There are many ways to define safety in the workplace – and many more when you take into account just how many different types of workplaces there are.

How you stay safe in the workplace might be about awareness, good practice of safety in certain situations, knowing who you can turn to, and also how you engage with the digital world. It’s important to also note your role in the workplace and how that affects what you do to stay safe – with some elements only being left in the hands of those at the top.

Adhering to Safety Precautions

Regardless of the specific workplace that you find yourself in, there will be some degree of safety precaution that you have to follow in certain situations. It might just be that a wet floor sign goes up occasionally, or it could be that you have to be aware of the fire safety protocol – where the fire escapes are and when to meet in such a situation.

Ensuring that you and your colleagues are aware of this information might feel like the domain of your employer, but it’s still important that you take this information onboard so that you reduce the risk of harm in these situations. In more specific situations, like when you’re working in a warehouse, it might come down to wearing specific safety gear and being aware of the general risks that the area can present. 

Online Safety

The topic of online safety is an important one in business, and while you might feel as though it all comes down to the business itself having a robust defense system in place, you might play more of a role than you expect to. In fact, this could be something that your employer even makes apparent through meetings about how to recognize and avoid phishing scams and suspicious links. For example, if someone on the admin team opens an unsafe link on an email, the whole business could suffer. Learning how to differentiate a trustworthy email from an untrustworthy one, and knowing what steps to take when you’re not sure, is vital.

That being said, it’s also paramount to have an effective defense system in place. Managed detection and response solutions are able to probe such defenses in order to spot and patch up vulnerabilities before they become major problems.

The Need for HR

There’s a whole other aspect of safety to consider, however, one that’s more interpersonal than the others. If you feel as though you’re being treated poorly at work, it’s important that you begin to look for work elsewhere, but that’s not always a situation that makes itself easy – and sometimes it can feel as though the only problem with your work is the people. Ideally, your business should have a robust and available HR department to deal with these issues. However, if this department isn’t suitably independent of your employers, then you might feel as though they’re not able to offer the mediation that you’re looking for.