The Importance of Workplace Safety Training for Employees

To achieve the safety and health objectives of an organization, the employees play a very critical role more than the employers. Without their active involvement, no organization will be able to accomplish the goal of creating a safe and healthy work environment.

The OSHA and HAZWOPER training programs have been created to help employees understand the importance of safety in work places. These safety training courses are not just an option provided to them but an obligation they need to fulfill to comply with the state and federal regulations. Employees will be able to recognize the requirements of OSHA and the regulations, know what safety policies require and take an active role to promote safety at the workplace.

The following points will let you know why OSHA and HAZWOPER safety training programs matter a lot for employees:

• For all of us, the human cost after accidents is of paramount concern. Every 5 seconds, a worker is injured or ill on the job. Well, this means 18,000 injuries each day, 125,000 a week, and 6 million a year. Quite an interesting statistic or rather terrifying.

• The economic cost of occupational accidents also cannot be ignored and it can go high up to $100 billion each year. Such figures can seriously have a big impact on the productivity of any organization. With the loss of work hours, workers’ compensation claims and increased insurance claims, property damage and overtime to cover disabled workers as well as training expenses for replacement workers can heave up the costs.

• Apart from human as well as economic costs, there are also additional costs like the cost you may have to pay for your non-compliance with OSHA or the Federal and State safety laws. Remember, OSHA is quite stringent about this whole issue and you may end up paying millions if you seriously violate any of their regulations.

Keeping the employees safe is a wise step for everyone. But, employees must also know the responsibility is theirs’ as well. They must work together to be more productive on their job.