Workplace safety must be the main priority of organisations around the world regardless of their sizes or type of operations because a safer and more hygienic workplace means more productive workers. Employers should realise this fact and make strategies to deploy a management system to keep their workers safe and healthy. The benefits of assuring workplace safety are not only limited to higher work productivity, but there are many more benefits that can be reaped by business as well as their employees. In this article, we emphasise the relevance of occupational health and safety (OHS) in organisations and explain how it can significantly impact their business performance or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Let’s have a look to know the significance of workplace safety in organisations.
When your organisation gets a definite management system for the health and safety of workers, it reduces accidents, hazards, stress, harassment, pressure, psychological disturbances, or other occupational risks to the workers. Ensuring workers’ safety and good health ultimately funnels down to benefit your business in several ways.
The first inevitable benefit of creating a safer workplace is increased retention of the workers. When the workers or employees know that your organisation cares about their wellbeing and safety, they develop a sense of belongingness. Furthermore, to ensure safety at the workplace, you need to implement an OHS management system and a policy to promote best practices across the organisation. The workers acknowledge the efforts of your organisation in protecting them with OHS practices and policies. This makes them feel more loyal to your organisation and urges them to work longer. If this was not the case and safety was not ensured in your workplace, the workers would search for other jobs where the working environment is safer and more comfortable for them.
By ensuring workplace safety, your organisation achieves three key things i.e., fewer or no accidents/injuries, minimisation of downtime, and increased motivation in the employees. These certainly result in an increase in the overall productivity of your organisation. Productivity also increases because employees do their job by following proper work instructions and safety precautions. For instance, workers in the construction industry are provided training on how to use safety kits like helmets and harness systems. Employee training is always a part of the OHS management program and so it ensures that workers are doing their work correctly and most efficiently avoiding any vulnerability. Also, when employees are ensured that the working environment is safe and poses no risk of injury, they do not have any feeling of anxiety or fearfulness. This enables them to work with more concentration and dedication. All these help your organisation to maintain higher productivity consistently.
Every penny invested in ensuring workplace safety has a significant return. This is true because when there are no OHS risks faced by your employees, your organisation does not have to bear the financial burden of compensating the workers and paying insurance claims for them. Also, your organisation is required to comply with all OHS regulations and guidelines imposed by federal and regulatory authorities or employees’ unions when it aims to ensure workers’ safety. Hence, this prevents your organisation from getting into serious legal prosecutions or facing financial losses such as fines or hefty compensations for not obeying any safety guidelines.
Organisations that encounter workplace accidents or hazards get recognised as irresponsible employers and that directly affects their brand image and reputation in the industry. It also impacts their talent acquisition efforts i.e., hiring of new workers. Potential candidates are not interested in joining the organisation if they have heard about its unsafe environment. By implementing OHS management practices for ensuring workplace safety, you can build a perception of your organisation as a safe and responsible employer. This helps you to attract new employees from the talented pool of candidates and aim for higher productivity.
The track record of maintaining a healthy and safer working environment gives a competitive advantage to your organisation. It not only builds trust and reliance on the workers but also on other interested parties in your business such as investors, partners, suppliers, and shareholders. With workplace safety assurance, your organisation can demonstrate its CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and attract investments and other viable expansion opportunities.
Ensuring workplace health and safety has become a moral obligation for organisations. It not just helps them to retain their productive workforce but also reduces their organisation’s liability and costly litigation issues. Unsafe working environment and frequent occurrence of hazards/accidents also lead to reputation damage of the organisation. It also leads to fearfulness and stress among the employees affecting their morale and hence productivity. Hence, workplace safety management is not only important for your employees but also for your business. We spent enough time on the benefits of assuring workplace safety to help you understand its significance in your organisation. Therefore, you should plan and make provisions for ensuring the safety of your workers such as an OHS policy, safety equipment, precautionary measures, and regular employee training.
If you still have not stressed your workers’ safety and health, it is time! We, at Compliancehelp, have a team of ISO management consultants who can assist you to put the right OHS management system adhering with ISO 45001, which is the internationally recognised standard for occupational health and safety. To get started, just contact our team today!
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