What safety hazards may exist in the workplace and how can they be minimized?

Occupational health and safety hazards in the workplace are all kinds of sources of harm that can result in injury and damage, as well as contribute to the development of certain diseases. The types of potential danger in the plant depend on the working conditions, the nature of the activities performed and the presence of machinery, equipment and chemicals.

Types of occupational health and safety hazards in the workplace

Hazards at workplaces can have different sources and thus consequences. The level of occupational safety is closely related to the nature of the duties performed. For example, there are different risks in office work than in laboratory, medical facility, manufacturing plant and mining work. We can distinguish the following types of occupational health and safety hazards in the workplace:

• Chemical hazards - occur where workers are exposed to chemicals. This includes aggressive cleaning agents, as well as fumes emitted during welding work and gases, as well as solvents and gasoline
• Biological hazards - are related to allergies, infections and poisoning resulting from contact with bacteria, viruses, cellular microorganisms and parasites of both animal and plant origin and human
• Physical hazards - are environmental factors that are harmful to the human body. These include m.in.: high noise, UV radiation and radio waves
• Psycho-physical hazards - refers to those factors that may place an emotional burden on the employee. These include the fast pace of work, shift work and overtime

How to take care of work safety at the plant?

First, identify health and safety hazards in the workplace. This is a risk assessment activity that aims to determine what potentially threatens workplace safety at the plant and how to prevent possible consequences. The next step is to organize the workplace to minimize this risk. Employees should receive adequate training for safety at the workplace. Whenever possible, there must be proper safeguards in particularly dangerous areas, for example, against short circuits or overexposure to radio waves. In office work, it is necessary to purchase contoured seats and place screens at a suitable distance from the eyes of employees. Where workers are often on the move and moving around, it is a good idea to take care of non-slip floor covering.

Not all risks can be eliminated, but we can warn employees about all of them. This is done by warning health and safety signs in the workplace, which should be placed wherever there is any potential danger to humans.

The most popular health and safety signs in the workplace

We can divide workplace health and safety signs into:

• Warning signs according to PN-EN-ISO 7010:2012, among them Warning of explosion danger, Strong magnetic field warning i Tripping hazard warning
• Warning signs with description, such as: Attention danger, Toxic substances i Poison
• Supplementary warning signs, i.e Strong noise warning, Hot surface i Starts automatically

Work safety in the plant depends on the preparation of the building and workstations for the specific duties of the employees, their education and the marking of areas where there is a potential danger.