Today we want to share 4 ways to ensure your employees feel safe at work. If your employees work in an office, it is one of your many duties of care toward them to ensure they feel safe. They are there for eight or so hours every day, perhaps more time than they spend in their own homes (awake, at least), so they will need to feel as though they are safe and protected if they are going to be as productive as possible. 

As a good employer, you’ll want to take whatever steps you can to ensure that your employees feel good in the workplace. Not only is this a moral thing to do as a fellow human being, but it’s also good for business; we’ve mentioned greater productivity, but feeling safe will also promote feelings of loyalty and will ensure your business is seen as a good one to work for in the eyes of potential future employees. Knowing how important making your employees feel safe at work is, here are some of the ways you can do it. 

Start With The Parking Lot 

If your office has a parking lot, this is a good place to start making sure your team feels safe. Most parking lots are dark, poorly lit, and have lots of places to hide. They can also be great places for teens and young people to hang out, which can be scary for some people.

Make the parking lot safer by making sure the lights are bright and will shine on any dark corners so no one can hide there. Also, put up surveillance cameras and emergency phone lines. Even if the phones are never used, people will feel safer just knowing they are there. Specialist equipment will prevent teens from using the parking lot to hang out, as the noise these machines emit will be irritating to them (although older people won’t be able to hear it). 

Security Cameras 

We talked about security cameras in terms of your parking lot, but you can also use it in other parts of your building, whether or not you have a parking lot. Video surveillance is one of the best ways to stop criminals from doing bad things. No one will want to commit a crime where their face could be caught on camera, so they will probably go to another building that doesn’t have cameras.

In addition to keeping thieves away, these cameras are a great way to make your employees feel safe. These are the best places to put CCTV:

• Entrances and exits 
• Gateways
• Doors 

There are some places where security cameras can’t be put in, such as bathrooms. If you put it up in the office, you should let your team know about it and let them know they can disagree if they want to.

The Building Itself 

You should also protect the building you work in, not just to keep criminals away. So, even if a thief decided to risk getting caught on camera, it would be hard for them to get in.

If you have outside space, a high fence is a good idea. If you add barbed wire or spikes to the top, it makes it even less appealing to people who want to get in that way. You can also put in a fob system so that only people with the right tools can open the doors. Other great things to use are motion detectors and alarms that go off when the last person leaves the building. You can still set an alarm in your office, even if you share the building with other businesses, and using a multi tenant intercom system will help in that situation too. 

Online Safety 

When we talk about employee safety, the first thing that might come to mind is the safety of their bodies. But you shouldn’t forget to be safe online. The internet could be more dangerous than anything else. Just like there are burglars in the real world, there are cybercriminals online who want to hack into your network and steal important information like your customers’ payment and address information as well as your business bank details. Even if they can’t get anything from you, they could still leave a Trojan virus that you could send to many people by accident.

Teaching your staff about online safety, such as how to spot a scam, what a phishing email looks like, why they need strong passwords, and how to use their firewall and antivirus software, will help keep your business and your employees safe and secure, even though there are many threats online.