, and determine whether appropriate action has been taken, and how effective that action has been.

Ongoing training

Workers need the right knowledge and skills to remain safe. You can impart these things with the help of the right training schemes. Training should be provided on an ongoing basis, in the form of refresher courses. It might also be provided as part of an onboarding process for new employees.

There might be particular instances where training becomes appropriate in other cases. For example, an accident or risk assessment might reveal a cultural problem that needs to be addressed immediately, with the help of the right training program.

PPE

Certain workplaces come with particular kinds of hazards. A woodworker might have to contend with saw blades, airborne sawdust, and the din of loud motors over the course of a day. A combination of ear protection, eye protection, facemasks and protective gloves might all help mitigate these risks. Other workers might benefit from hard hats, high-vis jackets, and thick steel-capped boots.

Signage

The right signage will help to raise awareness of particular risks where those risks are most acute. If there are workmen operating in a given part of a premises, it’s vital that staff, customers, and visitors know about it. The right signage can help to convey the message.

Accident reporting procedure

Putting in place a proper process for reporting accidents will help to ensure that you have the information required to act, and prevent those accidents from happening again. Employers are required to record and report workplace injuries, so keeping an accident book and maintaining it will help you stay on the right side of the law.