Working in a factory can be dangerous with staff facing the risk of heat related illnesses, accidents, and stress. These factors can negatively affect your staff’s quality of life by decreasing job satisfaction and productivity. To help your staff lead the best life at your factory, follow these tips:
Provide Regular Safety Education
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. You can improve your staff’s quality of life by providing them with regular safety education and enforcing strict safety standards like:
- Using all machines and tools correctly
- Reporting unsafe conditions
- Wearing the right safety equipment
- Immediately reporting injuries
- Immediately cleaning spills
Give Staff Time to Acclimate
It is no secret that with all of the machinery and activity in factories, the work environment can get hot. If staff begins working without first getting acclimatized to the heat, they can quickly suffer from heat related illnesses like heat stress.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) encourages employers to have an acclimatization plan for new and experienced workers. In this plan, workers are gradually exposed to a hot environment over a 14 day period to improve thermoregulation and heat tolerance.
Give Regular Breaks
When your staff doesn’t get regular breaks, they become tired and can make mistakes that lead to accidents. Giving staff regular breaks and encouraging them to take them will help improve their quality of life by letting them rest both physically and mentally, preventing accidents and making them happier.
Install Comfortable In-Plant Offices
Sometimes, employees need to get away from the industrial environment of a factory. Installing in-plant offices will let you create a comfortable, non-oppressive environment for staff. Add plants to improve air quality and make the area look more natural and relaxing. You can also add soundproofing to block out the noise from the factory floor for a quiet environment to protect workers’ hearing.
Provide Proper Ventilation
According to OSHA, “Inadequate or improper ventilation is the cause of about half of all indoor air quality problems in nonindustrial workplaces.” In a factory, dust from materials like plastic and galvanized metal can cause “dusty lung,” an occupational lung disease. Providing proper ventilation throughout your factory will improve staff quality of life by giving them clean air to keep them healthy.
