According to the United Nations Global Compact, 2.78 million employees die from work related accidents and diseases annually. Apart from this, non-fatal accidents related to the workplace affect 374 million employees every year. A distressing 7500 deaths occur globally every day among employees and these can be attributed to unhealthy and unsafe workplace conditions.
But it is not just accidents and unsafe work environments that can take a toll on employees. Often, an employee’s health can be affected by other factors, such as biological/chemical hazards, physical hazards, and ergonomic conditions that result in long-term health problems. Moreover, an employee may have certain medical conditions that prevent them from giving their best. All of these can result in a loss to the employee as well as the employer, which is why managing health and safety for employee should be a priority for any employer.
What is health and safety for employees?
Every employer has the responsibility to provide a safe and healthy working environment to their workforce. Basic hygiene and safety measures must be taken care of. In addition, the employer must also ensure that the working conditions are such that the employees are not at risk of developing any lifestyle diseases simply owing to their work environment.
The importance of safety and health at work becomes evident when we see what kinds of lifestyle diseases can be caused by poor working conditions:
• Studies show that diseases like cancer, liver disease, Alzheimer’s, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, arteriosclerosis, diabetes, stroke, hypertension and others can be traced back to workplace conditions.
• Work environments with much noise, dust, smoke, or pollutants can cause severe health issues including respiratory problems.
• Working in cramped conditions or lack of ergonomic sitting, standing or working conditions can lead to musculoskeletal damage.
All of these make it critical for employers to prioritise safety and health at work by making periodic medical checks for the workforce available, so that they can track their health status and identify risk areas in advance.
How do employee health and safety measures help employers?
Why is health important to us personally? Good health allows us to give our best in any situation, take up challenges and exert ourselves to the maximum. The collective good health of a workforce can deliver similar benefits to an organisation.
• A healthy employee is an asset to any organisation. Poor health forces an employee to take many leaves of absence, disrupting the work. This is neither good for the employee nor the company, which finds its smooth workflow interrupted multiple times.
• Ensuring that the workplace is conducive to the employee’s good health is equally important to ensure the company upholds its reputation in the marketplace. This is one of the reasons why safety is important, to enable continuous and seamless work.
• Healthy employees are productive employees too, who can rise to challenges quickly and more effectively. Which is why, no company would wish to undermine its productivity by ignoring employee health and safety measures. .
• Another reason why safety is important in the workplace is because when workplace accidents occur, there is a need for investigation and downtime until the root cause is discovered. This negatively impacts the finances of a company.
• Managing health and safety for employees means that employees will be able to work at peak efficiency, and with necessary focus. This ensures that the work happens with accuracy and there is little need for correction or rework.
• When the workforce knows that the employer cares about their health and safety, the morale is better, and fewer people tend to quit or look for jobs elsewhere. If a company can build its reputation for offering a good workplace, the most skilled and qualified people will prefer to work there.
Managing health and safety for employees efficiently
A simple way to keep the workforce healthy is to introduce a system of periodic health checks for all. A critical component of employee health and safety measures, annual health monitoring programs are a very popular way for employers to:
• Show their employees they care about their wellbeing
• Keep track of employee health status
• Identify health risks faced by individual employees before they affect work quality
• Pinpoint and plug areas where the work environment is not healthy
• Ensure that the workforce is at peak efficiency, capable of taking the company to new heights
• Improve employee confidence and trust in the employer by demonstrating that the workforce and its wellbeing matters
In many companies, health checks and medical treatment packages are offered as a perk of the job. These are deemed to be a significant benefit to the employee and clubbed with the salary to show the net cost to company of retaining the individual.
Managing health and safety for employee is not just in the best interest of the individual working for a firm, but also for the firm itself. Human resource is a definite asset to any company but only if the workforce has the ability to give its best. By taking care of safety and health at work, an employer can ensure that the workforce is fully equipped to give its best in terms of productivity. And this can be done simply by incorporating a regular health check-up program for employees from a reliable, experienced medical service provider.