Why Should Manufacturers Focus on Occupational Health and Safety?

On an average note, according to ILO, 22% of workers in the manufacturing industry die in the workplace due to insufficient safety protocols each year. Additionally, more than 5,000 bear injuries that keep them out of work for a week or more. So, what’s the lesson? It means that implementing occupational health and safety measures is mandatory.

Workplace safety is one of the essential concerns of every manufacturing enterprise. Getting it right can boost the entire operation’s performance. While safety concerns may cost you money, time, injuries, and even reputational damages, but isn’t it better to avoid something terrible from happening? And not to burst your bubble, but mishaps do happen. Therefore, it is essential to have a protective umbrella to ensure your employees’ social, mental, and physical health and safety are guaranteed.

For your guidance, we’ve put together some reasons why manufacturers should focus on occupational health and safety. Below, we will share the necessary details to begin implementing your Health and Safety precautions and guarantee the wellbeing of your workers.

1. Recognizing the Challenges in Your Sector

Indeed, the manufacturing sector is vast, and companies work with ceramics, plastics, cement, textiles, stone, paper, and whatnot. They are even exposed to extreme temperatures and harmful chemicals. Working under or with these conditions can cause severe damage to one’s health. For instance, asbestos fiber is one of the most frequent substances employees get to work with when around vinyl. Regular asbestos exposure can lead to mesothelioma, which is a rare cancer. It is, unfortunately, an incurable, deadly cancer. If any one of your employees catches this dreadful disease, your company might have to face a potential lawsuit. Therefore, you should identify these problems firsthand and deal with them before they take the lives of your employees.

Furthermore, this diversity makes it challenging to talk about specific dangers and risks. For manufacturing companies, the variety of specialisms is one of the biggest challenges. Manufacturing hazards are different for every enterprise, and minimizing the risks related to these hazards demands excellent knowledge. The best and only way to account for all the potentially harmful work practices is to pool information.

Suppose the different manufacturing business sectors don’t work together to create strategies for the risks involved in their type of manufacturing. In that case, the only way left is “trial and error.” As you can tell, this hazardous and expensive method is unacceptable in today’s work ethics. Therefore, testing materials in laboratories serve as a viable option.

2. More Awareness and Safe Working Culture 

Safety isn’t something you learn from removing a brick block or a banana peel off the road. It’s something you practice within your organization to promote a healthy workplace. That said, you don’t spend thousands and thousands of dollars putting your staff on compulsory training courses just for the sake of it. All of the occupational Health and Safety training courses are designed to develop an awareness of workplace surroundings and encourage a safe working culture.

It sounds great on paper, but it feels even better in practice. Once your staff has completed the relevant OHS training courses, they will learn how to work safely and understand how to reduce workplace risk. As your workers learn to avoid hazards and raise concerns regarding potentially dangerous tasks, workplace-related injuries will automatically drop to a significant number.

3. Think About the Equipment and Facilities

Every manufacturing job depends upon specialist facilities and equipment. Without this, employees face a tremendous amount of danger. However, it is easy to forget about the regular maintenance of facilities and equipment or lose information detailing when they should be replaced or checked.

Maintain an inclusive list of safety equipment to avoid such mishaps at all times. It should detail the model and manufacturer, the maintenance date, the purchase date, a suggested replacement date, and any information about concerns or faults. This assortment of information will help the employees know what they are dealing with and whether they should be touching the equipment at all.

Likewise, also maintain information regarding the safety facilities. It includes welfare facilities, such as bathrooms and toilets, and changing rooms, accommodations, and canteens. To simply put, safety and peace of mind should be in every corner of the manufacturing institute.

4. Increase in Productivity 

Healthy staff means a productive staff. When OHS is implemented adequately, the staff feels protected and committed to their work. They know that the company adheres to protective standards while they are at work and won’t be putting their safety at risk.

It is also important because when employees speak up and raise worries regarding a potentially hazardous activity, they know that their suggestions will be considered and listened to. They will trust the organization and work with a positive mindset. Fail to safeguard your employees with the appropriate OHS procedures, and you will only witness a declining staff retention rate.

Conclusion

No doubt, health and safety measures play a fundamental role in ensuring those working in the manufacturing sector face as little risk as possible. If companies don’t formulate a Health and Safety policy, they put their workers at risk, ignoring their legal duty. Therefore, every employer should thrive on creating a healthy and safe environment where nobody gets hurt, either mentally or physically.