Safety First, Always: HR's Role in Building a Secure Work Environment

While performing various job operations, every employee deserves to be in a safe and healthy environment. Employers have a legal obligation to offer suitable working conditions for their employees, but they also have a moral obligation. Regardless of the size of your company or the sector you work in, workplace safety is of the utmost significance. 

The following aspects are the reasons why workplace safety is important:

• Improved productivity: Employees are prone to worry about their safety if the workplace is unsafe, especially at high-risk locations like factories and construction sites. Since they will feel motivated to accomplish their tasks if more attention to workplace safety is provided, enhancing workplace safety is essential as it can drastically boost workplace productivity. 
  
  
• Chances of workplace injuries and fatalities decrease: Injury incidents at work occur more frequently than they should. The impact of an employee's accident can be terrible, depending on its seriousness. Recognizing workplace risks is crucial to prevent receiving negative headlines about the business, sizable compensation claims, and the danger of losing potential investors or clients. 
  
  
• Lesser workers' compensation costs: It's inevitable to receive workers' compensation claims when they get hurt while performing job operations which can cost financial losses in terms of extensive medical care for their injury. Employees' morale can be significantly raised by offering them quality health insurance by prioritizing their health rather than covering the cost of treating injuries brought on by inadequate workplace safety. 
  
  
• Minimized absenteeism: If an individual is out of work recovering from an injury, operations won't operate smoothly. The person sustaining the injury will undoubtedly take some time off, whether short or severe. Workplace safety is crucial since it will reduce the possibility of workplace accidents, and the issue of employees missing work while recovering from injuries won't arise. 
  
  
• Improved reputation: Employees who feel unsafe working for the company leave as soon as possible. High-quality safety guidelines and processes can have a completely different impact on the workplace since they will enhance the reputation and motivate staff to remain committed. 

HR’s role in maintaining the health and safety of a workplace:

The HR department of an organization is crucial in implementing and advocating for health and safety rules at work. HR staff should also adhere to safety professionals' instructions and keep up with the latest guidelines and information from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Additionally, HR teams should work on initiatives that support employee health and well-being, like wellness programs, workers' compensation, and similar initiatives. Some of the most well-liked and successful strategies are making onsite exercise centers, transit choices, paramedical services, nutritious snacks, employee assistance programs, and including mental health coverage in employee insurance plans.

Additionally, safety and compliance professionals identify five essential elements of any workplace health and safety program that are:

• Administrative "Must Haves" like signage and logs: The OSHA 300 Log, the year-end 300 A Form based on those logs, and Safety Data Sheets (SDSs) are some examples. Regarding important items that must be displayed, recorded, or otherwise acknowledged, OSHA standards are highly detailed. The HR division frequently checks in this situation, ensuring the relevant rules have been followed.
  
• Set Policies: In human resources, having documented policies, programs, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and assessments is nothing new. However, because potential risks vary from employer to employer, it is the employer's responsibility to ascertain which particular regulations apply to a given work environment. HR can play a significant role in developing and preserving these crucial policies.
  
  
• Effective Training: Safety training such as 360 OSHA training, which includes courses like OSHA 30 Construction, is frequently required by OSHA, and the regulations governing this are just as stringent regarding training requirements as they are on written programs and policies. HR professionals must ensure that any employee training programs they buy, develop, or utilize include all the material OSHA mandates for a certain subject.
  
  
• Procedures for Risk Tracking: A typical HR department needs to have trained health and safety professionals on staff. However, HR may greatly assist in organizing risk-tracking initiatives with internal and external partners. Consider arranging inspections and audits, producing reports, and sending employee safety alerts.
  
  
• Contingencies for Reinforcing Behavior: Before starting any work that could endanger them, new personnel should get all necessary training. The employee handbook should also include a description of the company's safety policies and procedures and should be updated as new hires are hired. Finally, retraining the right people will also play a significant role in reinforcing the right behaviors.

To make workers perform job operations more safely and be more productive, important tools such as training and education must be given to create awareness among workers and managers regarding hazards, controls, and workplace injuries.

Training benefits provide individuals with the following:

• Adequate knowledge and expertise are required to perform tasks safely and prevent creating hazards that could place themselves or others at risk.
• Awareness and understanding of hazards and how to recognize, report, and manage them.
• Specialized training when their job involves specific hazards.

Peer-to-peer training, weekly safety meetings, on-the-job training, daily toolbox lectures, and worksite demonstrations can all be useful in encouraging safe work practices, ensuring that dangers are understood, and teaching safety principles. 

Every training session must be conducted in a language and at a reading level that the employees can comprehend on key topics like:

• Safety and health policies, goals, and procedures
• Functions of the Safety and health program
• How to ask questions or voice concerns about the program
• Reporting procedures for hazards, injuries, illnesses, and near misses
• Emergency procedures
• Employer's responsibilities under the program
• Workers' rights under the OSH Act
• Safety and health hazards of the workplace and the controls for those hazards

Conclusion

As per the OSH Act, individuals in leadership positions should also get training on the fundamental ideas and methods for spotting possible dangers and taking steps to control them. Moreover, training workers in leadership roles must be taught the proper methods to react to reports of injuries, illnesses, and occurrences, including preventing discouraging reporting. Root cause analysis methodologies for event investigation should also be taught to all organizational leaders. Furthermore, offering OSHA 30-Hour online training to workers with supervisory or managerial leadership roles is encouraged.