Workplace injury prevention: 10 tips to help keep your team safe

Common causes of workplace accidents and injuries

No matter how safe an industry seems, all workplaces contain potential hazards that can cause serious injuries if overlooked. Data published by the National Injury Council reveals five common causes of workplace injuries across all industries in 2021 and 2022, including: 

• Overexertion: caused over 1 million workplace accidents. It is often a result of lifting, pushing or carrying heavy objects without required training or regular breaks.
• Equipment misuse: over 780,000 workplace accidents involved equipment misuse, including staff being struck by or caught in manufacturing and construction machines and infrastructural equipment like wires and ropes.
• Slips, trips and falls: 674,100 slips, trips and falls were reported. Addressing slick surfaces, poor lighting and obstructions are key to preventing workplace accidents of this nature.
• Harmful substances: over 658,000 reported workplace injuries involved harmful substances and work environments, including exposure to electricity, extreme temperatures, hazardous materials and infectious diseases like COVID-19.
• Transportation incidents: another common cause of workplace accidents and injuries involves transportation used on-site and for work-related tasks.

Importance of workplace injury prevention

Making an effort to prevent workplace injuries is not only an ethical responsibility, it’s also a necessary part of any effective business strategy. The better your organization is at preventing hazards in the workplace, the less time, money and resources you’ll spend resolving avoidable risks.

Fewer compensation claims

When an employee is injured at work, they have the right to seek compensation from their employer. The average cost of a workers’ compensation claim in the U.S. is around $44,000, with some severe injuries costing upwards of $100,000, illustrating the value of work injury prevention.

Less absenteeism

Injured employees need time off to rest and recover, often impacting an organization’s productivity. By reducing workplace accidents, employers can equally reduce absenteeism to help teams get more done, consistently and with fewer delays.

Reduced turnover

Employees notice when a business prioritizes their needs and will usually be more loyal to their employers. By prioritizing staff safety through effective accident prevention measures, turnover rates can be reduced.

Increased productivity

People are most productive when they can focus on their work. Preventing injuries in the workplace with the help of smart safety policies and protective equipment gives workers the confidence they need to perform at their best.

Improved business reputation

By preventing injuries in the workplace, businesses can show employees, existing and prospective shareholders and customers that safety is a top priority. Committing to workplace safety can help attract top talent and more customers, helping them build a positive brand image and reputation.

10 ways to prevent workplace injuries

While the exact hazards faced by your business may vary depending on your industry, best practices for preventing workplace injuries apply to all work environments. To help keep your employees safe, below are 10 actionable ways to prevent workplace accidents and injuries.

1. Perform thorough risk assessments

To prevent workplace injuries, you first need to identify common hazards. Risk assessments allow leaders to review operations and highlight potential dangers, helping teams prioritize safety measures and accident prevention techniques most likely to be impactful.

An effective risk assessment or physical security audit will include a workplace walkthrough with safety experts and tests of all essential work activities. Once identified, each risk should be evaluated and ranked in severity, with the most dangerous hazards prioritized in safety policies.

2. Develop hazard prevention plans

Alongside addressing specific risks, creating site-wide hazard prevention plans is important. Leaders must create easy-to-follow, written plans that outline how safety tasks should be performed, who performs them and best practices for reporting/​recording incidents.

Efforts to reduce workplace injuries begin with regular safety checks by managers and employees. From small tasks like checking walkways are free from trip and slip hazards to best practices for starting up and shutting down heavy machines, safety checks should be performed daily or weekly, recorded and made available to staff on a shared internal system. 

3. Implement smart security cameras

Smart security cameras can help managers and security staff spot potential hazards in the workplace. Cameras can cover high-risk areas like busy walkways, workstations and entrances to hazardous areas, with AI video analytics software programmed to spot risks automatically.

AI-powered security cameras can identify anomalous events like workers not wearing personal protective equipment (PPE), forklifts driving the wrong way, unattended hazardous materials and obstructed walkways. When a hazard is identified, operators are alerted via a video management system (VMS) and automated responses are triggered to prevent workplace accidents.

4. Provide the required protective equipment

PPE is a requirement in many work environments, ranging from wearables like helmets, goggles and gloves to signage and control barriers. To reduce workplace injuries, employees must not only be provided with PPE but also trained in how to use specific equipment safely and how to check that the PPE is working properly.

A great way to help ensure PPE is used appropriately is to perform regular, unannounced safety audits and to identify transgressions using PPE detection analytics in security camera technology. Managers can support accident prevention initiatives by frequently checking in on potentially hazardous activities and asking staff to show them how required PPE is used.

5. Maintain adequate staffing levels

Overexertion is a major contributor to workplace injuries, but many managers might not see staffing as a related subject. When staff are overworked and not given the support they need to focus on a task, they’re more likely to make mistakes due to fatigue.

Leaders can reduce workplace injuries by ensuring adequate staffing levels. It can be wise to involve staff by asking them to share how many people they think are needed to perform tasks safely. This shows that decisions are made with staff safety in mind and raises engagement in safety by making staff feel involved.

6. Promote good housekeeping practices

Maintaining clean, organized and safe work environments is essential in terms of preventing accidents in the workplace. All corridors, shared spaces and workstations must remain free from obstructions like waste, loose fittings, spilled materials and general clutter to reduce the likelihood of slips, trips and falls causing serious injuries.

When learning to prevent workplace accidents, time and resources must be dedicated to creating clear, repeatable clean-up policies. Regular checks should be performed to help ensure trip hazards and improperly stored items are removed from walkways quickly and consistently, with staff-provided materials to help them clean down workstations regularly.

