Employers everywhere have known for a while that their employees need quite a few reasons to stay loyal to their business. One of the core reasons for that is providing them with every opportunity to develop and grow their professional skills, which should regularly be done through training and education. Department-specific workshops will always have relevance in growing your business and improving your relationship with your employees, but one particular type of training needs to become mandatory for all your staff: health and safety training.
In the past year, we’ve learned a few hard lessons, one of them being that we can never take too many precautions in terms of preventing health and safety issues in the workplace. The pandemic has inspired many companies to send employees home to work remotely, while others have added different cleanliness policies to prevent an office-wide outbreak. Even when the pandemic is done, you should persist with health and safety training – here’s why!
Preventing injuries and accidents
You might imagine that running an IT organization puts you above workplace injuries, but alas, that cannot be further from the truth. The reality of it is, every workplace carries various risks for your employees, even if it is as simple as slipping on a wet floor or tripping over a computer cord.
Proper training in health and safety means preventing workplace injuries, and that in turn elevates productivity, employee satisfaction, and it helps prevent costly lawsuits and having to compensate your employees for expensive medical procedures.
Elevating productivity
Training serves numerous purposes, one of them being quite straightforward: productivity. Even when it comes to health and safety training in industries that don’t specialize in health and safety, having the right skills elevates employee productivity as well as peace of mind.
When your teams feel comfortable knowing that they can address a health crisis or prevent a safety issue, they will be able to work without stress or tension. That alone elevates the quality of their workplace environment and their own relationships, as they’ll be aware that they can rely on one another should there be a safety issue.
Making your business more competitive
Various fields are flourishing right now, while others are faltering. For instance, the healthcare industry is developing rapidly and if you’re running a clinic of your own, you need to present yourself as the top facility patients can trust, as well as a cutting-edge expert to attract the finest medical professionals. Simply put, the training and education you provide puts you above your competitors in your industry.
That is why healthcare institutions ensure that their medical professionals obtain ACLS training and certification on a regular basis, thus making sure their staff has the latest skills and knowledge in the field. When your employees are the best-trained and officially certified professionals available, you can rest assured this makes you a leading name in your field of work, and a trusted expert in the eyes of your potential customers, or in this case, patients.
Increasing employee retention
As a business leader, your goal should be to inspire your employees to stay loyal to your business. You’ve invested ample time to attract top talent and to go through a painstaking process of elimination to choose the right candidates and groom them for the right positions. It would be a pity to lose them simply because you haven’t prepared them for the modern-day work environment or ensured their safety and security in every sense.
For example, if you’re running a legal office and your employees regularly interact with courtrooms, clients, and the like, health and safety training prepares them to work more comfortably during the pandemic. They’ll follow strict procedures to prevent spreading the virus, but they’ll also know how to handle sensitive cases and difficult situations. All industries have their own, tailor-made training programs to elevate health and safety – it’s up to you to find yours.
Protecting your company’s reputation
Finally, your brand’s perception matters. How your customers and your employees see your business will ultimately define its success, which is why many modern-day businesses continuously invest in reputation management as well as developing risk mitigation strategies. One of those strategies revolves around enabling a safe and healthy workplace for all the people who come into your office every day.
Whether you run a digital agency with few people working from the office, or you have an entire medical facility under your supervision – health and safety training will help set you apart in your industry. In fact, among many post-COVID benefits your potential candidates will look for, ongoing education and training in safety will top the list. If your goal is to inspire people to trust your brand and for you to become a leader and an authority in your field, then this type of education needs to be your top priority.
Education is one of the core pillars of business growth, no matter your industry or expertise. It’s going to help you build up morale among your employees, grant them the knowledge they need to perform better over time, and it will become the main way to protect your image in your community. Take your time to devise a training strategy in health and safety, and your workplace will thrive for it.
Guest post courtesy of Elaine Bennett