Moving Forward: How Responses To Workplace Have Improved Over The Years

An injury in the workplace has ramifications for everyone involved. The injured party may have to miss work, struggle to pay bills, and permanently damage their physical health. The business may have to fork out a payment to aid their employee and could face blame for the incident. 

Since workplace injury is such a devastating occurrence, businesses and other third parties have continuously strived to make it as rare as possible. What’s more, responses to workplace injuries have evolved in ways to make sure they are never repeated. So, let’s look at how responses to workplace injury have improved over the years.

 Health And Safety Training

Health and safety have become synonymous with workplace training, so much so that it will often elicit a groan from your employees. While you may think that this training is stating the obvious, these training sessions are necessary for preventing injury. They are designed to point out the dangers in the workplace and how you should handle them in a safe manner.

These health and safety briefings are given to new employees and also to all staff when a new piece of tech is introduced to the office. It may seem like pandering, but this training is now legally required to help combat the frequency of workplace injuries.

First Aid Training

First aid has not always been as prevalent as it is today. This was a practice used by people in the medical profession or those working in a physical field, such as construction or sports. However, the importance of first aid cannot be understated. It can make a huge difference as to whether an injured person lives or dies.

That is why you will find that at least one person in every workplace is fully first-aid trained to prevent any further complications from the injury. The name of your resident first aid provider should also be displayed somewhere public so that everyone knows who to contact in an emergency.

Mental Health First Aid

First aid isn’t only used to treat physical injury anymore. The rise in awareness of mental health issues has led to big changes in the workplace, some of which you may have noticed.

Illnesses such as depression and stress can put a member of staff out of action for a long time, just as if they had suffered a physical work injury. Considering only about 8% of people see a psychologist, having something like a mental first aid can make a huge difference. As a result, businesses will often train someone suitable to become a mental health first aider. These team members are responsible for assisting your staff with their mental health issues, and they can provide back-to-work meetings to ensure that the individual is fit to return to the workplace. Again, the name of your mental health first aider should be displayed somewhere in the office. It is always worth chatting with them to prevent your mental health issue from getting any worse.

Investigation

A work injury will only occur when something has gone wrong. Sometimes, workplace risks can remain undetected until they eventually harm someone, and by then it is too late. That is why technology can now be used to identify and report risks.

A digital management system like Pulpstream can link up your systems to make investigating the injury simple. It can compile video evidence, file witness reports, and update the current health and safety reports to make the hazard known.

All of this work is necessary to prevent the work injury from happening again and help with any legal investigations. With all this data compiled in one location, it speeds up any actions that need to happen as a result of the accident.

Pre-Placement Physicals

A workplace injury can definitely be debilitating to the affected person, but there are also long-term ramifications for the employer. It can leave the company with a damaged reputation and leave them in financial trouble.

That is why employers will now do everything they can to prevent a work injury. Furthermore, some individuals are more susceptible to injury because of an underlying health condition, such as hypermobility. Therefore, most businesses now choose to conduct pre-placement physicals/

A pre-placement physical is a set of tests used to determine how fit the employee is and whether their illness is going to impact their work. The employer can then choose to put in extra measures to support the employee and reduce their risk of injury. Also, these checks can act as evidence in the event of legal action, protecting the company from fraudulent injury claims.

Conclusion

When reading this article, you would be forgiven for thinking that workplace injury is a minefield. However, all of the systems above have been implemented to simplify the injury process and stop them from happening altogether. It may be impossible to prevent every work injury, but at least everyone can come out of the incident better prepared next time.