The Importance of OSHA in the Workplace

Every worker deserves to work in a safe environment without hazards. This is why OSHA standards are strictly enforced. Contrary to popular belief, though, OSHA rules and regulations don’t just protect workers—they also benefit employers. After all, happy employees help increase a company’s productivity and profitability. Compliance with OSHA standards can also protect employers from legal problems.

Take Your Business to New Heights
A study conducted by researchers from the University of Warwick indicates that employee satisfaction can spike productivity by 12%. One of the most essential steps to keeping employees satisfied is to provide them with a safe and healthy workplace. When people feel like their safety is ignored by management, their productivity suffers.

Reduce Absenteeism
OSHA certification courses can dramatically reduce future accidents and health problems, thereby keeping your employees healthy and ready to work. Even if it means preventing just one accident or saving the life of just one person, OSHA standards are definitely worth applying.

Boost Profitability
Following OSHA standards can dramatically boost your company’s lucrativeness as it allows employees to work without incidents that may cause delays. With fewer injuries, there are also fewer workers’ comp claims, which ultimately means more profit at the end of the year.

Prevent Lawsuits and Legal Issues
OSHA inspectors will regularly visit your business location to assess its compliance with the latest standards, and documentation is provided when your company passes the inspection. With a recent inspection on file, personal injury lawsuits that are filed by workers become more difficult to defend. In a way, inspectors protect your company business from potential legal setbacks.

Understand more about the role and importance of OSHA by investing in OSHA certification courses for yourself, your managers, and your employees. You can find training classes for virtually everything - from confined space certification, ergonomics training to back injury prevention. Compliance issues vary depending on the nature of your business, so a custom program may be necessary.

Consult with the Impact Safety team if you are looking to protect assets, reduce risk, and ensure that your work environment is safe and compliant. The company provides consulting and OSHA training services that can be customized for your particular requirements, whatever industry you are in. Impact Safety has the experts, resources, and technologies to improve your safety program.

Why is Health and Safety Training so Important?

Organizations that expose workers to potential dangers in the workplace, including construction companies that use heavy equipment and machinery, as well as hospitals that deal in all kinds of health hazards require occupational health and safety training to ensure that critical health and safety principles are ingrained into their workplace culture. OSHA safety training should; however extend well beyond an employee’s introduction to their job, and must encompass changes to their job description and working conditions. Without proper understanding of the safety hazards and practices relating to their job, workers are at a higher risk of sustaining work-related injuries, illnesses, or even death.

Occupational health and safety training is crucial to company culture. New employees entering a company must be given the sense that the organization they are working for places high priority on their safety and wellbeing. When health and safety practices are ingrained into an organization’s culture there will be greater accountability in terms of the knowledge and practice of workplace-specific health and safety measures, policies, and procedures.

OSHA safety training must be based on the most relevant aspects of health and safety in an organization’s unique setting. Companies must carefully study safety and health related incidents in order to make necessary adjustments and changes to their standard procedures and policies, preventing similar accidents, illnesses and threats in the future. A head safety officer must be in place to be accountable in overseeing the collection and analysis of incident data, as well as reviewing such information with his or her interdisciplinary team. This way, executive leaders can better delegate development of better and more efficient safety training as new or revised procedures and policies are disseminated to managers and leaders. Managers, in turn, must ensure clear and effective relay of these changes in procedures and policies to affected workers or implement updated safety seminars and training programs to ensure the proper relay of information, organization-wide.

Good safety training contributes to the overall productivity and growth of a dynamic organization because safe and healthy workers can do their job more efficiently, with the peace of mind that they are protected from occupational hazards and that proper procedures are in place in case emergencies do occur. Safety training also helps ensure that proper safety procedures are in place to prevent workplace illnesses and accidents, among many other occupational risks.

The Importance of New Employee Safety Training

Recently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed that 40% of workplace injuries arose from employees who had worked on their job for less than one year. Based on this statistic, it is evident that new employees are a vulnerable group, and if not properly exposed to workplace safety training can become unfortunate victims.

Why new employees need safety training

• Having recently joined the workforce, the employer hasn’t given the new employee sufficient safety information. Too little knowledge can be dangerous knowledge!
• New employees are generally more likely to embrace ideas and information about how their new organization operates. The National Safety Council (NSC) advises that safety and health training should begin with employees at the initial induction stage. 
• NSC believes that new employees are more likely to experience a work-related incident due to lack of experience, a lack of familiarity with the company’s procedures and an over eagerness to work. 
• New employees are surprisingly left unattended to perform their jobs without being told about the dangers they may encounter while doing so. We believe this kind of mentality can be extremely dangerous and will increase workplace injuries.
• It’s been proven by research that new hires in their first month on the job have more risk for a lost-time injury. They need safety training.

Poorly trained or untrained employees definitely pose a threat to themselves and those working around them. This can be countered by exposing them to simple training and the reality of job site dangers. Safety training shouldn’t only be offered at the time of hiring, but a regular feature in the organization. In a BLS study of workers injured while operating power saws, nearly one in five said that no workplace safety training with the equipment had been provided, which should be an alarming eye opener.

Contact Impact Safety

Georgia-based Impact Safety in the US is a comprehensive safety source for businesses in all industries and fields looking to reduce risk, protect assets, and create a safe, compliant work environment. Founded on March 1, 2001, in Augusta, Impact Safety provides comprehensive safety programs to businesses located throughout the CSRA. Through its expert team, it has transformed workplaces into safer environments for over 35 years. Providing hands-on training, consulting, and emergency response, it provides clients with the most extensive safety services

the market offers. Their employees spend time in the field, not just in a training room. Every member on their team has the experience to deliver real-world applicable material that will take a firm’s ongoing safety program to the next level.