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Attracting top talent and investing in cutting-edge innovation drives business growth. However, neither your business nor your employees can thrive if their workplace is stressful, disorganized, and unsafe. Follow these steps to shore up your business’s safety and organization standards and watch productivity soar.
Steps to a More Organized and Secure Working Environment
Establish Safety and Organization as Priorities from the Get-Go
Everyone from new hires to old hands should be aware of your company’s focus on safety and organization. Tailor the onboarding process to include an intro to safety best practices and regularly conducting training.
Define What Safety Means to You
You can’t enforce a safe workplace without understanding what constitutes one. Standards won’t be the same for an office and a warehouse, so you’ll want to develop and enforce them accordingly. You should also track incidents that violate these standards and reward employees if they maintain safety-conscious behavior.
Assess Your Storage Needs
Part of the problem from our last suggestion might stem from inadequate storage containers. Assess what you currently have and get more appropriate containers. Size and location play a crucial role. You don’t want the containers to be too big since that breeds clutter. Not enough storage space per container means employees won’t have everything they need nearby.
Pay Attention to Digital Clutter
Disorganized file systems can be as much of a headache as real-world messes. Develop a protocol to guide employees on correctly naming and storing their files. It’s also important to perform regular audits to see who accessed which files and determine if there are old files you can delete safely.
Companies, especially smaller businesses, are ditching physical servers to favor secure cloud storage options designed for businesses. It makes sense safety-wise since storage providers encrypt your files and can keep them as backups. From an organizational standpoint, switching to the cloud is beneficial since you can create user hierarchies and allow access based on need. They also keep logs, so it is easier to track who worked with which files and at what time.
Keep Paths Clean and Accessible
Nothing exemplifies the marriage of safety and organization better than clean passageways. Tangled power cords, debris, or coffee spills need to be dealt with as soon as they happen to avoid injuries. Employees with personal spaces should feel free to personalize them while keeping things tidy.
Ensure all exits, stairwells, and emergency pathways have proper markings and are easy to access.
Conduct Regular Safety Meetings
Training keeps employees sharp; safety meetings keep them appraised of related goings-on and stats. In larger companies, representatives from different departments can take part. They can discuss their safety-related issues, consult on best practices, and spread the info to the rest of the workforce.
Minimize Time-Wasting Logistics
You can’t eliminate poor employee productivity overall. What you can do is ensure that their working environment doesn’t contribute to the waste. Employees shouldn’t need to spend time retrieving tools half the shop away or rummage through several drawers to find office supplies.
Create a layout with the most frequently used items at everyone’s disposal. Properly secured tools should remain out in the open and within easy reach. You can organize smaller items into tubs or open drawers and designate a permanent place for them to avoid confusion.
Don’t Underestimate Regular Maintenance
Maintenance can take on many forms, all of which are important to a properly functioning workplace. On the one hand, it’s ensuring that all equipment meets safety regulations and operates at optimum efficiency. On the other, it’s determining which tools or systems are obsolete, when to replace them, and what to do. Sticking to a maintenance schedule will help maintain smooth operation while identifying potential problems early.
Emphasize and Reinforce Breaks
Whether sitting at desks or performing more hands-on work, employees risk strain and injury if they keep it up for too long. Mandating breaks to stretch or take walks will break up the routine and reduce the chances of long-term injuries. A change of scenery and pace also improves productivity once they get back at it.
Conclusion
The bottom line might be your business’s most important metric, yet people realize it depends on the most. An investment in their security and comfort is an investment in your company’s continued prosperity.
