Whether you’re running a production line or a processing center, a factory is a place rife with risk and hazard. Your workers will be exposed to machinery that has the potential to main or even kill, and there will be several other potential risks lurking around your warehouse or facility. In this guide, we’ll take a look at how you can reduce the risk of malpractice claims from your workers or from visitors to your plant – costly legal disputes that can leave you significantly out of pocket.
Risk Assessment
The first stage of any reckoning with your factory’s risk profile is to set about assessing every single risk that might be at play at any time in your facility. This involves what some deride as a waste of time – the risk assessment. But the truth is that risk assessments are your first documentation, in evidence, that you’ve spotted and attempted to mitigate potential risks in your facility. This is an important step in building any case that you did, indeed, do your utmost to protect workers from any foreseen risk that might be lurking in your place of work.
Training
Your staff will require training in order to understand the risks identified in your risk assessment report. If you don’t inform your staff of the risks they need to be careful of, you have no legal recourse to argue that your risk assessment was complete and comprehensive. You need your staff to know and look out for the most dangerous parts of your factory and, even if you feel like you’re laboring the point, you need to show every single risk to your workers. Have them fill in a questionnaire after their training to tick that they’ve been shown various risks, and keep that on file.
Safety Checks
Another aspect of the protection of your workers is to conduct regular safety checks of both your machines and the people who operate them. A handy warehouse safety checklist is perfect for this purpose, and can be found online – just be aware that some are more comprehensive than others, and that there might be unique safety issues in your facility that you need to include on your list. Be sure to complete safety checks as regularly as possible, ensuring that the staff taking them are diligent and careful not to rush through each point.
Drills
A great way to test your readiness for different threat and risk scenarios is to drill your workers. Just as some office buildings regularly perform fire drills, you can perform all kinds of drills in your facility to check whether your workers know how to respond if, for instance, a worker gets stuck in a machine. The better drilled your workers, the more they’ll be able to switch on in times of genuine crisis, when their quick thinking could help avert and avoid injury in the workplace – helping you avoid those costly malpractice claims.
These tips will help you navigate the tricky and tempestuous world of warehouse or factory safety, ensuring your workers are safe and protected from harm.