Tess Taylor The Occupational Safety & Heal
th Administration offers free and confidential advice to small and medium-sized businesses. These consultations are able to help small businesses determine where they could benefit from additional facility safety measures and associate safety training. While optimizing facility safety can be done by putting additional safety materials in place, the best way to keep accidents from occurring in the workplace is through comprehensive employee training.
An OSHA safety training program will do all of the following:
- Workers will be introduced to safety products they weren’t aware of before
- Workers will be trained how to handle potentially hazardous materials in a safe manner
- Experts will show workers how to prevent hazards from occurring in the workplace
- Safety training makes employees more confident in their ability to safely do their jobs
By making workers aware of safety products and procedures that weren’t previously known, the OSHA program can effectively reduce, and even eliminate, severe injuries that occur on the worksite. These procedures can even save the lives of workers in some industries.
Employees that are trained to properly handle hazardous materials can reduce insurance costs to a business by limiting the number of accidents, injuries and chemical related illnesses that occur on site. This, in turn, results in fewer work days missed and greater productivity while on the job.
Having a well trained workforce on the job makes the entire business run more smoothly. Lost man hours are hard to recover, especially in a small business setting. A single skilled worker might be the key to getting products produced or services delivered on time. If that one worker is injured and cannot be quickly replaced, it could lead to a bottleneck in business and cause a significant number of wasted man hours.
Having a confident workforce breeds a sense of safety and security within the company. It is much easier to run a business with employees who feel that their safety and needs are being taken care of by those in places of power. Employees that feel they are being taken care of don’t search for alternative jobs and remain loyal employees for a much longer period of time. It is no secret that a group of people that have been together for a long period of time are much more productive than those that haven’t. They get to know the way that their co-workers function and can easily get into rhythm with them. Productivity, in areas where employees have worked together a long period of time, is almost always at its peak.
Implementing an OSHA safety training program can help a business prevent injuries, illnesses and other employee time losses which leads to high productivity while at the same time lowering insurance claims and thus insurance premiums.
