It’s mid-September and Spring is definitely upon us. In Australia our daytime temperatures are returning to the glorious mid-20s or higher, especially if you’re in the mid- to northern end of the country. It’s a time to warm up a little and receive the extra energy to break out and get into some activities that have been shelved over the cooler months.
Of course, this also means we approach the time of year for a thorough seasonal clean. Whether it be a clean up or a clean out, it has to be done. Regular cleaning of your home makes it safe and comfortable and ensures you will also feel good about being present in that space.
Of course, good housekeeping does not just apply at home. Why not translate the Spring Clean approach to safety in your workplace? The transition of seasons provides an easy reminder to stop and examine your surroundings for change, as well as changes needed. Solid housekeeping practices pertaining to the monitoring and review of safety concerns and procedures will ensure your workers will be safe and comfortable, and – if done right – hopefully even feel good about coming to work. This is also essentially the underpinnings of a healthy workplace safety culture – a bonus to the process.
So where to start as you assess the dusty curtains and examine cluttered gutters? A bit of extra dust on your curtains or built up dirt in the carpets won’t immediately halt anyone’s function but, given time, the space would become smellier, grubbier and lack the freshness conducive to good work flow. It’s unfortunately not a once per year job either. These kinds of ‘shake the dust off’ jobs need to be done regularly to maintain a space and place. Spring time is just one convenient opportunity in the calendar to stop again and reassess how things are going. What needs a good shake up? What needs some turning inside out to freshen it up? Yet other processes will be checked on only to find everything is clean and tidy and in good working order. All of this is good workplace monitoring in its simplest form. Some examples of monitoring in the workplace include:
- Performing regular workplace inspections or operational level inspections
- Checking efficacy of the incident reporting system
- Updating emergency plans and procedures
- Auditing your fatigue management procedure before the year gets too long for your workers
MiSAFE Solutions can provide advice and/or tailor a health and safety software system to tackle any of these regular maintenance safety concerns.
Then it’s those gutters. You can’t avoid them. And it’s only a once a year job, but it must be done to ensure safety from the surrounding hazards. If anything is overlooked here, it could be the difference between a minor or major incident. This is your review process. Annual scheduled safety audits are the obvious processes here. Other issues of compliance may also crop up on an annual schedule. These may or may not include management systems audits and safety culture surveys. It may not take a lot of time, but perhaps you’re concerned about sparing the personnel, or the time out of a split portfolio, to perform these important duties. This is never an excuse not to get the job done. MiSAFE understands that you have a core business to run. Safety IS our core business however, so we can get the job done efficiently and to our best possible standards. Our qualified and experienced workplace health and safety consultants take the hassle out of your Spring cleaning challenges so your business can relax back into the smooth work flow of its own concerns, confident that any safety issues have been addressed.
So what are your Safety Spring Clean challenges? How can we help you address these and take the elbow grease out of the task? Contact us today for a free 30 minute consultation.
Recent Comments