Workplace safety and emergency management is a plan on how emergency procedures should be carried out and how safety measures should be practiced to keep employees safe in the workplace. Let’s face it, emergencies can happen anytime in an organization and thus why all businesses must ensure that such emergency procedures are put in place and followed to later. Below are some of the workplace safety and emergency management which must be integrated into all businesses;
1. Risk Assessment
This involves evaluating the chances of a certain risk occurring in the workplace. This is usually carried out by specialists who are experienced at predicting and evaluating possible hazards likely to occur. Any business needs to ensure prior emergency procedures are kept in place to minimize the occurrence of such risk and preparation to combat such risk in case they occur.
2. Training Emergency Response Team
Here the employer can pick randomly some employees and train them on how to handle various risks. These employees will further educate their colleagues on what to do in case of occurrence of a hazard in the workplace. Such training ensures that employees remain calm in case of emergency and can safely evacuate their colleagues and other people in the workplace. Employers may ignore such a move but it is very critical to save lives and at the same time protect valuable assets of the business.
‘Most of us keep in touch with people in a variety of ways’ says David Rowland, the head of marketing Effective Software. ‘ These ways may include social media, email, and other technological solutions. Therefore, it stands to reason that an incident reporting system in your workplace should utilise these technologies, as most people have them immediately on hand.’
Additionally, this training may equip employees with the necessary skills to offer first aid to those victims who may suffer minor injuries during an emergency.
3. Organize Drills
Drills are similar to real hazard situations in business. It is meant to measure the level of preparedness of workers to handle various emergencies. It should be an impromptu activity for it to give more accurate results. From there the employees in the workplace can now be educated on tactics to counter such emergencies.
Further, these drills can be used to test how effective various emergency equipment such as fire sirens, fire extinguishers work and in case of any defects such equipment is replaced early enough.
4. Emergency Contact Numbers
Sometimes emergencies may occur to a high magnitude we didn’t expect; in such a circumstance it may require reinforcement from emergency teams handling such risks. It is in this regard that the employer should display emergency contacts that can be dialed in such scenarios to call the qualified emergency team to come into rescue.
5. Inform Workers Of Possible Hazards In The Workplace
Many of the risk which may occur in a workplace can be minimized by informing the workers of possible risks they may encounter while performing their duties. This prepares them psychologically and when working in such areas with a high likelihood of such risks occurring, they are very cautious and are well informed of what to do in case of any emergency.
Workplace safety and emergency management must be integrated into all business to ensure the safety and health of the employees is not left to chance. Moreover, this emergency management has emerged to be a policy set by the government and all businesses ought to comply with them.