I’ve been lecturing in established business settings for the better part of the last 10 years. And in my current stage of professional evolution, if there’s one thing I absolutely swear by, it’s health safety courses. I make it a point, during all of my, normally loud, presentations before business leaders, to emphasize their importance. I prepare for these sessions using my Frontier Internet connection and a few choice management books. But the greater portions of my lectures depend upon wit and improvisation for their delivery. And on these two fronts, I don’t think that I’ve fared too badly – all things considered!
Employees are Like Children
Employees, I have been privileged to learn, are like children. And they need to be treated as such – without ever being explicitly made aware of this management principle. Like preteens, they need to be taught about the dos and don’ts of proper workplace etiquette. Workplaces, like high schools, have a strange effect on the people who toil within them. They seem to dare the most well-mannered of us to let our hair down for a while. And they are particularly effective when it comes to making us forgot our standard health safety protocols!
You know – the ‘basics’ of health & hygiene that our parents take great care to teach us about. These include:
- Washing our hands properly after every bathroom/toilet visit,
- Taking care of our general body cleanliness with disinfectants and soaps,
- Making liberal use of the mouthwash/toothpaste for our oral care,
- Investing in a quality scent that can effectively dispel any sweat odors
I’m sure that you can think of many similar examples to add to this list.
Online Health & Safety Courses for Instilling Good Workplace Habits
Employees, as such, need to be reminded of all of these fundamentals when they’re in the office. And in particular, they need to be made aware of the dangers of pathogens (disease-causing organisms). These are present all around us, and if left unaddressed, can cause us to fall down with a number of dangerous illnesses.
Online health & safety courses can greatly help in reminding them of these life-lessons. And what’s more, they can also help impart a lot of new information (almost in the manner of a university diploma program).
In my experience, one of the instantaneous effects of these good-hygiene courses is that recipient organizations start resorting to the use of hand sanitizers. These can be seen fixed on their office pillars and walls on almost every turn. Their point, if you didn’t already know this, is to encourage employees to keep their limbs germ-free at all times.
Sometimes, the sight of office workers busily scrambling to disinfect their hands with a sanitizer squirt before & after every meal can seem comical. Many Hollywood blockbuster movies and TV sitcoms like to depict such scenes in their storylines. But when considered in their proper light, these health interventions greatly do save a lot on hospital expenditure bills.
Worker-ended Benefits
Nowadays, a number of virtual universities and college long-distance programs are offering online health & safety courses. Two of the most popular, namely those offered by the Alison.com and Highspeedtraining.co.uk websites, also offer bulk discounts for business clients.
After successfully completing the hands-on learning modules spread out in these courses, learners are rewarded with a certificate of merit. This document, in addition to bearing testament to their familiarity with several hygiene essentials, also adds further embellishment to their CVs. Something which, in turn, raises these workers’ employability profile – and makes their future job applications stand out.
Business (Workplace) Benefits
By the same token, companies gain the advantage of having a relatively healthier workforce in place. Their health-conscious employees are more psychologically and physically active, and so they need to take fewer sick leaves. And with all things considered, the collective benefits attained from such a robust labor force directly translate into higher productivity levels for the brand. Which, after all, is the whole point of the entire business operation, to begin with.
The vital lessons on ‘Office Safety’ included in these courses also enable employees to take matters into their own hands in the event of workplace emergencies. These scenarios can include such instances as the sudden outbreaks of fires and contagious diseases. And not to mention terrorist assaults which can never be totally anticipated.
When such instances abound, a properly trained workforce can often save a company millions of dollars in ‘damages’ costs by conducting itself properly. Recently, I saw a video on YouTube titled ‘Rutgers University – Workforce Development Training’ through my Frontier online deals subscription. And I was simply blown away by seeing a professionally-instructed workforce in action. The sight was almost like poetry – full of meaning, minus the clutter. Precise, yet orderly…
