There were 4,764 fatal work injuries recorded in the USA in 2020. If you don’t want your company to add to this statistic, you need a serious safety policy. So how can you put together a safety policy that will actually keep you and your employees safe?

This article lists four key ways to put together a safety policy that actually works. 

1. Have Regular Varied Training

One of the most important things you can do for employee safety has regular safety training. Many organizations simply have a single day of safety training a year and call it a day. 

Unfortunately, this is not enough to keep your employees safe. Ideally, your organization should have multiple training sessions per year. This helps you to keep safety at the forefront of everyone’s minds and also allows you to focus on particular issues during a session. 

For example, something like ammonia refrigeration training should be its own training session. 

2. Create a Culture of Workplace Safety

Simply having workplace safety training isn’t enough to create a safe organization. You need to actively try and create a safe workplace culture. One way you can do this is through regular training sessions. 

Another way you can do it is to make sure every employee feels empowered to report potential safety issues. Everyone should know who they need to talk to in the event of safety concerns. They also need to feel like management will take them seriously. 

If there’s a perception that management doesn’t care about safety, your organization can never have a good safety culture. 

3. Assign Responsibility

It’s also vital that you establish who is responsible for what. For example, do you have someone who is in charge of investigating potential safety violations? 

Lack of assigned responsibility can result in diffusion of responsibility. This is when no one takes action during a critical situation because everyone thinks someone else is accountable.

You can eliminate the possibility of this happening by assigning clear roles for your staff. 

4. Have a Proactive Safety Policy

Unfortunately, many companies only wait until there’s a serious safety incident to take workplace safety seriously. Smart management involves taking proactive safety measures such as drip trays to manage chemical leaks and spills. To browse some high quality Australian drip trays click here.

You need to look for potential safety issues and address them before they have the chance to cause you or your company problems. If some areas are too dangerous or off limit, then you should install safety barriers to make sure unauthorized people can’t get in. Furthermore, there are various safety barrier designs that you can use, check out more options here if you wish to learn more. Taking a reactive approach could have serious safety consequences. 

Bringing in a safety consultant is a great way to take a proactive approach to safety. 

A Good Safety Policy Saves Lives

As a responsible small business owner, it’s your responsibility to have a solid safety policy. It’s not enough to just do a safety seminar here and there and call it a day. You need to make a serious effort to create a strong security culture with clear roles and responsibilities. 

If you want to learn more about some other work-related topics, take a look at some of our other articles.