By Daniela Ibarra
When it comes to workplace safety and regulatory compliance, are you aware of legal standards? Do you know the general industry requirements that apply to your business? Are you actively doing something to prevent workplace injuries? If not, you could be liable under regulations required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Yikes!
Whether your employees work in the field, a warehouse, a factory or a construction site, it is your responsibility to ensure their safety. A good place to start is to make sure you are providing them with the required personal protective equipment, or PPE, as well as providing training on the use of PPE.
Personal protective equipment includes items such as gloves, safety glasses and shoes, earplugs of muffs, hard hats, respirators, vests and full body suits.
Read: Guide to Workplace Safety: Understanding Cut Protection
Here is a paragraph from OSHA’s publication on safety standards:
“The employer shall provide training to each employee who is required by this section to use PPE. Each such employee shall be trained to know at least the following: (i) when PPE is necessary; (ii) what PPE is necessary; (iii) how to properly don, doff, adjust and wear PPE; (iv) the limitations of the PPE; and, (v) the proper care, maintenance, useful life, and disposal of the PPE.”
Visit the OSHA website to learn more about employer responsibilities.
Providing employee training in this area is the most effective way to keep your employees safe at work, and comply with standards and regulations at the same time!
We know that regulatory compliance and safety training is a very important topic for many of our clients and HR professionals around, which is why we have an extensive library of content and resources to help prevent workplace injuries, improve safety, and ensure compliance with regulations.
Enjoy a 1-minute preview of “Lessons Learned From Hand Injuries” below:
This video lesson features reenactments of workplace hand injury scenarios to teach valuable safety lessons about protecting your hands in every situation where hazards exist. Learners will see the traumatic consequences of becoming distracted, using improper gloves, wearing jewelry around moving machinery, failing to pay attention to our work and attempting job tasks they aren’t qualified to perform.
Daniela Ibarra researches and writes on a variety of business topics, including workplace dynamics, HR strategies, and training trends and technology.