7. Install clear safety signage

Environmental controls like clearly labeled safety signs are key to effective work injury prevention plans. OSHA requires companies to install safety signs to cover all areas where accidents are likely, stating in clause 1910.145(c)(3): ​“Safety instruction signs shall be used where there is a need for general instructions and suggestions relative to safety measures.”.

In practice, this means installing clear warning and safety instruction signs around and at all entrances to hazardous areas like workstations and storage rooms. Signs must remind staff of best practices for using complex equipment and working in hazardous areas and highlight the dangers of malpractice and step-by-step instructions for responding to hazards.

8. Restrict access to hazardous areas

Often the most effective way to prevent workplace injuries is to restrict access to hazardous areas and equipment using automated tools. Physical security solutions like smart locks and access control systems can be configured to block unauthorized entry.

Access readers can be installed at entrances to hazardous areas and to cover the controls of dangerous equipment. Employees can then be issued personalized credentials that only grant access to areas and equipment related to their roles, helping to prevent those without necessary training from accessing dangerous equipment.

9. Offer continuous training programs

Accident prevention in the workplace must always be viewed as a continuous process, with all employees frequently reminded of accident prevention techniques and best practices. Effective plans can reduce workplace injuries, but they can cause people to become complacent.

Leaders should hold regular training sessions to remind employees of common risks and highlight upcoming changes to safety policies. Smart workplace injury prevention training sessions will cover practical strategies to reduce risks, such as proper lifting techniques, handling hazardous materials and reporting, response and evacuation best practices.

10. Assess and adjust safety measures

New ways of working, security technologies and customer demands cause business processes to change fairly regularly, often exposing new risks and hazards. Policies that currently help to reduce workplace accidents may not work forever, so they should be continuously reviewed.

Risk assessments and audits must be conducted annually, with support from safety professionals and internal incident reports. Findings from these assessments can be used to continuously improve workplace injury prevention plans and adjust processes as required.

How video security helps prevent workplace injuries

While the main application for security cameras is to improve safety, commercial video security can be utilized for workplace injury prevention. They can identify potential safety hazards as they arise, such as obstructions, equipment misuse or unauthorized access to restricted areas. The early detection of such issues helps organizations implement corrective actions immediately, preventing workplace accidents and injuries.

Some of the main capabilities of smart video security in accident prevention in the workplace are:

• Detect hazards: AI-powered security cameras can detect workplace hazards like obstructions, malfunctioning equipment or vehicles going the wrong way and notify operators so they can dispatch a response to negate the threat of a workplace accident and injury.
• Instant alerts to accidents: Smart security cameras with AI video analytics can detect incidents such as slips, trips and falls, or other unusual activities. The IP cameras then send instant alerts to operators via the VMS, notifying them of an incident that requires attention and response to reduce the severity of workplace injuries and prevent further accidents.
• Verify access events to restricted areas: Security cameras help verify authorized personnel requesting access to restricted areas, especially those involving hazardous materials or machinery. By integrating video security with access control, operators can restrict entry to high-risk areas, preventing accidents in the workplace that might occur due to unauthorized or untrained staff entering.
• Detect PPE violations: AI-enabled security cameras can use analytics to detect when employees are not wearing PPE in areas where they should be. By analyzing this, workplaces can address them immediately through direct intervention or by reinforcing safety training and guidelines.

• Observe workplace activity:Security teams can use video security to observe workplace activities around the clock. With AI video analytics, operators are instantly alerted if dangerous behavior is identified, such as employees running or engaging in horseplay. Teams can also use the video data to identify patterns or areas with a high frequency of workplace accidents. With this, the organization can take reasonable steps to mitigate risks and reduce workplace accidents.

Preventing injuries in the workplace with Pelco

With over 65 years of experience protecting businesses, Pelco’s proactive approach to workplace safety helps organizations prevent accidents and injuries, fosters a safer work environment for employees, increases operational efficiency and reduces employer liability. 

With a range of ONVIF-conformant security cameras and devices that meet an organization’s unique needs, Pelco enables your business to prevent workplace accidents and injuries without overhauling your existing video security setup. 

• Automatically detect hazards and incidents: Pelco’s AI-powered security devices detect and alert your security team to potential hazards or accidents in the workplace. This automated process removes the need for manual observation and the potential for staff to miss an event. With this instant detection and high-quality video, appropriate responses can be deployed to prevent workplace injuries.
• Spot PPE violations: AI video analytics technology from Pelco allows security and safety teams to detect when workers are not adhering to safe working practices by not wearing PPE. By instantly flagging these events to the team’s attention, appropriate action can be taken to intervene and reinforce safety training and guidelines.
• Integrates with your existing VMS: Pelco’s open-platform nature enables organizations to seamlessly integrate its security devices with an ONVIF-conformant VMS and other security systems, such as access control, alarms and more. This negates the need for businesses to overhaul their video security, leading to significant cost savings and improved operations.

Stay ahead of workplace hazards

Preventing workplace injuries relies on a collaborative effort from all parties to identify and address risks before they can impact workers. When leaders can predict risks, safeguards can be created long before damage is done, so it’s vital to approach workplace injury prevention proactively. 

By encouraging employees to think about safe practices, report hazards promptly and involve themselves in safety initiatives, risks can be significantly reduced. With support from automated security systems, such as AI-powered video security, designed to spot and address hazards before accidents happen, businesses of all sizes can reduce workplace accidents presently and continuously.