Important Factors About Workplace Hazards That You Need To Know

As an employer, it is your responsibility to take care of the health and safety of your workers. Even as workers, you have the right to know about the potential hazards that your workplace might have. Having clear knowledge about the potential hazards will allow you to take the necessary precautionary measures. It is not just the responsibility of your employer but also yours to ensure that you are working in a safe and healthy environment.

Unfortunately health and safety hazards are present in almost all the workplaces. In case of few problems, those can be easily detected as well as solved within time. Whereas, there are several others those are extremely dangerous and cannot be solved within the stipulated time and have a long term impact on your health. In such cases, action needs to be taken and even reported to the higher authorities.

Hence, in such crucial times, we take the responsibility of enlightening you with some important facts that you need to know.

Types of Workplace Hazards

There are primarily four main types of workplace hazards that deserves your attention.

  • Ergonomic Hazards – This type of hazard is commonly associated with the type of work you do. Due to the work you do, you are experiencing a strain on your body or the working environment is the reason for an increasing external pressure on your body, then that can be categorized as ergonomic hazards in your workplace.
  • Chemical Hazards – When working in an environment where you are constantly exposed to certain types of chemical preparation in the form of solid, liquid or gas, then the hazard that you are facing in your workplace can be categorised as chemical hazards. A list of chemical hazards could be cleaning solvents and products, fumes and vapours, carbon monoxide and other related gases.
  • Biological Hazards – The biological hazards take place when working closely with animals and certain infectious plant materials. The hazards that take place is dealing with any sort of harmful bacteria, it could also be animal or bird droppings, harmful insect bites and the several viruses that might spread as a viral. When you are working closely in such circumstances, it is necessary that you take the necessary precautious measures.
  • Physical Hazards – This is one of the most common workplace hazards that take place almost everywhere. In case you wish to know the types of physical hazards that might take place, these could be unguarded machinery, exposed moving parts, working from ladders, constant loud noise. These are some of the most common workplace hazards that might take place.

So check your workplace well and identify the hazards that you might be facing so that you can take the preventive measures well in time.

Workplace Hazard Inspection Process

If you wish to prevent yourself from injuries, then it is important to get the required inspection done. A careful scrutiny of your workplace is a must and there is a process of this inspection. Let us take a look at this process.

  • It is important to listen to the problems that the workers are facing. Hearing them out will give you a brief about the types of problems that is present. This would also help in sketching the necessary solutions that you would wish to implement.
  • Having clarity on the type of work that workers do on a regular basis is important. This clarity will allow you to understand the possible problems that they might face along with the existing problems. Understanding their work pattern will make the inspection process simpler.
  • Inspection is a time consuming process and that time needs to be given in it. Inspection also involves trying to identify the potential hazardous areas so that you can do the needful before things go beyond control.
  • One of the common hazard detection process that professionals undertake is to conduct a thorough interview. This interview process makes hazard detection an easy process.
  • Trying to identify the causes of hazards, once you can understand the hazard, then you can fix the cause first and the entire problem will get sorted.

These facts will help you big time in trying to protect yourself in your existing workplace environment.