Reduce Risk in the Office
With the introduction and implementation of the vaccine passport, many workplaces are looking for their employees to return to the office – either on a hybrid or full-time basis. As a leading Vancouver security company, one of our main focuses is to ensure the safety of our clients, their businesses, their employees and their visitors. Over the past year our role as a security company has evolved to encapsulate more than just implementing safety measures for our clients, but ensuring our clients are meeting or exceeding the best practices set by our local health authorities and are aligned with the ever-changing laws and mandates – especially as the COVID-19 pandemic endures.
While workplace health and safety has been a vital focus for the past 18 months for many organizations, there are always ways we can improve working conditions and further mitigate risk in the workplace. “In 2019 alone, people in BC missed 3.2 million days of work due to work-related incidents and disease,” equating to over 44,000 of the most common injuries, including strains, contusions, fractures and cuts, according to a WorkSafe BC report.
There are several important steps that you can take with your business to mitigate its workplace health and safety risks, check out our top tips below and contact our team for a complementary risk assessment and quote.
1. Ensure All Employees Understand Your Health and Safety Policy
The importance of clearly communicating your business’s health and safety policy is often overlooked. For your policies to be truly accepted and absorbed by your people, you must ensure that each employee is familiar with your workplace safety policy and how it pertains to their job. By hosting training sessions on a regular basis you can ensure that every employee has the chance to review your health and safety policy as well as ask any questions they may have so they can get up to speed as soon as they begin their new job.
It’s also vital that you think about how you'll get your policy, as well as any updates or amendments, out to your team. There are many ways to spread information and it’s often best to utilize more than one tactic to ensure you’re getting your policies out to as many employees as possible. By posting information on memo boards in common areas, utilizing an Intranet or supplying all employees with an Employee Handbook, you are helping increase awareness for your health & safety policies.
If you’re utilizing a security company to help implement or enforce your health and safety policy, it’s imperative to ensure you have disclosed all policy information to your security provider; this allows for your security team to provide you with the most relevant security solutions to your business.
2. Manage Risks Quickly & Effectively
To keep your workplace safe physically, you should ensure all risks are reconciled in a timely manner. Significant risks can be formulated from the tiniest of problems, such as slippery floors, cluttered rooms or workspaces and materials left out. Don’t know if your workplace is hazard-free? A qualified security company, like IntercomLux, will be able to provide you with a risk assessment for your business so you can prevent workplace injuries from happening in the first place.
Another important factor in risk management is ensuring your employees have a protocol to report and deal with any hazards that may occur while in the workplace. There are multiple ways to do this: you can have your employees fill out a form by-hand and submit it to the proper department in a timely manner, you can create a submission form on your company’s Intranet where all employees can login and submit a report or you can go as far as creating a mobile app to streamline this process even more. The benefits of using technology in risk management are the ability to see time stamps, information on who is submitting the form, instantaneous updates to any parties involved and no delays related to determining who to hand a filled in form to. Additionally, employees will be able to access relevant health and safety documents, such as organizational charts, contact lists and your Employee Handbook.
3. Own Your Company’s Health & Safety Policies
As you may know, a company’s culture can make or break overall morale – it can be hard to follow protocols and regulations if it’s apparent that everyone, especially key decision makers, aren’t bought it. The health and safety regulations in your company are not solely the responsibility of one person or department; it is a shared goal. That is why every company should strive to create a safety "culture."
If you are in an office setting, set an easy-to-follow example by creating signage in your office showcasing how to put certain materials away, where cleaning supplies are for a spill or how to reduce clutter within employee workspaces.
We often see companies struggle with implementing health and safety policies, or sometimes even developing those policies and protocols in the first place. Our security teams are expertly trained in health and safety best practices and we can help with developing these protocols and implementing them once you have a plan in place that you are happy with.
4. Provide Health & Safety Tools for Employees
If you aren’t providing your employees with the tools they need to remain safe & healthy whilst in the workplace, it can be extremely difficult for your employees to avoid injuries and illnesses and follow your health & safety protocols. Dependent upon the industry you work in, you’ll need to provide your team with varied equipment, tools and materials to help alleviate the risk your business is taking on. If your business is in a corporate office, you’ll need to ensure chairs and computer equipment are ergonomic. If you’re in a more labour inducive field, you’ll need to provide your employees with personal protective equipment (PPE) and perhaps more advanced first-aid supplies, depending on the nature of the job(s) at hand.
5. Hire a Security Company
It can be difficult to navigate health and safety policies and what’s right for your business and your people. Addressing your business’s health and safety concerns should be done in alignment with your business’s overall strategy, goals and objectives so that everything works in unison; in doing so, you will save time and money. By consulting a security company, we can help you ensure you are implementing all of the best practices in line with our local health and safety authorities’ requirements and recommendations.
About IntercomLux Security
IntercomLux Management was founded in 2019 with the goal of providing exceptional service to its clients across a wide variety of services and solutions. IntercomLux Management, a subsidiary of IntercomLux Security, provides a multitude of bespoke services under one brand, including valet, talent acquisition, and IntercomLux Management's subsidiary, IntercomLux Security.
Black-tie event security, mobile security personnel, retail loss prevention security, commercial security, and strata building security/concierge services are all available through IntercomLux Security. IntercomLux Security hires and trains its guards in a way that is unique within our industry, ensuring that all officers embody IntercomLux's core principles and complement our clients' existing business environment.