June is National Safety Month 2020, organized by the National Safety Council (NSC). Each year, the NSC discusses key safety topics this month in hopes that Americans around the country will participate and practice better safety measures. For 2020, much of the focus has been placed on workplace safety.
There are three main workplace safety topics in National Safety Month 2020:
- Mental health: How have you been feeling lately mentally? This question is important, yet many people don’t consider it, especially in the workplace. The world right now is a stressful place. Feeling overworked can add to that stress and contribute to mental health difficulties like anxiety and depression. Your employer should be thinking about preventing both physical injuries among workers and mental health complications. If you are hesitant to bring up your mental health to your employer, one thing you can do is research your healthcare insurance and workers’ compensation benefits. You might be able to see a therapist in your healthcare network for only a co-pay. Or you might be able to take time off work due to mental health difficulties and still receive a portion of your wages using workers’ comp.
- Ergonomics: After completing the same action again and again for hours, days, weeks, or longer, you can suffer a repetitive stress injury (RSI). For most RSIs, they develop due to repeating an action that doesn’t seem problematic in the short term but eventually causes harm in the long run. For example, typing on a keyboard for several hours each week can cause some people to develop carpal tunnel syndrome, a common RSI among office workers. Ergonomic products can help stop RSIs, though. Any product that has been designed “ergonomically” is meant to remain comfortable after even hours of use. See if your employer will invest in your health and upgrade your office chair, keyboard, mouse, and other day-to-day items with ergonomic products.
- Building a safety culture: A workplace safety culture is a concept that everyone at work prioritizes safety in all things they do. When following safety guidelines becomes inherent, workplace accidents will naturally decrease in frequency and severity. To build a safety culture, employers can incentivize employees to work safely by awarding safe behaviors. For example, safety inspections can be completed by management staff each month. Whenever the inspection passes with a high grade, lunch can be awarded to the entire company or relevant department.
Driving Safely: A Constant Commitment
The final safety topic for National Safety Month 2020 is safe driving, both for work and in your day-to-day life. Years of public safety campaigns have helped prevent traffic collisions to some extent, but the problem is still significant. Thousands of car accidents each year result in a fatality, and many more cause a catastrophic, life-changing injury.
For National Safety Month 2020, try to think about ways that you can drive more responsibly. For example, challenge yourself to leave your smartphone out of sight and out of mind whenever you are behind the wheel. Every small step towards safer driving helps bring the entire country to the larger goal of zero traffic fatalities in a day, week, month, or year!
Injured at work, even when you were doing your best to stay safe? You might be eligible for workers’ compensation benefits. Call (386) 333-6613 to connect with Politis & Matovina, P.A. in Daytona Beach. Our workers’ comp lawyers would be happy to hear from you and see if you should be filing a claim after a workplace accident or injury.