Prevent, Prepare & Protect: Workplace Injury Response Best Practices
There’s no way around it: Accidents happen, and they’re never fun. However, that’s not to say that there’s nothing you can do about them. In fact, there have been some significant advancements in workplace injury prevention and response in recent years.
In this article, we’ve summarized the most important steps to help you avoid common workplace accidents, be prepared to handle emergencies and minimize their long-term effects through effective damage control.
Prevent: Leave Nothing to Chance
Prevention is the best treatment. Just as our good habits help preserve our health, developing good workplace practices also goes a long way in maintaining a safe work environment. Here’s what you can do to minimize the chances of a work accident:
Health & Safety Training
Employers are now required by law to provide regular health and safety training. And, while most companies seem to make these sessions as boring as possible as if it were their legal obligation, there’s not one passage that says you can’t make them short, informative and to-the-point.
Of course, it’s good to brief new employees on the rules and, while you’re at it, call their attention to anything that might put someone in harm’s way. Also reiterate and update the rulebook every time the work environment changes, such as when introducing new equipment or moving to a different place.
Pre-Placement Physicals
There’s a wide range of risk factors when it comes to work accidents, from age and medical history to overall physical condition. Therefore, as part of the hiring process, many employers conduct pre-placement physicals, which is a set of tests used to determine how fit the employee is and whether their condition is likely to influence their work.
These tests can help employers determine if they need to take any special measures to support the employee and reduce their accident risk. They can also act as evidence in the event of legal action by protecting the company from fraudulent injury claims.
Prepare: Expect the Unexpected
First Aid Training
First aid has not always been as prevalent as it is today. It used to be limited to mostly medical staff or those working in high-risk environments, such as construction workers or athletes. However, it does make a significant difference in the office, too.
This is why every workplace should have at least one person on every shift who is fully trained in first aid. The name of your resident first-aid provider should also be displayed somewhere visible so that everyone knows who to reach out to in an emergency.
Protect: Have a Crisis Management Plan in Place
Mental Health First Aid
A work accident rarely comes without ramifications that reach past the physical effects of the injury. In particular, recovery can be lengthy and difficult and lead to all sorts of emotional strain from post-traumatic stress to financial anxiety.
Whereas traditional first aid is an emergency protocol to quickly stabilize the injured person until medical professionals take over, the role of mental health first aid is to minimize the long-term mental health effects of a workplace incident. Besides the injured person, this might be necessary for other members of the wider work community to help deal with the effects of an accident.
So, just as you have a resident first-aid provider on duty, you can also train and designate a team member to be a first point of contact for mental health problems. These colleagues can then provide back-to-work meetings to ensure that the injured coworker is fit to return to the workplace. They can also point other struggling staff members in the right direction for support and track their recovery progress.
Investigation
The thing about accidents is that they’re always preventable — at least in hindsight. Granted, some risks remain undetected until someone eventually gets hurt, but then you must make sure to rule out the possibility of it happening again.
Thankfully, there are now plenty of third-party providers and digital risk management systems that can help you identify and report risks to simplify the post-accident investigation and adaptation process. Specifically, they can compile video evidence, file witness reports, and update the current health and safety reports to make the hazard known.
Without a doubt, work accidents are one of the most stressful parts of running any team. Even so, the key to dealing with them is to never let your guard down by thinking that it can’t happen on your watch. There’s also a lot you can and should do in order to avoid them and minimize their effects. Just remember the three Ps — prevent, prepare and protect — and make a habit of regularly checking for improvement opportunities in all three areas.
