Improve Your Productivity with Risk Management
Safety and health matters are taken very seriously in the US, most of them being monitored by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). When it comes to making sure you have a safe working environment one of the measures that need to be taken is risk management.
Risk management involves finding all potential hazards and eliminating them wherever possible. What many business owners do not realize is that risk management can also improve productivity and create more success for your business. That’s just another reason to take it seriously.
OSHA is not there just to make sure employers comply with the law, they are there to help businesses get it right. Their aim is to reduce the numbers of work-related injuries and deaths, and by working with employers, a reduction in these numbers has been achieved.
Reliability Matters
While assessing the safety of machinery, the reliability issues can also be considered. The two can be linked, and a reliable piece of machinery is more likely to be a safe one as well. This is because workers will not have to mess with the machinery when it constantly breaks down and the less they have to worry about these things the more productive they will be.
Reliable workers are also more likely to be aware of safety issues and can be a big help when it comes to dealing with risk management. As people who are actually doing the work, they may well have noticed safety issues that you may not have noticed.
It is your responsibility to try and ensure that no one is injured in your workplace or you may have to face compensation claims. Risk management is there to help you reach this aim, but it is something that should be done periodically and not just as a one-off exercise.
Environmental Risks
There are times when environmental matters can be an issue but you may not be aware of that without environmental due diligence. This can involve experts looking at geological maps, industrial archives, and possibly aerial photographs. It will also involve looking at reports that have been made in the past and searching for environmental data. These records can go back many years and should highlight things such as the risk of flooding and the structure of the soil among other environmental hazards.
If no issues have been found at this point, then the due diligence does not need to continue. However, if problems have been found, the issues need looking at a lot closer to see what their potential risk is to the health of humans. There are government standards that have been set to ensure the safety of workers.
This can be a very important safety and health measure because if there are environmental problems that can affect people’s health, the business could face large compensation claims at a later date if they are not dealt with. It could also result in the closure of the business while matters are put right if that is possible. Knowing the environment is safe means that your business and employees will not have those worries and will be able to carry on working to its full potential.
Making The Best Investments
Most businesses are constantly investing part of their profits to help them grow, and risk management can help to ensure that the best investments are being made. New technologies are being introduced all the time and risk management will let you see if they are right for your working environment. Would automation help, for instance, or is it likely to put your works at risk? Robotics has made great advances in the last few years, but there are still some instances where human workers should not be anywhere near automatic arms or trolleys.
Looking at different systems with safety in mind will mean that you only invest in the ones that are safe to use as well as ones that will increase production. Sometimes, this is as simple as adding some new functions to existing equipment, or it could be that you need to refit one of your offices, for example, totally.
Part of the reason this works is because you will gain more knowledge from considering safety as well as production, and the more knowledge you have about future investments, the more chance there is of making the right choice.
No matter what level you are investing at, today’s competitive marketplace leaves very little room for error. The more options you have for creating a good return-on-investment, the more successful your business should be.
Bottom Line
Making the best investments and creating a safe and comfortable workplace for all are extremely important aspects to consider when managing risk. However, risk management and workplace safety are not timed projects.
Instead, they are ongoing efforts that need to be developed and kept up to date. You can ensure that your workplace is always at the safest it can be by keeping up with maintenance, repairs, and updates of important equipment such as drills, machinery, Lifting Gear, and scaffolding projects.