The workplace should be somewhere that everyone can feel safe, and the employer needs to put in processes that do this. Of course the description of the workplace can vary from person to person – for some it could be driving a vehicle, whereas for others it could be working outdoors, and for many it is working in an office.
In order to provide the people who work for you with the right equipment and training to feel safe, it is important to ensure that you assess the safety and work out all of the risks that might be part of the job.
In some jobs of course there will be more – for example, for people who are working at height, such as builders or tree surgeons, then there will need to be the right training and equipment in place to keep them safe. For people who work with hazardous materials, you will need to think of ways that they can be handled safely, as well as using PPE to keep the person safe.
Some risks are part of every workplace. Fire is a good example of this. Fires are something that you can do a lot to prevent. The first step to fire safety is to get an expert like this fire risk assessment Bristol based company keloscape.co.uk/areas-we-cover/fire-safety-consultancy-bristol to come and work out based on your workplace and the other factors, such as the materials used there, and the storage of things, what you need.
They will be able to then advise you of things that can be changed to make the place safer, such as using fireproof materials or changing how you store things. They can also advise you on things like fire extinguishers – there are many different types to deal with different fires, so they will be able to tell you the types that are suitable for you.
You also should have fire training. This means that employees need to know where to go and what to do if they notice a fire or if the fire alarm sounds. A fire assembly point and regular fire drills help to keep this fresh in people’s minds, and having a member of staff who can help to coordinate this will mean that the risk of someone being harmed in a fire is much lower.