People are the lifeblood of any business organization. It’s safe to say that a company would not reach its full potential without its people.
Naturally, one of the major goals of the leadership team is to motivate their best people to stay. And there are a lot of factors that make professionals want to stay with their employer for the long term.
We’ve compiled them in this handy guide, and each week we’ll be outlining the best steps you can take to sustain each factor.
FACTOR 8 – SAFETY AND HEALTH
Step 1: Maintain a safe working environment.
Workers will only ever be as safe as their environment will allow. A workplace with unaddressed safety and health hazards will only get worse over time, because the people using it will be conditioned to rely on temporary solutions.
On the other hand, a workplace that undergoes consistent and up-to-date evaluation and maintenance for safety and health will always breed a responsible mindset among its occupants. This is the kind of workplace you want to build and sustain, because intelligent employees (a.k.a. the ones you want to keep) will always know the difference between safe and healthy versus unsafe and unhealthy.
Invest in your organization’s safety and health standards, in every segment of the work environment and in every situation that occurs as part of your operations. Not only would your people thank you for it, they’ll also feel comfortable enough to stay and do their best work for years to come.
Step 2: Employ reliable security.
Safety isn’t just about protection against occupational hazards stemming from inanimate objects and situations; threats can also come in the form of other human beings.
People with suspicious agenda can endanger your workplace in many ways: they may be trying to steal from employees or the company itself, attempting to sabotage your operations, or worst of all seeking to injure or even cause death.
Fortunately, employing reliable security personnel for your workplace can effectively lower these risks to a more comfortable level. Security measures, such as proofing possible entrances and exits and installing closed-circuit television cameras, will also be tremendously appreciated amongst your employees. And of course, employees who feel safe will be less likely to think about leaving.
Step 3: Arrange for proper field transport.
Safety hazards exist not only inside the workplace, but also anywhere there is human activity. All the things that make a workplace unsafe are present everywhere else, because these are also other people’s workplaces after all. And then there are hazards that occur as part of the natural world around us.
These things become legitimate concerns for any employee whose responsibilities involve fieldwork. Natural disasters, criminal elements, or dangerous pathogens are some of the more serious hazards your people could be exposed to when traveling and working outside, especially when they have to get there on their own.
Invest in proper work transport for your workers. This limits their exposure to danger while in transit, and comes with the added benefit of punctuality – outside of extreme unforeseen circumstances, they’ll almost always be on time.
Step 4: Partner with a legitimate healthcare provider.
Some of the most dangerous threats are the ones that are invisible at first glance. Implementing the best safety measures in your workplace won’t help if the corresponding health standards are low, especially since medical and biological threats don’t need to use the door the way human beings do.
It’s easy to get a budget approved to have hand sanitizers available at every corner of your work environment, but do also partner up with a service that can provide proper healthcare coverage. Shop around for the best package for your organization’s size, the nature of its operations, and the budget available.
This is a great way to strengthen a culture of good hygiene and health consciousness among your employees. If they feel that their employer can support their efforts to live (and work) healthily, they’ll be less inclined to look for that support somewhere else.
Because people are an organization’s most important assets, putting their safety first will always be appreciated as a demonstration of how valuable they are.
Assure your employees that you care about their actual physical well-being just as much as their professional well-being. Pay diligent attention to safety and health standards and measures that give them access to safe transportation and medical aid. And of course, stay tuned in the coming weeks for more ways you can show your people that they matter!