Often Overlooked Workplace Health and Safety Concerns

Did you know there were over 2.6 million nonfatal workplace accidents and illnesses in private workplaces in 2023? These include slip-and-fall accidents, repetitive strain injuries, and respiratory illnesses due to poor air quality. The preventable death rate is 3.2 per 100,000 workers (source: National Safety Council). As an employer, knowing these stats for Workplace Health and Safety Concerns and how your business fits right into them means you can work towards a safer and healthier workplace for everyone on your payroll, your visitors, and your customers.

OSHA has a wide range of workplace safety and health regulations to ensure employers are aware of and take control of factors within their organization that can potentially cause harm to those on the premises. Yet despite this, a vast number of employers fail to take on board or adopt policies and procedures aimed at workplace safety and continue to put people at risk every day.

That being said, even the most astute business owner can sometimes overlook some aspects of health and safety and find themselves on the wrong end of a legal case, be it with a slip and fall lawyer, wrongful death lawyer, or auto accident lawyer due to negligent drivers.

With this in mind, what are some of the most commonly overlooked hazards in the workplace that slip under the radar?

Tiredness

Workplace fatigue is a growing concern. As employers demand more from their employees and raise the stakes, exhaustion and fatigue become more prominent. It’s crucial for employers to take responsibility for addressing this issue, ensuring their workers are not pushed to the edge of sanity by excessive workloads and insufficient rest.

While it’s obvious to make the workplace safe for those in it, if the workers themselves aren’t safe due to burnout or not getting sufficient rest or downtime, then this can turn into a massive hazard and one that is quite frequently overlooked.

13% of workplace injuries are due to fatigue, and employers can resolve this by simply addressing their workload and their workforce to ensure that workers are getting sufficient downtime and aren’t being pushed to the edge of sanity by not getting enough sleep. Workers need to be able to rest, and while there is no legal or mandatory rule regarding how closely you can schedule shifts, being considerate of your workers, their working schedule, the work they do, and their homelife/commute times will remove the risk of fatigue impacting your business.

Poor Ergonomics

Ergonomics is the act of making the workplace safe and accessible for workers, reducing the workspace’s impact and the number of illnesses and injuries they sustain.

The truth is, a poorly positioned desk, the wrong equipment, incorrectly ventilated spaces, the wrong temperatures, inadequate seating arrangements, and more when applied to the body day after day, can impact a person’s ability to do their jobs and do it in comfort. As an employer, addressing these issues is crucial to ensure your employees’ well-being and productivity. For instance, a desk that is too high can lead to shoulder and neck strain, while poor ventilation can cause respiratory issues. By addressing these factors, you can reduce the risk of illnesses and injuries, leading to higher efficiency and fewer human errors.

Enforcing Working When Ill

Sure, it’s only a cold; everyone works with a cold, right? Actually, if you’re mandating people come into work when they don’t feel good or have something contagious, the answer is yes. 

While it’s not great or easy to cover workers for something you feel is a minor illness, the impact on the rest of your employees can be massive, and that one simple cold can, in time, take down the entire workforce, leading to increased sickness rates, lower productivity and the risk of the cold not dissipating because it’s got others to continually jump to time after time.

Allowing workers to take a day or two off when they’re ill is not just about preventing the spread of illness; it’s about showing care for your workforce. This simple measure can save your workforce from suffering the same fate and enable you to keep morale high and the workforce healthy, so it does impact your ability to get things done.

Lone Working

Lone workers are often at an increased risk of accidents or injuries simply because no one else is there to pick up the slack.

They’re required to do all of the heavy lifting, moving of objects here required, and other tasks. In addition, lone workers don’t have access to immediate help or assistance should they sustain an injury that leads to more severe consequences, and this can all of a sudden be a massive issue for you and them. You can move around this by removing the need to carry out more complex or heavy duties when people work alone or by removing lone working shifts from your schedule.

Bullying and Harassment

Bullying doesn’t disappear once people leave alcohol, and workplace bullying and harassment are just as rife as school ground bullying.

Sadly, as an adult, the implications for the victim can be the same and can not only put a huge rift in the workforce, making your operations disjointed, but you can also feel that your workplace as a whole suffers in other ways. This includes prolonged periods of sickness for those at the hands of the bullies. An increased risk of injury, depression, suicide, and acts of violence. So, while you might see it as harmless workplace banter, the reality is that bullying can pose a considerable health and safety risk to your organization, employees, customers, and reputation. It’s important to note that workplace bullying and harassment can also lead to legal action against your company, which can have severe financial and reputational consequences.

Workplace OSHA regulations are vast and are designed to help you protect those working for you, those coming into contact with your organization, and, of course, the business itself. While fines can be considerable for companies willing to flout OSHA regulations, some factors aren’t entirely as separate as needed to keep flooring and walkways clear to reduce slips and falls or provide training and safety equipment for working at height. These more minor overlooked factors can build up to have just as significant, if not bigger, impact on your workplace over time.

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