How Basic Safety Awareness Can Increase Productivity

Blue collar workers, such as janitors, factory or construction workers, security guards, and truck drivers, are the members of the working class who are responsible for delivering physically-taxing jobs. But due to the nature of their respective duties, they are also the ones who are most susceptible to both minor and major physical injuries.

As a matter of fact, the Ministry of Manpower in Singapore ran the statistics to back this up, and these unfortunate incidents are mostly due to involved parties being negligent, basic work safety measures were not observed accordingly, or there was a lack of proper training. This may seem to bear negative implications just to the aggrieved worker, but it affects the entire production run of the workplace as well.

Every employee or worker contributes to how a construction site or a factory runs through their respective job responsibilities, and one compromised worker is enough to cause some complications, and disrupt a smooth workflow. Awareness of basic safety measures and its observance for optimal workplace or construction safety helps not only to make sure that your workers are exposed to minimum hazards, but also to increase your factory or construction site’s productivity! Here’s how:

Be aware of the risks and how to mitigate them

It’s important to help them be more aware of the hazards that may arise if they fail to observe some safety guidelines, as well as how to respond accordingly when a negative incident does happen. Not only will it help them avoid potential risks, but also to help them perform their responsibilities in a safe and regularised manner. 

If you’re looking for assistance in making your workers more aware of the various safety precautions when working and handling various metalworks, you’ll be glad to know that Wong Fong Academy (WFA) offers the “Apply Workplace Safety and Health In Metalwork” course which is a safety training designed to promote awareness of various workplace safety standards. It only takes 9 hours to equip your workers with the proper knowledge on how to avoid potential hazards to the best of their abilities!

Reinforce responsibility and accountability

It takes a lot of hands to move and operate a factory or a construction site. Every single worker has a responsibility in their respective designation to ensure that their work is done safely and productively, whether they are a line worker or a supervisor.

Awareness of basic safety measures helps all of your workers understand the gravity of mitigating hazards in their own areas so that they can perform efficiently. But do keep in mind that not all dangers are caused by negligence or human error, such as the ones caused by forces of nature. That’s why it’s also important that your workers are educated on how they should respond (or evacuate) once an emergency situation arises.! This is where emergency drills come in to ensure workers are equipped with the knowledge and experience to take on any dire incident.

Decrease the negative effects once the situation has been controlled

Workers who are educated in handling themselves during an emergency situation can help to speed up the emergency response, and lessen the damage thereafter. You would still have to deal with a few compromised equipment here and there, but it’s significantly less than it would have been if your workers are not trained accordingly. And once all the dust and debris have settled, rehabilitation and repairs can start so that your production can bounce back as soon as possible.

The observance of various safety procedures can easily be seen as unnecessary measures, or as hurdles towards getting more tasks done in a short amount of time. But it actually helps to make sure that the workflow runs for a longer duration because it mitigates the negative implications that danger and hazards can bring upon a workforce, which, in turn, increases the overall productivity.