If you’re leading a business and you have people working for you, you need to take care of them. The building in which you work is your other home and you need to treat it that way. The best thing about this other home of yours is that you don’t have to clean it like you do with your real home – you can have people do it for you. You just need to make a list of to-dos.
Here’s what you need to look after when it comes to the physical state of your employees:
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Falling and slipping accidents
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Burning and cutting hazards
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Untrained employees
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Unsafe office layout
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Exposure to toxic substances
Most of these tasks should be taken care of at the starting point of your business, but it’s never too late to fix them.
Controlling the person who is in charge of floor cleaning is going to be enough to prevent your employees from falling and getting hurt. Floors need to be dry and completely clean so nothing bad can happen. The next step is checking the capabilities of your employees. Depending on the machinery in your office, you need to have proper training – everyone must go through it – even for the simple things – like the copy machine. By doing this, you’re lowering possible risks of breakdowns caused by unskilled employees. Handling things with extra attention will stop any possible paper cuts or pinches that can be inconvenient. And if you’re dealing with special substances that may damage the health of anyone in the building, take precautions before it is too late. You should be familiar with them by now, but you should upgrade them from time to time, just to be sure about your safety.
The office layout isn’t just about putting chairs and desks around. You need to create a safe, calm environment where people want to come and be productive. If you have no experience in this area, it’s best to consult an expert. You can easily get in touch with a person that will do miracles with a limited budget. Placing plants in your office is always a good idea – it looks friendly and inviting. Also, you should play with colors and art pieces, but do it with style. Too much color will turn the place into a circus and too much art pieces will be, well, too much.
When you’re done with all of this, there’s just one more thing to take care of – the mental health of your employees. This is the tricky part, because you need to watch closely and look for things that others don’t see. The tension should be brought down to a minimum, so you can increase productivity. Creating a calm, stress-free atmosphere is one of the most important task that one leader must know how to fulfill. It’s not too bad to make friends along the way, but everyone must know that you’re the one who’s in charge. But, you need to do that and still make them comfortable. In order to balance these two out, you should try the award system – you need to be generous, which is the opposite of being stingy (people can easily notice and remember this). When one of your employees surprises you with responsibility, you should immediately count that in their Christmas bonus. If you decide to do this, your employees will work harder because they’ll know what to expect when they do.
Another problem regarding the health of your employees is in the building itself. If you’re working in a building that you haven’t monitored while it was built, you should check it out. Problems like pests can easily become yours to take care of. But, don’t worry – you don’t need to stop the whole business just for that because there’s a natural way of dealing with pests. Natural pest control is not going to affect the safe environment that you worked hard to create. You need to look for all signs that pests leave behind. If you’re working in an older building, you should take care of this problem right away. This is just one other way of taking care of your employees and improving the conditions that all of you work in.