All managers have to think about health and safety. That’s the only way they can ensure they’re on the right side of the law and keeping their teams happy. It can both help to save hefty legal fees and pull more profits thanks to increasing productivity. In short; the right health and safety procedures make for happy working all around. But, many managers fail by trying to be something of a health and safety island. Obviously, working conditions fall mainly on the shoulders of a manager. And yet, attempting to tackle health and safety alone could harm rather than help your team.
The fact is that often, you’d be better off sharing this responsibility. That way, you’d be in the best position to improve practices for a better and safer work environment.
Of course, the chances are that you hadn’t even considered getting your team involved in safety before. But, if you aren’t convinced that doing so would be worth your while, consider the following ways you fail your team when you tackle health and safety alone.
You bring limited knowledge to the matter
Despite your best efforts, you’re only one person. While you may be able to tackle simple things like first aid training, then, the chances are that your knowledge is unavoidably limited. And, that could lead to risks when it comes to more in-depth considerations.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you need to dedicate every working day to various aspects of safety. There would be no business to keep safe if you operated like that! Instead, you should make the most of the knowledge your team can bring. It may be that many have safety training from previous jobs which could fill gaps in your knowledge. You may even find that pointing every team member towards a different health and safety online training course could cover you for every eventuality in a fraction of the time it’d take you to learn everything. And, that guarantees that there’s no health or safety issue which you can’t treat or address.
You don’t consider feedback
Wanting to make your office safe for your staff is an admirable management goal, but it’s near impossible to do unless you start listening to feedback. When you try to tackle everything alone, there’s a risk that you’ll apply health and safety procedures which are not applicable or even possible in the work environment as it stands. Yet, you might not even realize it because guess what? You’ve never worked for you!
The only way to address discrepancies like these and tailor your safety processes is to listen to feedback at last. Merely asking your team how safe they feel in the office can help to bring up gaps you weren’t aware of before. More often than not, you’ll even find that team members have suggestions as to how you can approach these issues. And, that can see you making work safer for everyone in a way which suits for a long time to come.
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