Employee safety is or should be of paramount concern to any small business owner. Teaching your employees how to do their jobs safely, maintain a safe workplace and deal with emergency situations ensures is good for your business in many ways. When your employees understand how to recognize and prevent hazardous situations, your business can avoid some of the major pitfalls that can hurt you financially and existentially. The Occupational Health & Safety Administration is charged with establishing and enforcing workplace safety and health standards. If your business is not in compliance with OSHA regulations, you can face sanctions and penalties that include monetary fines and jail time. Safety training and environmental consultants can help ensure that your business is in compliance with all the relevant safety training and environmental standards that apply.
General Safety Training
While every business has particular safety hazards that are unique to its industry, some training measures apply across a broad range of industries. Among the training that applies to nearly every business are the following:
Fire Safety and Prevention
Emergency Evacuation Procedures
Slip and Fall Prevention
Electrical Hazards
Emergency First Aid
Ergonomic Training
Safety training consultants can work with you to develop general safety trainings that are appropriate to your business and cover all the important aspects for your workplace. You can develop your own safety training modules, purchase ready-made modules or work with safety training & environmental consultants to identify possible safety hazards in your workplace and help you create a training program that complies with all OSHA regulations.
One of the most effective ways to use safety training and environmental consultants is to identify key personnel in your organization and train them as trainers. From that point on, your company can conduct its own safety trainings with occasional follow-up refresher training.
HAZWOPER Training
Many businesses deal with hazardous materials as part of their everyday business without even realizing that's what they're doing. Hazardous materials and substances include cleaning chemicals, manufacturing chemicals, gasoline and fuel and even light bulbs. The employees who come into contact with these substances should be trained in handling them safely and in what to do if they accidentally release some of the materials or substances into the environment. The necessary training may be as simple as training custodial staff to recognize dangerous materials and avoid them or as complex as SafeLand training and hazardous waste cleanup procedures.
The right safety training & environmental consultants can help you decide whether you need to provide HAZWOPER training to any or all of your employees, and exactly what type of HAZWOPER training you should be providing.
Handling Materials Safely
Beyond hazardous materials handling, your employees face potential hazards in handling the materials they use every day. Those hazards range from injuries incurred by lifting heavy items to damage caused by improperly using a forklift or pallet lift. OSHA has numerous regulations about proper training regarding materials handling, moving and proper transport and storage of all potentially hazardous materials. Safety training consultants can help you pinpoint possible hazards in your workplace and develop appropriate training for any employees that are exposed to them.
Beyond the Workplace - Environmental Hazards
HAZWOPER training is even more important in situations where hazardous wastes can spill out into the community or the environment. HAZWOPER training goes beyond recognition of hazards and prevention methods to arm your workforce with the knowledge they need to clean up the environment after a hazardous waste spill.
For more information about the kind of OSHA-approved training that is best for your business, contact a firm of safety training and environmental consultants and set up a consultation.
Author Resource:
Chris Robertson is an author of Majon International, one of the world's MOST popular internet marketing companies on the web.
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