If you are wondering, why is health and safety important in the workplace, the answer to that question is pretty simple!
Life is unpredictable - you never know what is coming up right at the next moment - but your work culture need not be. We all agree that safety is important and must be practiced in our everyday lives - so why should our work be excluded?
Thus, it is imperative to provide your employees with the mental peace of having both medical as well as financial security, so that they can work up to their full potential, and your company can grow at the pace that you want it to.
Why Is Health Safety And Security Important In The Workplace?
You might be thinking to yourself, ‘Why is health safety and security important in the workplace, and why should I make efforts for it?
Health, safety, and security are important in the workplace because it is essential to protect your employees from the unforeseen future, illnesses, injuries, emergencies, and other health and safety hazards.
Imagine being constantly worried about your future, as well as the future of your family and other dependents!
You will not be able to focus on your work and give your best efforts if you do not have the mental stability and confidence that your future and the future of your loved ones are protected.
So we can see that poor health and safety at the workplace can negatively impact your workforce, i.e. your employees, and distract them from being able to give their 100 percent in their work.
As an employer, you are also legally obligated to provide safe working conditions and promote workplace safety to your employees to prevent workplace injuries and ensure occupational safety and health.
Workplace safety helps your employees as well as your company and has long-term benefits. It promotes a healthier work culture, increases employee engagement, and protects your employees - thus retaining them at your organization.
Employee healthcare handbook
A quick and easy-to-read guide for implementing employee benefits that work for you and your organization
What Are The Benefits Of A Healthy And Safe Workplace?
Let us look into why it is important to provide a healthy and safe workplace to your employees.
1. Increased productivity and efficiency
As mentioned earlier, your employees need to focus entirely on their work, and to do so, they need to be relieved of the worries and stress that come with unsafe and unhealthy working conditions.
If the employees at your workplace are constantly under the stress regarding the future of themselves as well as their dependents, they will not be able to live up to the amount of productivity and efficiency that is required of them, and which is necessary for the company.
2. Reduced compensation cost
As the common saying goes, “Prevention is better than cure”. Indeed, instead of having to pay a huge sum to compensate for poor employee health, it is much easier to invest in a healthy and safe workplace.
Every time an unfortunate accident or health hazard occurs, you will have to bear the expenses of both the compensation claims of your employees and well the hiring costs for temporary staff.
Not to mention, these incidents would also come up with a huge ordeal of paperwork. Instead, it is much better to come up with a safe and healthy workplace that will reduce the probability of such occurrences by a lot.
Check out here to find out more about preventive care!
3. Reduced absenteeism
Absenteeism reduces work productivity and hampers teamwork. In case of illness and accidents, an employee is likely to be frequently absent from work. However, with workplace safety, you can cut off the problem at the root, promote employee health, and reduce absenteeism.
Both your employee and your company will thank you for that!
4. Build a good brand name and culture
Public Relations is essential for a company, and good workplace health and safety have a great PR value. It helps build a good brand name, as well as create a healthy, productive workplace culture.
Healthy work culture will result in better employee retention and will provide job satisfaction to your workforce.
Building Great Culture
Learn the best practices to build a prospering culture in your organization.
5. Build morale
Having workplace safety and health in place will improve the relationship between your employees with their employers.
Actions speak louder than words, and this action on your part will show your employees that you care about them and are willing to invest in their future.
6. Attract better employees as well as more investors and partners
Following up on the previous point, a healthy and secure workspace and work culture will attract more and more talented employees to your company, as well as encourage investors and partners to associate with you.
Recruit, Hire & Onboard like a Pro
The best templates on how to recruit & onboard the best-fit candidates for your organisation
7. Promote corporate responsibility
While individual responsibility is important, it is also essential for companies to take up ownership and responsibility for themselves and their employees.
It creates a good system and sets a precedence for other companies to follow suit.
If all, or at least most, companies engage in a safe and healthy work environment, it will create a more sustainable, and safer work environment overall.
How Can You Promote Health And Safety In The Workplace?
Now that we have gone into why you should have a healthy and safe workplace, let’s focus on answering this question, how can you promote health and safety in the workplace!
1. Safety training
A comprehensive safety training, including various safety programs and training courses on fire safety, handling of safety equipment, emergency exits, and more safety practices, should be provided to your employees right when they are onboarded.
Also, the training should be reinforced at repeated intervals to keep your employees updated about their safety measures.
2. Wellness programs
Wellness programs are a collection of initiatives undertaken by employers to encourage health and fitness and other healthy habits amongst employees. They act as preventive measures to intercept illnesses even before they occur so that you can cut off the weed right at the root.
Here are some other reasons why you should sign your employees up for wellness programs.
3. Paid leaves
It is quite normal for your employees to fall sick at some point. Thus, it is imperative to offer them paid leaves, so that they can take some time off and fully recover.
It is also important so that in case of contagious diseases, they do not spread the disease to your other employees, thus risking their safety.
4. Regular checkups and Medical consultations
It is always a good idea to catch disease at its first stage and ward it off at the earliest. This means getting regular checkups. Simultaneously, in situations of emergencies, it is very handy to have medical consultations by professionals.
By offering these facilities to your employees, you can save them a lot of inconveniences, and encourage healthy behavior.
Loop Health offers you unlimited virtual consultations with their team of doctors so that your employees can text a doctor for consultation, anytime.
5. Reward good health and safety practices
A great way to make good habits stick is to reward them with proper incentives. Incentives can be something as simple as a discount coupon or name the Employee of the Week. This will also add to the job satisfaction factor of your employees.
Sign Up With Loop, And Offer Amazing Benefits To Your Employees!
The promotion of workplace safety is the responsibility of management systems and business owners. By promoting safety policies and programs, you may encourage employees to adopt safe practices and use safety equipment as an employer.
Offering employee benefits and group health insurance, along with maintaining health and safety in the workplace, encourages the growth of your employees as well as your company.
We at Loop are dedicated to our goals to assist both employers and employees and create a healthy work environment.
We enable you and your organization to walk toward a brighter future by motivating employees to improve their work performance and assisting employers in reducing healthcare costs - it's a win-win situation!
Along with our comprehensive health insurance, you get many more added employee benefits with Loop!
So what are you waiting for!
Let's take care of your team - Choose Loop!
