Protecting the health and safety of all employees is a priority for small businesses, and an injury or illness to a critical team member could quickly throw a financial plan off track.
With that in mind, you may want to look into effective and affordable strategies to manage risk at your company. As a small business owner, it is important for you to provide the resources and tools your workers need to do their jobs without fear of an on-the-job hazard. In order to help with that goal, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration recently released a new online webtool for small businesses to better identify hazards in the office.
“Hazard identification is a critical part of creating an injury and illness prevention program that will keep workers safe and healthy on the job,” said Dr. David Michaels, OSHA’s assistant secretary of labor. “This new tool not only educates employers about how to take control of their workplaces and protect workers, it also demonstrates that following well-established safety practices is also good for the bottom line.”
This new small business resource will allow users to act as either the owner or an employee, working through various scenarios such as information collection, observation, accident investigation and other common tasks.
How to identify workplace hazards
Finding problems early on will give your company plenty of time to make the needed changes to limit the impact on the workforce. To do that, you’ll want to implement the best risk management strategies to both identify and correct hazards.
According to Amity Insurance, there are several key steps. Three important ones include:
- Identify risks
- Determine vulnerability
- Create a plan of action
For starters, walk through your company to figure out weaknesses. Problems can arise with property loss, liability issues, health factors or business interruptions. Figure out where hazards can materialize by watching your staff members operate and interviewing them for insights. This way, you’ll have all the information you need to develop an effective plan to correct any risks.