Looking after your team should be the first priority of any manager or a business owner. After all, the team is what makes the job possible. If you neglect them you may not be able to fulfill your commitments and you may even end up facing a lawsuit for injuries and damages.
Fortunately, there are simple things you can do to ensure your team is properly protected.
Choose The Job
The first step is to break down everything the team does into specific jobs. You need to be able to analyze each job in order to ensure your team is protected at every stage of their working day.
It is best to shadow the team and talk to them about the different elements, this will help you break the work into definable tasks and start thinking about job safety properly.
Identify Single Workers
You may have people that work by themselves all the time or some that do it occasionally, as the job demands. In either scenario, a single worker needs an established system, including duress alarms. This ensures they are monitored and you are aware of any incident that occurs.
Your safety protocol should include when the single worker policy applies and how team members adopt the policy. This is important as it can often be overlooked by people used to working in a team.
Identify hazards
The next step is to identify all the potential hazards and risks n the specific job. Again, this will require you to walk through the process and ideally talk to the team members involved.
Identifying all the hazards means you can put procedures in place that reduce the risk. This can mean adopting a different method of doing things, getting extra safety equipment, or simply having an extra person on hand as a safety measure.
Whatever option you choose it should help to ensure the safety of your team.
Crucially, the entire process must be documented. That means logging the jobs, identify the specific job you are analyzing, how you have assessed the risks, and the risks you have noted. The notes will then contain a detailed file of how team members should deal with these issues.
Although not the purpose of these notes, they will help if you ever find yourself facing a lawsuit.
Sharing Information
Of course, there is no point in doing all this assessment unless you are sure your team knows and understands the findings.
The final document must be presented to all team members and you should go through it with them, giving them the opportunity to ask questions and raise concerns. All training sessions should be logged and team members sign to state they received the training.
This protects you and them. Team members know what is expected and you know that you have done everything reasonable to ensure their saety while on the job. That is important for the business and for your peace of mind.