You spend a great portion of your day in your workplace, interact with other people and work hard for your money. As comfortable and pleasant as your workplace may be, it can still be a hazardous and dangerous environment. It doesn’t matter whether you work in a cubicle or in a warehouse, every job has its own dangers, and you can get into an accident while you work. So to help you with your safety and reduce the risk of injury you need to pay attention to the following list of things while on the job.
Here Is a Brief List of the Most Common Workplace Accidents
1. Slips, Trips, and Falls
The most common workplace-related accidents are slips, trips, and falls. They are present in pretty much every workplace, and the reasons they happen are numerous. Sometimes, the corridors aren’t well-lit or someone has removed the sign that warns everyone that the floor is wet, but it can also happen if the person is too tired and doesn’t pay enough attention to their surroundings. The worst thing is that these falls can result in serious injuries that can leave you with broken bones, dislocated joints or head injuries.
2. Repetitive Motion Injuries
Repetitive motion injuries can also be referred to as RSI – repetitive strain injuries, and they are becoming increasingly common during the last several years. What is worse, the employees don’t seem to take these injuries seriously, since they are relatively small and the pain does not limit your movements. These injuries are the most common with people who work on a keyboard at their workplace and the repetitive motion of the joints can result in chronic pain. The pain itself is not strong at the beginning, which is one of the reasons why people don’t go to see a doctor in the first place. If you spend a lot of time working on a keyboard, it’s good to take occasional breaks and use ergonomic equipment.
3. Exposure to Loud Noise
With all the big machinery heavy industries left behind, industrial deafness should be the thing of the past, right? Well, that isn’t exactly the case, and with industrial production still strong and a lot of people working as industrial workers, industrial deafness is still very present. Loud noises at work are the main cause of hearing damage which is a serious health problem. It’s important that you, as a worker, use safety measures such as ear protection, and if your hearing is damaged, you should consult your personal injury attorney. One way to achieve this is to get in touch with WorkCover lawyers who will provide you with any advice concerning a work-related injury and your employer’s responsibilities.
4. Muscle Strains
If you’ve ever tried moving a box of books, tried to do some heavy-lifting in the gym, or moved a heavy item by yourself, you know how difficult this can be and how much pain you can be in after you’re done. For those who do a lot of heavy lifting every day, strained muscles are just another common work-related injury. Neck and back strains are particularly common, and equally difficult to heal since these muscles are too frequently used while working. If you are required to move heavy objects at work, you should do some basic training and learn proper lifting techniques. This is a small thing that can make a huge difference in your health.
You might be better than your coworkers, and you might have spent decades doing your job right, and that surely is something to be proud of. Still, it can also make you reckless and too self-confident – you’ve done it a million times so far, nothing could possibly go wrong, right? Stay alert and be cautious, always, because it’s better to be safe than sorry.
5. Getting Hit by Falling Objects
Some times while working at the construction sites workers may get their head hit by the objects falling from above and if the object happens to be heavy then it can cause some serious injury to that worker and not only on the construction site the similar thing can happen in the office as well if an employee’s seat is right below the cupboard in which unnecessary files and some important files are stored in such a way that keeps the cupboard half open then are there are chances that sometime the cupboard would be automatically opened and that files may fall on the employee’s head and it may hurt him.
So the employers should take some measures like at the construction site they can advise the worker who is working upside to work more carefully so that things do not fall down and injured the other workers and in an office, they should keep some extra storage to maintain extra files over there and should instruct their employees to keep the files and others documents properly in a cupboard.
6. Bullying at the Workplace
Bullying is also considered as one of the most common workplace accidents. Sometimes if a worker is not working accordance with the superior’s expectations and if sometimes superior does not coordinate with his subordinate then there are high chances of clashes between them both, they may start disliking each other, they may argue with each which can lead to even physical fighting as well and this may affect the daily operational activities and spirits of employees at the workplace due to which the assigned project may not get completed on deadline.
So in order to avoid bullying at the workplace, the manager should take proper control of his team and see to it that the morals of the team are always high and if conflicts arise due to any cause, he should be able to solve it spontaneously.
7. Breathing Problem Due to Toxic Chemicals and Allergies
If a person is working in a pharmaceutical company or a laboratory then he may have to deal with various drugs, medicines or chemical solutions (if in a laboratory) on a regular basis and there are always some hazardous chemicals out there which releases toxic gas which can affect the worker’s health especially when the worker has some skin allergies or breathing problem, etc.
So in order to avoid this type of accident at the workplace, the employers should provide workers with masks so that they can work properly while dealing with these kinds of chemicals.
Conclusion
As you are now aware of these common things which can cause accidents at workplace and which can cause injury to a worker in different ways while performing their daily job, so to avoid these accidents the employer should take measures to ensure the safety of their employees because “Employees are the most valuable assets of any organization”.
