Workplace hazards risk employees’ safety as well as the employer’s reputation and stake in the market. Therefore, preventing and ensuring employees’ wellbeing is the primary responsibility of every organization regulated by the Occupational Health and Safety Body (OHS), Canada.

In this blog, we’ve compiled the top workplace hazards and how workplace safety courses are imperative to their prevention.

1. Safety Hazards

The primary responsibility of an employer is to ensure the employees’ safety. Many workplaces are exposed to safety hazards, such as wet floors, spillways, slippery corridors, or unsafe construction sites that lead to common accidents. COVID-19 further accelerates the need to maintain a social distance to prevent the spread of the virus.

However, employers can avoid these safety hazards by following simple safety precautions and organizing workplace training workshops for their employees.

2. Chemical Hazards

The nature of the work often plays a critical role in employee’s health. Working with harmful substances like cleaning detergents, acids, carbon monoxide, vapours, and asbestos can lead to severe skin injuries, burns, and irritations.

Asbestos, especially, is a dangerous working material. The asbestos fibres penetrate the human body, causing breathing difficulties and cancer in the long term. Due to their flexible and heat-resistant nature, many construction employers use asbestos in the building, potentially risking workers’ lives.

You can reduce these risks by giving prior asbestos and other chemical handling training to employees.

3. Electrical Hazards

The Health and Safety report indicates 33 casualties by electrocution in a workplace in Ontario. This highlights the severity of electrical hazards in a workplace.

Open high-tension wires, faulty equipment, and fire eruption are common causes of electrical hazards in a workplace. Water, gas, and electricity industries need to take special care of educating employees about the electrical hazards and should also encourage workers to wear protective equipment.

4. Physical Hazards

Physical hazards in a workplace include loud noise, unsecured machinery, working at heights, or working in confined places. Before administering workers to work in such conditions, employers should adequately train their employees and equip them with necessary safety tools.

Inadequate training to work in silos, ducts, trenches, or sewers harms worker’s life and might lead to fire and gas explosions, causing unnecessary deaths. Contact Metro Safety Training to organize short-term workplace safety programs.

5. Ergonomic Workplace Hazards

About 1 out of ten Canadians suffer from Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI), making ergonomic hazards the likely cause of employees’ sufferings in Canada. Ergonomic hazards concern employees ‘ muscular and skeletal problems by doing repetitive work or strenuous tasks without adequate machinery.

Enhance Your Workplace Safety with Metro Safety Training Courses!

Does your workplace want to ensure employee’s safety? At Metro Safety Training, we offer workplace safety courses, such as forklift training, confined space training, and fall protection training in Vancouver, Burnaby, and Coquitlam in BC.

Our training school is operational since 2008. For registrations, call us now at 604-521-4227 or drop an email at info@metrosafety.ca.