Why Workplaces Are Safer Than Ever

People tend to have the view that everything is worse now than it was in the past. However, that’s not really true — in fact, there are only a few areas of life that aren’t better today than they were in the past.

That’s true for healthcare, education, access to food, and so on. One area that most definitely is better than in the past is workplace safety. We take for granted that we’ll be safe when we’re working, but that wasn’t always the case. So why are things better than they used to be? We’ll take a look at some of the reasons below.

Learning From Mistakes

We stand on the shoulders of giants. One of the reasons why workplace safety is better today is because things were not so good in the past. You can’t always prevent bad things from happening, but you can learn from mistakes — and that’s just what society has done. If you dive into history, you’ll find many cases of workplace incidents occurring that would not happen today. It takes time for this knowledge to come, but now, we have it.

Employee Training

Employees are also more engaged with the safety practices of the workplace. If you’re an employee, then you’ll probably have set through at least one training session related to workplace safety. This is a pretty new phenomenon, however. In the past, employees might have been given a basic outline of how to stay safe, or they might just have had to figure it out themselves. But now, many companies have a legal obligation to train their employees. It’s good to have safety procedures in place, but unless the employees know what those things are, then they won’t be as effective as they could or should be.

Better Equipment

Technological improvements have always enhanced safety in the workplace. In the old days, equipment was purely functional; it was designed to do the job it was supposed to do. But today’s equipment is both functional and safe. We see this in everything from explosion-proof weighing scales to safety guards on industrial equipment. Even things like safety goggles and hearing protection are relatively new. All of these things help to keep employees safe while they’re at work.

Active Engagement

Things do still go wrong. But today, companies cannot ignore incidents or sweep them under the rug. The ability to share stories of injuries means that companies have no choice other than to take action when things go wrong.

It’s Cost-Effective

Finally, one of the reasons why workplaces are safer is because there is an incentive for businesses to prioritize the safety of their workers. This was not always the case. An incident at a workplace can cause a lot of problems for a company. They could face lawsuits from injured workers, or they may lose the support of the public. In other words, an accident can have a huge impact on a company’s bottom line. For this reason, it’s in their interests to avoid any such incidents.