Providing safety related training to employees is a wise and crucial step which should be taken by every organisation. However, not every company realises its importance and that is why the need for such training is usually overlooked and considered time consuming and costly. It should be remembered at by arranging basic safety training courses for your employees, you can save yourself, your employees and your organisation from severe consequences later on.
The first and foremost reason why so much emphasis is put on offering safety and health related training to employees is to increase awareness among them. Every workplace has its own risks, be it a corporate office or construction site. Although the type and severity of dangers at your workplace can vary, it can still cause immense harm to your employees and your business. Therefore, to make your employees informed about the various types of risks and dangers that exist at the workplace, it is essential to conduct safety training related courses from time to time.
Along with increasing the knowledge of employees, you can also make them efficient in facing possible dangers. For example, in offices computers and other machinery is regularly used. Being electrical appliances, these can many times lead to shock and fire. During safety training you can educate your employees about the possible ways through which they can deal with such a situation. It will not only equip them to safe themselves, but protect others and their workplace as well.
As mentioned above, the types of dangers present can vary from one workplace to another. Therefore, it is the duty of the owner to ensure that the employees are given complete information through a designed safety training course. The personnel accountable for imparting this knowledge should include all the aspects which are essential for the employees should know, relevant to their nature of work and workplace. Risk assessment can prove to be great use in such a case. By assessing all the risks and danger present at the workplace, you can devise ways in which these should be handled. Once these ways have been tried and verified, then the same information can be passed on to the employees, who can make use of it as per the situation.
Primarily, it is essential that the employees are aware of how to react and who to approach in the case of danger. Besides this, the do’s and don’ts of safety should also be properly taught to the workers. The procedure of site evacuation, fire precautions, accident reporting, right use of protective equipment and location of the fire extinguisher are some of the other crucial aspects to be included in a comprehensive safety training course.
Neglecting the importance of safety training courses can adversely affect your organisation in more ways than one. For example, lost work hours, low production, poor performance and higher insurance premium are some of the results which the absence of safety and health training can lead to. On the other hand, by including safety training in their induction, you can make sure that every employee understands his safety related responsibilities and duties well and can play his role in safeguarding the workplace environment.
