5 Reasons to Emphasize Safety in the Workplace

Regardless of your business's operations, you should focus on creating a safe workplace. Thousands of workers are injured each year. While some of these injuries are minor, others are not. Workers can sustain permanent, lifelong injuries. You can protect them from injuries, however, by emphasizing safety in the workplace. Here are five important reasons to emphasize safety in the workplace.

#1) Compliance With Laws and Regulations

There are laws and regulations -- at both federal and state levels -- that require business owners to provide their workers with a safe environment. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), for instance, requires employers to provide their workers with personal protective equipment (PPE). OSHA has other rules for specific industries. Turning a blind eye to workplace safety could result in noncompliance with laws and regulations such as these.

#2) Lower Turnover Rate

By emphasizing safety in the workplace, you'll experience a lower turnover rate. Turnover rate is a measurement of how many workers leave your business during a given period. Some businesses have an annual turnover rate of nearly 50%, meaning they lose about half of their workers in any given year. For a lower turnover rate, focus on creating a safe working environment.

#3) Saves Money on Workers' Compensation 

Another reason to emphasize safety in the workplace is to save money on workers' compensation expenses. There's a correlation between work-related injuries and workers' compensation expenses. The more work-related injuries that occur in the workplace, the higher your business's workers' compensation expenses will be. Emphasizing safety in the workplace will reduce the number of injuries that workers sustain, thus lowering your business's workers' compensation expenses.

#4) Improved Productivity

You might be surprised to learn that workplace safety, or lack thereof, can affect productivity. Businesses that provide their workforce with a safe working environment experience higher productivity levels than those that ignore workplace safety. With a safe workplace, workers will be able to work faster and more efficiently. An unsafe workplace, on the other hand, can have the opposite. It will drive down workers' productivity levels.

#5) Improved Morale

In addition to productivity, emphasizing workplace safety will improve the morale of workers. Workers' morale will often change. As injuries and illnesses on the job begin to increase, their morale will decrease. Emphasizing safety in the workplace, though, will have the opposite effect. It will reduce injuries and illnesses while subsequently improving the morale of workers.