Your employees are the heart and soul of your business, and they’re always going to be. They keep the cogs turning in your operations, and there’s always someone manning the customer serviced desk, possibly dealing with impatient customer after impatient customer! They do their best work for you, and your business wouldn’t be the same without their hard work and dedication to your company.
But the working world is just as dangerous as any other, and there’s a lot of hazards out there that your employees are going to come into contact with on a daily basis. Slipping and falling on wet floors that aren’t signposted, bumping into each other in the corridor and getting scalding hot coffee all over the shirt, falling off their desk chair after using it as a step stool, etc. These are all obvious dangers we’re trained, and have the common sense, to avoid.
But what about the less common dangers? What about the dangers of the working world we don’t often think about, or don’t like thinking about? How do we prepare for them, and keep our employees safe from them? After all, whenever they’re on the company clock, the people who work for you are your responsibility.
So here’s just a few of the worst and most understated dangers an employee of yours might face one day whilst in work. Make sure you stay aware of them.
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Having a Sick Colleague
When you’re working in close quarters with a team of least 8 other people, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, an epidemic is going to flow through the office every now and then. People are crammed together in this little building block that is your company headquarters, always in contact with each other, and who knows who fast the sniffles are going to get around each and every occupied desk cubicle!
But more than that; if one of your employees is sick, they can compromise the rest of your team. So if someone comes in whilst ill, and has a hard time focusing on their work and feeling up to seeing the full shift out, they can very easily infect your other employees, and slow them all down as well. And that means, instead of just being one team member down, and being able to cover the work yourself, you now have your whole team calling in sick because they can’t even get out of bed with the flu.
Remember, bacteria spreads fast and easily, and there’s a good chance at least one member of your staff isn’t as up to date on their vaccinations as the rest of them. They can be a very weak link in the chain, weakening your company as a whole. It’s an expensive headache no business owner wants to deal with, and can even lead to health and safety investigations within your office.
Accidents Involving Company Vehicles
It’s scary for someone to be involved in an accident on the road when behind the wheel of their own vehicle, but this effect is doubled when they’re behind the wheel of a company car. It’s a car they don’t own, they don’t quite know how the insurance works, and the cost might even come out of the paycheck, should any repairs be needed. Even worse, if the vehicle is a write off, it can invoke some harsh new restrictions for the entire companies. For example, if employees are allowed to take company vehicles home with them, and someone on your team only has a company car to rely on to get to and from work, instituting a rule that no longer allows them to use this car outside of company hours is going to seriously affect their life.
But it makes the chance of being in an accident considerably less, and more often than not, company owners like to live in the knowledge that they won’t be covering crash costs any time soon. Having to fork out for something like semi truck accident lawyers who provide executive treatment can be a very costly time in a small business’ lifecycle, even when the lawyers in questions specialise in making the whole process a lot easier on you.
Having a Machine Malfunction
Even in a regular office, where the only machines in question are computers, printers, copy machines, and fax machines, a machine malfunction can be a danger. Machines can blow fuses in the power supply, taking the whole office down for a few hours before the power is fixed, and they can spit ink and spark and even explode from use from time to time.
Which is why it’s so important all employees know how to use machines like these, and that you have clear rules in place for the amount of paper being churned out of the printer or pricing on the different amounts of copies someone can make. You want to be sure you’re not wasting any materials and resources, and you want to be sure the machines you use on a daily basis are never being pushed beyond their means. Even technology can break down on us, and needing to buy upgrades and updates on a yearly basis can put a severe dent in everyone’s paycheck.
Having an Ineffective Team Leader
If your employees are working under a manager that is less than stellar in their position, the working environment can become toxic at best, and someone can lose their job at the worst. After all, you’re more likely to take your manager’s word over a junior employee, and often enough, rumours spread in an office faster than they do in a children’s playground.
As the owner, you’ll always need to keep an eye on the people you’ve put in a position of power. Conduct quarterly reviews on their performance, and train them in HR management. Make sure they deserve to have authority over the team they were once a part of.
Dangers in the workplace are numerous; are you aware of them all?
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