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Learn how you can improve office safety and identify office hazards to create a sustainable safety culture in the workplace
Published 29 Aug 2023
Office safety, also known as workplace safety, is the practice of ensuring a safe, working environment for employees and visitors. It is both the duty and moral responsibility of every company to promote wellness, and prevent the likelihood of accidents in the workplace which may result in property damage, injuries, or loss of life.
“Around 76,000 workers nationwide receive disabling injuries every year.” – US Bureau of Labor Statistics
In a perfect world, every office worker should come back home in good health. Employers should commit to sustaining proper office safety and health protocols to ensure the long-term wellness of their employees and the company. Disregarding office safety guidelines expose employees to increased risk of long-term injuries and diseases—factors that can not only threaten their livelihood, but also how they live for the years to come.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) states office safety as an obligation and requires employers to provide an office environment free from hazards. Management should ensure that employees are educated about the many office hazards which many workers may not be aware of, such as noise, poor ergonomics, damaged electrical wires, inoperative fire extinguishers, and lack of emergency plans. Tens of thousands of office workers already suffer injuries or work-related health problems, which could have easily been prevented had they undergone proper training and education.
A safe and healthy office benefits both the company and the worker as it helps ensure the following:
Now that you know the benefits of implementing office safety and health initiatives, it is also important for managers to understand its legal basis and be familiar with the governing bodies and regulations that ensure the implementation of health and safety policies in the workplace.
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“Employers have the responsibility to provide a safe and healthful workplace that is free from serious recognized hazards.” – OSHA 1970
International and national regulatory bodies were institutionalized to ensure that policies and legislation on office safety and health are developed and properly implemented. Together, these regulatory bodies help oversee organizations and how they respect legal labor requirements in practice and principle.
For oversight of international labor standards, it is the International Labour Organization (ILO) that is responsible for bringing together governments, employers, and workers of its 187 Member States “to set labour standards, develop policies and devise programmes promoting decent work for all women and men.” As a specialized agency of the United Nations, its mission is to promote social justice and internationally recognized human and labor rights.
While there are internationally recognized office safety and health practices, legislation and regulations can still vary on a national level as each country has its own approach towards enforcement.
When President Richard Nixon enacted the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHAct) of 1970, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was formed as the agency authorized to enforce protective workplace safety and health standards and regulate private employers in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and other territories.
In the United Kingdom, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) serves as the national regulator for workplace safety and health. They enforce local health and safety legislations, such as the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) 1974 and The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases, and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) 1995.
Safe Work Australia, a statutory agency established in 2009, heads the development of national policies on health, safety, and compensation across Australia. Compared to the US and UK, however, the enforcement of policies is not the responsibility of Safe Work Australia but is administered by the Commonwealth, states, and territories. The specific workplace health and safety (WHS) acts, regulations, and codes of practice per Australian state and territory can be found here.
While injuries in the office may not be as serious as those that occur in manufacturing plants or construction sites, they are still as impactful to both the employee and employer. However, office management should realize that office safety and health is not all about enforcing policies, but rather, it is about building an effective and sustainable office safety culture. Below are 7 ways you can ensure that you develop an office safety culture that’s sustainable in the long run.
Office workplaces that truly want to solve the root cause of unsafe conditions should realize that, more than the “do’s and don’ts” and safety signages, it is the culture they build that will help improve office safety in general. Leaders must develop a strategy that helps employees understand the true value of office safety and health in their lives and motivate them to go beyond compliance.
When people in the office look for and report hazards, give peers feedback on safe and at-risk behavior, volunteer for safety committees, and make suggestions for improvement, these are signs of an effective culture-driven strategy.
Safety champions in the workplace are the heart and soul of a strong office safety culture. They are passionate employees who are willing to take initiatives and lead their teammates by example.
Identifying or developing champions can help management teams spread knowledge and enthusiasm on the floor. Through them, other employees will be better engaged in office safety and health discussions as they have people that they can easily talk to and treat as role models.
Utilize positive reinforcement to encourage desired behaviors for office safety and health. Rewarding employees who exhibit know-how and show initiative will encourage repetition and become role models in the long run, encouraging others to do the same.
Celebrate wins, small or big, based on data improvement and office safety audits; communicate results and recognize those responsible. This strategy ensures office incidents are reduced for the right reasons and further encourages employees to go beyond simply complying with office safety rules.
The departure of experienced leaders and safety champions is inevitable. To manage this loss, it is important to plan succession carefully because this will help fill in the skills and knowledge gap between the experienced employees and the younger ones.
Office leaders play a critical role in building the foundation for a sustainable office safety and health culture. Management should ensure that appropriate discussions about work are conducted regularly so that the culture evolves with useful insights from employees. With effort from the bottom up, offices can develop a health and safety culture that endures.
Office risk assessments are an effective way to manage safety and health risks within an office environment. This process begins with hazard identification—identifying objects, situations, or activities that can potentially cause harm to employees.
To identify hazards, workers can employ several methods, such as comprehensive safety walkarounds, inspection of historical data, and job safety analysis, but in order to identify them properly, it’s important to know the types of hazards that can be found in the workplace.
In this test, try to examine the office setting and spot the ten hazards that can put a worker’s safety and health at risk
If you experience problems with the test below, please click on the download button on the top right and do the test offline.
After the test, you will realize that, while there are obvious hazards, there are some that you may not have immediately noticed or may be completely unaware of; these include the way a worker sits on a chair, disorganized electrical cords, or boxes blocking the fire exit.
“What the eye doesn’t see and the mind doesn’t know, doesn’t exist.” – D.H. Lawrence
In safety, “what the eye doesn’t see and the mind doesn’t know, doesn’t exist.” To properly perform risk assessment in the office, It is important for employees to understand the fundamentals of workplace hazard identification. Lack of training in proper workplace hazard identification can mean the difference between a safe and healthy employee and an injured one.
