As an employer, you have a responsibility to protect your employee’s safety, health and general welfare at work. Although different jobs have different hazards, there are accidents and injuries which are common and occur in every place of work. These include trips, falls and slips.
Accidents at work can cause a ripple effect among other employees
Not only does work accidents cause bodily harm, but they could also harm the victim in other devastating, non-physical ways, such as a loss of or decrease in productivity as a result of some disability following the accident.
An employee harmed at work might need to take time off work to properly heal and recuperate, which also means, as a business owner, you lose the level of productivity a full staff might have provided.
Negligence resulting in bodily harm at work can also have financial and legal implications for you as the employer. Naturally, there might be a need for compensation, and this could harm your business financially, so it is important that you have the proper business insurance to cover these costs.
How to deal with accidents at work
- Take control at the scene of the accident and try to restore order.
- Give first aid if necessary and call the emergency services
- If you’re qualified to, provide immediate care and have someone call for help.
- Remove the cause of the accident and take measures to prevent a secondary accident.
- It is also advised that you make a mental note of the conditions and the people present at the scene as they are witness to the accident. Or have someone else take their names.
- Accidents should be reported to the appropriate members of staff. Make sure the owners of the company and upper management are notified.
- Contact family members of the victim and your insurance company.
- Follow up with the employee’s care and ensure you are taking all the steps to make their return to work as comfortable and easy as possible.
- Use the opportunity of a returning employee to help them ease back into their responsibilities. You can also modify their tasks to reduce the risk of the same accident in the future.
Finally, prevention
Learn from past experiences and act quickly to prevent further accidents. You should always carry out risks assessment to help you identify health and safety hazards. Make sure your staff receive training on health and safety and what to do in an emergency. Display warning signs that’ll alert your staff to potential hazards and where they can be easily seen. Make sure that all the compulsory safety measures are correctly put in place to prevent injuries and illness at work in the first place.
Nobody likes to have accidents within their business, but sadly they are unavoidable. As long as you are taking the proper precautions to keep your business protected and you are handling any accidents with care, then you should be able to keep on top of things.
