Take a little visit to YouTube and you will have no problem finding all kinds of videos of people having accidents because they weren’t paying attention to what they are doing. One of the most alarming trends in this area is the growing number of people who are getting injured because they had their faces stuck in a mobile phone. There is no denying the fact that mobile technology has some real benefits, but it’s our seeming inability to put them down for 5 minutes that is making life so dangerous.
This trend is bad enough out on the street, but when you start introducing mobile phones into the workplace, the situation can go from dangerous to life-threatening in the blink of an eye. It’s at this point where you are not only outing your own health and safety at risk, but also that of your co-workers. This is especially true in workplaces where there is machinery, heavy equipment, or electrical factors that come into play. The same rules apply if you are working at heights, where the risk of falling is increased, as well as the chance that you might drop something while not paying attention.
There are a couple of problems that need to be addressed here, and it all begins with the responsibility of the worker. When you set foot into your place of employment, you mobile device needs to be put away until break time. Any potential form of distraction has to be put aside so that you can focus your complete attention on the job at hand. It only take a moment of being distracted for something potentially dangerous to happen. Do you really want to be horribly injured just so that you can answer a text that could have waited until the end of your shift?
On the flipside of that is the responsibility of the owners and management of the workplace. If they do not have clear rules and regulation in place regarding workplace behavior and practices, how can employees know when they are breaking the rules? Yes, most companies have safety measures and regulations in place, but there are still plenty who have not updated those to include mobile phones and other such devices. If you have a business that falls into that category, you really need to look at bringing your operational procedures into the 21st century.
The good news is that there are professionals out there who can help you ensure that your workplace is as safe as humanly possible. Yes, accidents are still going to happen, but when you have clear safety measures in place, those incidents will become few and far between. Even when they do happen, the chances of anyone being seriously injured is still greatly reduced. If you feel that you are a little behind the times when it comes to workplace safety, you need to talk to HRB Consulting Sunshine Coast and Brisbane & let them show you how the workplace can become safer for everyone.
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