Your workplace should always be safe. Here, you can learn how to protect your employees both digitally and physically. This way, you’re covering all angles and can provide employees with the safe work environment that they need to thrive. Let’s begin.
Provide Social Engineering Training
Over the past several years, Social Engineering has become a huge problem in the workplace.
There are many different types of social engineering that can impact employees, with a popular example being SMS phishing. This is when an employee receives a text from a cybercriminal pretending to be another entity, such as a big company like PayPal. In the text message, they’ll try and trick the employee into downloading malware or sending money. Usually, this will involve clicking on a link.
Here’s what a typical SMS phishing message will look like:
Dear PayPal customer, we’ve had to temporarily suspend your account due to illegal activities. To reactivate your account, please click the link below.
In this scenario, if the employee was using a company smartphone and clicked on the link, it could lead to big trouble for your organization. This is why it’s an excellent idea to do what thousands of other companies do and provide your employees with social engineering training.
Through this type of training, employees will be able to quickly spot and report social engineering attempts made by cybercriminals. As a result, your employees can remain safe in the workplace. Not to mention, your customers are safer, too, as the consequences of social engineering attacks can also impact customers.
Create Health and Safety Handbooks
All employees working in your office or business premises should be provided with simple and easy-to-understand health and safety handbooks. Inside these handbooks should be the information they need, such as potential hazards in the workplace through to what to do in the case of a fire evacuation.
Remember, it’s now the digital age, so you don’t need to printout physical handbooks. Instead, make your health and safety handbook available in PDF form so your employees can download it to their smartphones and other work devices. This way, whenever they need it, they’ll be able to pull it up in seconds.
Use Key Card Access
In an age where offices and work buildings are usually jam-packed with people, it’s very easy for potential criminals to simply sneak through the front door and go unnoticed — especially if there are no security guards working there.
The solution is to use a key card access system. Through this method, only official employees with key cards will be able to scan their way into the building. This is great for adding an extra layer of security to the workplace, as it makes it almost impossible for other people to sneak in. The only way that it’s possible is if they tailgate an employee and walk in behind them, so make sure to remind employees to always check behind them when coming into the building.
Eliminate Unsafe Working Conditions
Whether you run a busy office or a healthcare practice, it’s essential that you eliminate any unsafe working conditions so your employees can be better protected. Remember, if employees are left exposed to unsafe working conditions and get injured as a result, then this can lead to costly lawsuits and other problems. This is every business owner’s worst nightmare, so you need to stop this from happening.
So, what are some of the most common unsafe working conditions in today’s workplace? Here are some of the most common examples:
- Exposed wires
- Broken equipment
- Asbestos
- Lack of space
- Poor ventilation
- Bad lighting
It’s highly recommended that you do a Workplace Condition Assessment (WCA) — even if you’re sure that your workplace is perfectly fine. Airing on the side of caution is what the best managers do, particularly when they have lots of employees working in their building.
Know How to Handle Bullying and Discrimination Incidents
Sadly, bullying and discrimination are common occurrences in the modern workplace. As a result of this, you need to be at the top of your game as a manager and know exactly how to handle any future incidents.
Often, when there’s an issue between just two employees, an informal conversation or a meeting is enough to resolve the problem. After sitting down together, the employees can air their grievances, agree to leave each other alone, and carry on with their normal work lives.
However, sometimes this isn’t enough. When bullying and discrimination incidents become extremely serious, then the next step is usually to get HR involved so that the issue can be fully resolved. In rare cases (e.g., consistent bullying and harassment), then an employee might have to be released from the organization.
Encourage Sick Employees to Work from Home
When a sick employee comes to work, they often can’t work as well as they normally do. On top of this, there’s a good chance they’ll pass their illness on to other employees. Essentially, it’s a lose-lose situation.
Taking this into account, you should actively encourage all sick employees to either work from home or take the day off entirely. This is something that you can consult with them about to figure out what’s best for them.
In the case that employees choose to work from home, you need to have a remote work plan in place. For example, is there a system in place where employees can still gain access to all of the resources they need? If not, you’ll need to create one.
Usually, working from home in the modern era involves employees using cloud-based applications, such as Google Meet and OneDrive, so that they can still access files, join meetings (virtually), and more.
Summary
Protecting your employees can be hard work at times — but it’s made a lot easier with the help of the tips provided above. Moving into the future, you can use them to ensure that your employees are always safe and protected in the workplace, meaning you don’t have to worry about any potential problems arising. Good luck!
