Your employer is required to provide a safe and healthy workplace. It is up to them to make sure that you can come to work and not face the risk of an injury or illness. However, you should also do your part to stay safe, as well. Sure, you can make a claim against your employer if you are injured by using a good personal injury lawyer. You may even get quite a bit of money if your lawyer is good and they cover workplace injuries. You can view their website to see if they do.
The idea, though, is to also make sure that you don’t get injured because a work injury could damage you for life and that is not worth whatever compensation you may get. In this article, we will go over some proactive ways that you can avoid workplace injury.
1. Keep Your Work Area Clean
It is your responsibility to make sure that your work area is free of debris and obstacles so you can work safely. If you have things constantly underfoot then this is going to increase the risk of a trip or fall and that could spell disaster. If you are working with heavy machinery then you need to be even more careful about how clean your work area is.
With machinery running, it is very important that your work area is free from any kind of debris that could fall into the machine as it moves and become hazardous. Even if you don’t have a supervisor always telling you to clean up, you should take it upon yourself to do so. If you see a spill, then clean it up or find somebody who can instead of waiting for it to be done for you.
2. Wear The Right Protection
Many companies will provide you with the proper safety equipment to wear while working. If you don’t wear it or wear it improperly then you are setting yourself up for an injury or illness. Always make sure that you have the safety gear on at all times when you are at work so you don’t take on a higher risk of injury. This also means that you should wear it properly. Make sure that your gloves are on and fit well so they don’t cause you to lose your grasp on things. Also, goggles should fit well and snugly. Make sure that there is no part of your uniform or safety apparel that is loose and could end up getting entangled in a machine. Many machine-related injuries occur because the worker got sucked in when a moving part grabbed onto their clothing, for example.
3. Take It Slow
Work needs to be done on time so it is natural to want to rush through things to meet your deadline. Even when you aren’t feeling pressure from a boss you may put it on yourself to get things done quickly. This can end up having disastrous consequences as judgment suffers when you are trying to do things quickly. Taking a shortcut can result in injury or worse because you are usually being less careful for the sake of speed and efficiency.
Taking your time to make sure that things are done correctly is a good way to stay safe. It is not worth the risk of an injury to speed up the process if it means working in a dangerous situation.
4. Careful Lifting
Lifting heavy objects can result in muscle strain very easily. It doesn’t matter if you work in a warehouse or in an office. There are ways that you should lift boxes or other heavy objects that will lower the risk of an injury.
Before you do any kind of physical work like lifting, make sure to do a couple of minutes of stretching before you attempt to do so. This is going to loosen the tendons and get the muscles ready to exert themselves. Cold muscles are tense and can get easily strained.
You should also make sure to lift with your legs and not be bent over when attempting it. This puts all the strain on your back and can result in a bad back injury. By bending your knees and keeping your back straight, your stronger leg muscles are doing the work so there is less chance of injury. Always ask for help moving something heavy. Don’t try to be a hero or look to impress by lifting an object that is too heavy.
