Injuries Your Employees Could Suffer On the Job

By Julius Choudhury

Business owners want to do everything they can to keep their employees safe when on the job. However, as much as you can have proper safety training and encourage sensible movement around the workplace, accidents will happen.

When these accidents occur, it can be a blow to productivity and morale, and that's before considering how it can affect the injured worker mentally. You must do everything you can to ensure they stay safe when working for you, as negligence regarding safety procedures will only spell disaster for you, your employees, your business, and its reputation.

To get an idea of the most common injuries your employees may encounter, here is a handy little guide which can help you work out the best steps to take to prevent them.

Slips, Trips, and Falls

Slips, trips, and falls can happen in any workplace anywhere in the world. They can be caused by wet floors, errant cables, or untidy floors and present a hazard for everybody no matter their position in the company.

These dangers can cause serious injury in an instant, so you must design a procedure that ensures the workplace is free from slip, trip, and fall hazards. Encourage workers to tidy up after themselves and create organization techniques to keep the workplace safe.

Conversely, if you are a worker who's experienced an injury without the proper compensation, particularly if you work on the docks, Hofmann & Schweitzer's maritime accident attorneys can give you the support you need that you may not have received.

Crashes or Collisions

Crashes or collisions will occur either on large construction sites with heavy machinery, factories with forklifts, or even on the highway with freight drivers. You hope they will be infrequent. However, this is not something you can predict, and there is a variety of factors that could cause these issues.

One of the most common causes is a lack of paying attention from the drivers or workers walking through the site. However, it's not always the fault of those operating the vehicle. For freight drivers transporting goods and supplies across the country, they can experience a crash caused by other drivers on the road.

In this instance, it's essential to train them to follow the correct procedures to obtain the other party's details and encourage them to call you or someone else in the company to help talk them through any trauma if they require calming down.

Muscle Strains

While crashes, collisions, slips, trips, and falls are all common and potentially dangerous workplace injuries, muscle strains are another issue you need to look out for. Unlike the other injuries though, they are rarely accidents, and instead, occur from mistakes made by the employee.

A significant cause of muscle strains are back and neck strains, which happen when lifting heavy items. Often, some boxes and equipment are too small to use heavy machinery, but if the worker does not understand how to lift correctly, then it can cause an injury, pull a muscle, and put them on desk duty until they recover. The same strains can also happen in office environments from sitting still all day, so encourage your workers to take regular breaks to stretch their muscles.

Falling Objects

Objects can fall anywhere at any time, and it's not just something that occurs in factories. Items can fall from cupboards of the top of shelves, so make sure the person responsible for organizing these cupboards does so safely.

To further reduce the potential for injuries caused by falling objects, on-site policies requiring everyone, regardless of their duty, to wear a hardhat. This will prevent head injuries which at their most minor can be a headache but at their worst could cause concussions and more severe brain injuries.

Dangerous Fumes

Most workplaces do not use harsh, toxic chemicals during the production of the product or when providing a service. But those that do should minimize the danger by encouraging face maks and safety goggles to prevent damage to the face and eyes.

The thing about fumes is that it is not immediately evident when they affect your workers, and it could be further down the line, potentially years in some cases, where the side effects start to show. Anything that stops fumes and dust entering the lungs is crucial and will keep them healthy long after they have stopped working for you.

Keeping Everybody Safe

The success and growth of your business are crucial. However, believing that it is more important than the health and safety of your employees is a quick way to experience continuous turnover and dissatisfied employees. Putting your employees' health first will help you cultivate a productive and enjoyable workplace where everyone is safe and healthy.