Physical hazards are factors that need not to be touched which can threaten the safety and health of an office worker. The most common physical hazards in the office are temperature; air quality; ventilation; noise; and slips, trips, and falls. Here are the risks associated with each physical hazard and ways on how to manage them:
Temperatures that make employees feel uncomfortable can result in low productivity and morale. In fact, a 2018 poll in the UK showed that 26.1% of surveyed workers said they “pulled a sickie” because their office felt too cold. Employers and managers carry the responsibility to manage this office health hazard and ensure that employees work as comfortably as possible.
In the US, 90% of people spend most of their time indoors with many of them spending time in an office environment. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also reported that indoor environments, such as an office, sometimes have higher levels of pollutants than the outside. This makes it more important for employers to give indoor air quality and ventilation higher importance as poor conditions can lead to fatigue, occupational asthma, allergies, and other respiratory disorders. Some conditions that may lead to deterioration of air quality include office overcrowding, restricted air flows, poor housekeeping, and inadequate ventilation.
The US Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that over 20 million workers are exposed to potentially damaging noise at work each year. Noise, at high or low levels, can affect office safety and health by increasing stress levels, interfering with concentration, and causing hearing loss.
Before moving further, it is important to differentiate between these three somewhat similar hazards. Slips occur when a person’s foot loses traction with the ground surface; trips occur when a person unexpectedly catches their foot on an object or surface; and falls may result from a slip or trip but many occur during falls from low heights or into a hole, ditch, or body of water.
In Australia, slips, trips, and falls accounted for 386 deaths in Australian workplaces from 2003-2015 SafeWork Australia. In the US, on the other hand, 798 workers died due to falls in 2014 alone National Safety Council.
Click here to download customizable Office Safety Checklists
Biological hazards, or biohazards, are organic substances that can pose a threat to an employee’s health. Biological hazards can include exposure to:
“It is estimated that around 320,000 workers die each year from communicable diseases caused by work-related exposures to biological hazards” – Driscoll et al 2005; OSHA 2007
Some people may think that biohazards are limited to workplaces such as laboratories or factories, but they can also be found in seemingly comfortable offices. Managing such hazards in an office setting is critical as they can quickly get out of hand, which could lead to problems with local health and business regulation agencies.
Fire safety is of utmost importance in any office. An office fire incident can be devastating not only for the workers, but the public as well. It can lead to injuries and even fatalities—not to mention costly property damage. In 2017, the US National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) reported that around 18,000 structure fires came from stores and offices, resulting to an estimated $763,000 in property loss.
It’s easy to forget the risk of fire when in the office, but it must be stressed that there are commonly missed fire hazards that can put everyone in the office in grave danger. Here are the top 5 common fire hazards that employees should watch out for:
Click here to download Fire Risk Assessment Checklists
Almost all office work today involves the use of equipment that run on electricity. Equipment, such as photocopiers, laptops, kettle leads, and power switches, can get wet or become faulty, which can cause burns and electric shocks. Office workers who are not adequately trained on electrical safety are exposed to higher risk of such injuries, or worse, death.
Have a look at some common electrical hazards in the office and how to be safe around them.
Click here to download Electrical Inspection Checklists
“Ergonomic injuries account for over 30% of days-away-from-work cases. These injuries also require more time off the job (median of 11 days vs. 8 days) than those with other types of workplace injuries/illnesses.”- US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 2013
Office workers spend many hours a day seated at a desk, often resulting in strains and other injuries due to unidentified ergonomic hazards. Ergonomic hazards are usually the most difficult to spot as workers won’t always immediately feel the effects of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). Unfortunately, MSDs accounted for 33% of all worker injury and illness cases according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in 2013. The most common MSDs are muscle strain, rotator cuff injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), and tendonitis. Long-term exposure to ergonomic hazards can result in the employee suffering from serious long-term MSDs, and the employer losing man hours and millions in insurance costs.
Click here to download customizable Ergonomics Assessment Checklists
Office housekeeping is a systematic process of making an office environment clean and orderly. An effective office housekeeping program is an important element in office safety and health management as it fosters a cleaner and organized workplace, which in turn helps the company gain the following benefits.
Click here to download Workplace Housekeeping Checklists
The actions taken in the initial minutes of an emergency are critical. A prompt warning to employees to evacuate, seek shelter, or initiate lockdown can save lives. A call for help to public emergency services that provides full and accurate information will help the dispatcher send the right responders and equipment. This is why an employee trained to administer first aid or perform CPR can be life-saving. Action by employees with knowledge of building and process systems can also help control a leak and minimize damage to the facility, the environment, and the people within it.
Click here to download Emergency Action Plan Templates
Creating a working environment with a good office safety culture is a responsibility that must be borne by both employers and employees. Management should ensure that they abide by occupational safety and health regulations and provide a safe working environment, while employees should cooperate with their leaders and always be on the lookout for office hazards. These efforts will help make your office a place where employees feel that their safety and health are a top priority.
Practice good record keeping with SafetyCulture and be able to:
Get in touch with the SafetyCulture Team to know more how you can modernize office safety and health in your workplace.
Office safety checklists in SafetyCulture, the best health and safety software of 2020, helps you to transform office safety culture and shift to more modernized, paperless environment. Click the button below to view some of the best digital office safety checklists which you can download for free and customize according to your needs.
Jona Tarlengco
Jona Tarlengco is a content writer and researcher for SafetyCulture since 2018. She usually writes about safety and quality topics, contributing to the creation of well-researched articles. Her 5-year experience in one of the world’s leading business news organisations helps enrich the quality of the information in her work.
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