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Written by Brian Passmore
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Wednesday, 13 September 2006 |
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When it comes to office health and safety, many things need to be taken into account. Depending on the type of business being considered, there will be different issues to think about and address.
If the business is a call center things like ergonomic keyboards and chairs along with individual workspaces are necessary to maintain a reasonable workplace that eliminates many office health and safety issues. Repetitive tasks like sitting at a keyboard all day and typing are known to cause ailments such as carpal tunnel. It is for these reasons that office health and safety is taken very seriously in the workplace. Other ailments are bound to come up when thinking about office health and safety but most are preventable by taking prevention methods for employees. By helping to prevent these office health and safety problems, a company can eliminate untimely missed work days by employees. The most common complaints in a workplace where employees must use the computer as their main tool of completing work are eye and vision problems. This office health and safety issue is a hard one to address as there is not much you can do short of not using the computer to prevent these problems. There are special screens that can be placed on a computer monitor to help limit the stress eyes experience when look at the screen, but it simply will not eliminate all risks. Another option to limit eye strain is to schedule shorter computer times for the employees during the day. For someone with a history of eye problems this can prove to be quite effective. No matter the steps a business takes to diminish the threat of office health and safety risks, the threat will never be totally eliminated. Once a business can come to terms with this, a solid plan in regard to which steps will be taken to protect employees in the company can be made. Once policies and procedures are in place that helps protect employees from office health and safety issues, it is then up to the employees to follow these policies which are for their benefit. The problem with this is that many employees don’t see the benefit to following many office health and safety policies, so it is important that companies make sure all employees are aware of the risks they take performing their jobs, and the reasons the policies are in place to protect them. This will surely help to make sure employees take responsibility for their own office health and safety, resulting in happier employees who come to work everyday in turn benefiting both them and the company they work for. |