Whenever a company experiences a crisis, such as a cyber-attack, workplace violence, human-made disaster, or a global pandemic like COVID-19, being proactive helps manage the situation. Employees must be equipped with resources to understand and respond to the situation. Above all else, continuous communication is vital. Workplace safety training programs are a series of processes that offer employees the knowledge and skills to perform their work effectively without injuring themselves or a coworker. An effective plan includes guidelines to identify potential hazards, report them, and manage incidents.
Incident reporting is crucial to create a safer workplace and identify how your company can continually improve its environment. After an incident, it is important to have a quick method to relay the message to all your employees to prevent it from happening again. Employers’ legal and moral responsibility includes teaching their employees to perform their tasks safely and healthily. Safety training is an integral part of the employee onboarding process and must stay up to date. With more and more businesses employing remote workers, safety training tools and formats shouldn’t require on-site presence. Also, with the “gig economy” becoming prevalent across all industries, training programs should be easily customizable for onboarding.
The Importance of Workplace Safety Training
Beyond regulation and moral responsibility, there are many benefits to investing more time and money in workplace safety training programs.
Increases Employee Awareness
No matter what industry you work in, every workplace has its hazards, and they are often things that you may not consider hazardous without proper training. Employee training in health and safety is needed to educate employees on the workplace’s various hazards and how to manage them. Proper training will cover how to identify workplace hazards, address them, and avoid them. Training should be industry-specific, comprehensive, and high quality so that it’s more useful and relevant.
Reduce Accidents and Injuries
A key benefit of health and safety training programs is reducing the number of incidents in the workplace. Workplace incidents can range from minor illnesses and injuries to serious life-threatening accidents.
Help Retain Talent
One of the biggest struggles faced by businesses is keeping their high-performing team members. Developing a strong team is extremely costly to organizations, so it is essential to retain talent. Investing in employee safety shows that you value your team, which is a great hiring and retention strategy. Those who feel valued are much more likely to stay with the same company.
Boost Productivity
Effective health and safety training will also help to increase productivity as it means less work-related accidents and illnesses, causing absences from work. Absences can lead to negative effects on a company’s productivity and significantly damage performance.
Promoting better safety practices through training can save your business tons of money by keeping productivity up.
Stronger Safety Culture
Training in workplace safety increases team members’ investment in the process. It will lead to employees taking responsibility to ensure that theirs is a safe workplace. The whole team will be much more likely to promote a safe work environment and identify and address issues as they arise, leading to fewer accidents, illnesses, and absences.
Safety Law Compliance
Businesses have very specific legal responsibilities regarding workplace safety. Comprehensive and effective training is needed to ensure compliance.
When an employee becomes injured or ill due to work, the organization could be held liable for legal action, which may become financially detrimental to the company. Health and safety training protects companies from potential lawsuits and compensation claims.
Save Money and Reduce Stress
Workplace health and safety training is a smart investment that will pay off in the long run. Workplace accidents and illness can be very costly for lawsuits, compensation, productivity, and direct losses. Medical expenses, medication, rehabilitation, and indirect costs can add up. It is not only physical illness and injury that businesses need to worry about either, as emotional and mental well-being is also a significant concern in modern workplaces.
Long-term issues such as lack of focus, anxiety, and lowered productivity can also cause physical health issues, including digestive problems, insomnia, and headaches. An Augusta safety training program can cover strategies to manage workplace stressors.
Encourage Communication
Incidents often occur when employees fail to notify their supervisor or colleagues about issues, problems, or hazards. The best safety programs will educate employees regarding effective communication on these matters and empower them to handle them better.
Encourage better communication and foster an environment of open-communication on health and safety within your team on issues to lead to a more productive, efficient, and happier workplace overall.
About Provident Protection Plus
At Provident Protection Plus, we have served the businesses and residents of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania for more than 65 years. We are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Provident Bank, the region’s premier banking institution, and we are prepared to offer you personal, business, employee benefits, and risk management solutions. To learn more about our coverage options, contact our specialists today at (888) 990-0526.