Is your business really ready for summer? As the weather heats up there are more risks involved in daily tasks at work. If you haven’t conducted all the necessary risk assessments or updated your emergency plans, you could be putting your business and your employees at risk of serious injury or illness.
Is your business summer ready?
As we have seen with the recent weather conditions across Australia, severe heat and weather can create a lot of risks for businesses, communities, and individuals. If your business isn’t managing these risks effectively this could lead to emergency situations.
If you operate a logistics, manufacturing, farming or construction business, the risk of injury for your employees can increase significantly during the summer season, if poorly managed.
Some of the most common heat-related illnesses include:
- Heat rash
- Heat cramps
- Dizziness and fainting
- Heat exhaustion
- Heatstroke
These illnesses can lead to injuries in the workplace if your business isn’t managing the risks effectively. High temperatures can have a significant effect on the condition of roads and heavy machinery operation and ineffective planning of your workforce in extreme weather conditions is a core management responsibility. It’s important to take the time to think about how your business is affected in extreme conditions, particularly given laws are already in place under work health and safety for heat related items
“Vehicle as a Workplace” is one example under Nationwide laws that prescriptively define how you need to manage your workforce when they are in a vehicle used for work, where the primary risk is for Companies and Directors if breached.
Heatstroke is an extremely dangerous risk to consider
It is possible to prevent heat-related illnesses and injuries, but this requires proper risk management processes. Using a digital system provides fast and efficient ways to communicate with teams, provide warnings and manage external sites.
Have you conducted all necessary risk assessments? Are your fire wardens trained properly? Do you have proven plans for safety communications?
Keep all of your risk management procedures in one system
It’s not possible to prevent all accidents from occurring, but it is possible to reduce the risks that cause these accidents and manage risks more effectively. During summer it is important to ensure your business has the proper Health and Safety policies in place, the fire wardens have up-to-date training, and you are conducting regular evacuation drills.
All of this can be hard to manage across multiple systems, or without any system at all. It’s easy to lose track of your risk management procedures if everything is completed on paper and difficult to update. It is important as a business owner that you do everything you can to analyse the risks and manage them, but you need an effective system to do this.
Paperless risk management will help ensure the safety of your employees
With ONE SYSTEM for risk management, you can ensure your team stays up-to-date with its policies, procedures, and processes. An online system will allow you to record how every risk is managed so that you can learn how to control these risks more effectively across your business.
Through mobile technology and smart applications you can keep a log of all your equipment, so it is easier to track when the equipment was last maintained, where it is located and when the next service is due.
Consider reducing risk to your business by working intelligently and effectively, focusing time to make sure your employees are safe. Choosing a system that can manage and action risk as soon as it is identified gives business owners a peace of mind and provides confidence in your employees.
If your current system can’t keep up with the standards and regulations required to manage risks effectively, it’s time to look for a better solution. Make it mobile, make it intuitive and make it flexible.
Whilst risk management is a critical part of any good business, having a broader system to improve efficiency, improve safety, and improve knowledge will demonstrate to your employees that you care for their well being inside an improvement culture.
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