How to Avoid Common (and Expensive!) Workplace Injuries

Workplace injuries are unavoidable, especially in the manufacturing or trades industries where the majority of employees are responsible for handling heavy machinery, equipment, and vehicles. According to OSHA, roughly 3 million workers in the U.S. private sector are injured every year, and companies end up spending $170 billion a year just to cover occupational injuries and illnesses. However, there are some things you can do to prevent workplace injuries to save your employees from pain — and your bottom line paying out worker's compensation claims.

Here are some easy ways to avoid common, and often expensive, workplace injuries.

Provide Extensive Training

All workers need to be knowledgeable about OSHA standards, and comply with safety standards on the workplace or manufacturing floor. Make sure all new hires and existing employees are well aware of these standards by providing comprehensive training during and after the orientation process.

Reinforce Safety Practices

Whether your managers are leading a team for a new project or you're hiring a larger team of workers to oversee operations of a department, make sure to reinforce all of your safety practices and conduct performance evaluations, if needed. Reinforcing safety practices will make sure everybody is following the same guidelines.

Have Specific Setup and Closing Down Procedures in Place

Since many of your employees will be shift workers, they need to be walking in and out of a nonhazardous work environment. Make sure every worker spends the first and last sections of their scheduled shift taking care of setup and closing-down duties, so the next worker can take over without any problems. This may require completing a safety checklist or similar document to ensure everything has been handled appropriately.

Workplace injuries can be expensive and also lead to staffing shortages or high employee turnover. If you need assistance managing your staff and hiring high-quality, experienced candidates, talk to the professionals at Bear Staffing today.

Key Takeaways:

• Make sure all employees have completed an extensive training program about safety standards
• Get into the habit of reinforcing safety practices
• Implement specific setup and closing down procedure so the next worker can take over without any problems