NTT Blog

Industrial Safety Training: Something for Every Worker to Learn!

Safety is serious business — especially in an industrial setting.

With so many moving parts, loud noises, large pieces of equipment, and people, there are plenty of opportunities for things to go horribly wrong. And an incident can affect every part of your business, from your employees to productivity to continuity to your bottom line.

One of the best ways to protect your employees and your business is to invest in safety training.

Education and training gives workers the knowledge and skills they need to avoid injuries and illness. It can keep your company from having to pay hefty fines. And it can make sure your productivity isn’t adversely affected.

Here’s a look at three important reasons every employee in an industrial setting needs to receive safety training.

It’s a matter of life and death

According to the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 2,811,500 nonfatal injuries and illnesses to employees working in private industry, which is the last year for which statistics are available.

There were also 5,147 deaths.

While not all of the injuries or deaths occurred on industrial job sites, many did. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the majority of the deaths involved falls, being struck by an object, electrocutions, and workers being stuck between, caught-in, or compressed by equipment or objects.

Education and training can help prevent these tragedies by providing workers with:

• the knowledge it takes to avoid creating safety hazards on job sites and in the workplace,
• the ability to identify, report, and respond to workplace hazards, and
• the skills necessary to deal with the hazards associated with their specific job duties.

Safety on the job site is a responsibility shared by everyone, from managers to supervisors to the women and men who are doing the dirty work. Investing in safety training that is both broad and specific in scope helps keep everyone safer.

Safety training and productivity go hand in hand

There is a misnomer that’s been floating around industrial job sites for decades–and it’s dangerous. It states that safety adversely affects productivity. Workers often argue that it takes too much time to follow safety rules and regulations. Some managers make the case for cutting corners in an effort to get things done more quickly. They say “No one gets paid for not having accidents; they get paid for producing goods.”

In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

Accidents prevent companies from producing goods. Making safety a priority–making it part of a company’s culture–keeps employees working, lines running, and products moving to market. According to the National Safety Council, workplace injuries cost companies across the country $50.7 billion (with a “B”) in wage and productivity losses in 2017.

Of course balance matters. A safety program can’t be so restrictive that it paralyzes employees from being able to do their jobs efficiently and effectively. But on the other hand, it can’t be so loose that employees are becoming literally paralyzed because they’ve been injured on the job.

Safety training can help employees–all of them–strike that balance.

It can help your managers understand and further develop a safety strategy. It can help ensure everyone in your organization is aware of the safety strategies you employ and how they don’t actually conflict with the work being done on a daily basis. And it can bridge the gap that so often exists between the strategy and the practice in the workplace.

It can also help keep your employees at work and your products rolling out the door.

Safety training can save you money

At the end of the day, safety training comes down to making sure every employee is able to go home in one piece at the end of the day.

But it’s also about money–the ROI. And the return on investment from safety training can be huge, especially when you consider potential OSHA fines, lost wages, lawsuits, and medical costs associated with injuries, illness, and deaths on the job.

OSHA exists to help ensure safe and healthful working conditions for employees across the country. And the organization takes its job quite seriously. So far in 2019, OSHA has levied individual fines of more than $500,000, $265,000, $182,000, and $116,000.

And that was just in the first quarter of the year.

Even if you are fortunate enough to avoid OSHA fines, there are still the costs associated with Workers’ Compensation, increased health insurance payments, lawsuits, and lost productivity.

Safety training helps prevent injuries and illnesses, which saves you money.

Make the investment

Industrial safety is serious business. If you’re ready to make the investment in safety training–and to reap all of the benefits–connect with NTT Training today.

You’ll have access to more than 60 hands-on programs designed to protect your employees and your business.