Winter comes with its own set of hazards – whether in a personal or a professional capacity. The days become darker, meaning less visibility and increased vulnerability to hazards. Rainfall is more frequent and the lack of warmth means that objects get wetter, creating a risk of damp and mould formation. Furthermore, cold parts of the world compound this problem by creating icy surfaces, which are dangerous to navigate for both people and cars.
When it comes to your business, however, you’re in a position of responsibility, meaning that safety will naturally become a top priority. Here are some tips for ensuring safety in the workplace in winter.
Offer Advice
If you are in an area that sees significant change in the weather and climate during winter, it might make sense for you to start issuing advice for your workers around this time of year so that they can work safely. If it gets to the point where even getting to work in the morning is potentially dangerous, you could offer a hybrid working model that allows them to work from home in the winter. This might prevent accidents and create a more flexible working environment that allows your staff to feel less pressured by the constraints of the season.
It might also be that you offer tips on how they can get to work safely, or store their vehicle or anything else that might help them to continue to work without putting themselves at risk.
Supply the Right Equipment
Of course, it might not be enough to simply advise your employees on how they could stay safe; it might instead be more pertinent for you to make sure that you’re offering the equipment that they need to endure the harshness of winter. This includes ensuring PPE in the workplace is readily available and appropriate for the conditions. This is going to be especially true if the line of work that you find yourself in is manual in nature, where your workers are repeatedly going outside and having to use their hands in an area like conservation, construction, or anything else along those lines.
In the case of an office environment, it might mean that you take extra steps to make your workplace more accessible regardless of the weather. In order to do that, investigating snow plough solutions might provide a quick and easy answer to the question of work when a snowstorm threatens your day.
Recognize the Risks
When you’re behind the wheel of a business, it’s understandable that your primary concern is going to be financial. However, being blinded by that objective might lead to a situation where you’re putting your staff members in harm’s way. Not only is this careless in regards to their safety, but it’s ignorant of the possible outcomes.
If you’re shown to be irresponsible in this area, this could come back to bite you in multiple ways. Firstly, the reputation of your brand might take a hit from the perspective of employees, investors, and prospective applicants; and secondly, you could even find yourself with a legal situation on your hands that is just best avoided all round.
That means you need to recognize when the danger presented by the weather is too much to ignore.
