Encouraging Off-The-Job Safety

Employees are more likely to be injured at home than at work. It is important to encourage the practice of off-the-job safety, due to the fact that off-the-job injuries have as much impact on employee job performance as on-the-job injuries.

By encouraging employees to take home their safety practices, employers can reduce absenteeism and lower insurance costs. More importantly, it lets workers know that their health and safety are important to management- both on and off the job.

The best way that an employee can protect himself from off-the-job injuries is to prevent them. Basic awareness and common sense can have a considerable impression on personal safety, no matter where the employee is.

Safe Driving
Being a safe driver is one of the most important elements of off-the-job safety. There are a number of factors that can limit your driving ability; they include alertness, anger and aggression, your health, vision, hearing, and drug and alcohol use. By improving their defensive driving skills and maintaining healthy lifestyles, employees can increase their good driving status.

Hazardous Materials
Through proper training, employees can learn how to recognize and safely use potentially hazardous materials- such as paint, oil, cleansers, and bleach, on and off the job.

Personal Security
Workers should be taught how to take control of their personal security. Even if they only know to stay alert at all times, trust their instincts, and stay calm in emergencies, employees will be able to prevent certain instances of crime and violence.

Ergonomics
Studying the way that people adjust to their working conditions can help employees adapt themselves to off-the-job conditions, decreasing the amount of injuries associated with hobbies.

Slips, Trips, and Falls
Many slips, trips, and falls occur as part of the approximately 18,000 steps each of us takes every day, from walking the dog to going up the stairs at work.

Personal Protective Equipment
By taking responsibility for their own safety, both on and off the job, employees will learn what they need to do to protect themselves from personal injury. Personal protective equipment can protect you from injury at work, as well as in bad weather, during your favorite activity, and in the home.

Ladder Safety
By choosing the correct ladder for the job, people can eliminate a wide variety of unseen accidents. It is also a good idea to lean the top of the ladder against something solid, and place the base on firm, level ground, making sure that the ladder is at the proper angle- not too steep or flat. By keeping both hands on the rungs as they climb, and not overreaching the extent of the ladder, employees can ensure that they will not become one of the 150,000 injuries that occur each year from ladders and step stools.

Supporting employees in their efforts to make safety a common practice can help management to reinforce its commitment to general safety standards and employee well being.