Back to blog 01/28/2019

What You Can Do to Ensure Environmental Safety at Your Organization

No matter what the nature of your work, accidents do happen. Even a simple office space can pose potential risks for serious illness or injury. To avoid such mishaps, many organizations have invested the required time and resources in ensuring the safety of their work environment.

There are, in fact, several ways in which you, as a company, can help provide a safe workplace atmosphere for your employees.

Give Safety Training:

This is perhaps the most effective way to reduce the risk of injury in the workplace. By empowering employees and educating them on how to be aware of their surroundings as well as what to do in times of crisis, an organization can instill the need to take special care around dangerous equipment and chemicals.

Eliminate Workplace Hazards:

An ordinary work environment can pose serious health risks if not maintained on a regular basis. Whether the risk is from faulty machinery, leakages or even slippery floors, it is your responsibility as an employer to ensure the physical well-being of your workers. This can be done via regular maintenance of equipment as well as by placing warning signs or rubber mats to prevent slips and falls.

Provide Safety Gear:

Training employees to adhere to safety rules and procedures is not enough; as their employer, it is your job to provide them with the right gear that will ensure their protection as they do their work. Tools such as rubber gloves, safety goggles, and hard hats help protect employees from injury in case of an accident.

Test Employees for Drug and Alcohol Abuse:

The risk of injury increases if an employee is intoxicated while performing a dangerous task. If a worker is prone to taking drugs or alcohol on the job then not only is he a danger to himself but he/she also poses a great risk to others around him. Organizations, therefore, must conduct regular medical examinations of employees that test them for drug and alcohol abuse and also enforce rules that discourage its use, especially at the workplace.

At Diversified Maintenance, the Director of Environmental Health and Safety leads the safety initiative.  Employees are trained on the equipment and chemical usage as well as other hazards related to the facilities they work in. Through these measures, the Company wants to ensure that no employee is in harm’s way and that their physical safety at the workplace is secure.