Staff are an essential component in any business, and looking after their welfare should be a priority. Even if your manufacturing processes are largely automated, you’ll still depend on the people who co-ordinate everything and perform tasks machinery can’t handle.
Staff absence through illness can have a significant effect on overall efficiency, and your productivity can suffer if staff aren’t performing at their best. If you’re in a supervisory role, make sure your employees have all the support they need to do their jobs effectively and that there is a workplace ethic that values staff welfare.
As a starting point, you should have a robust health and safety policy in place that is monitored and updated regularly. Industrial accidents are becoming less of a problem in many manufacturing businesses, but there is always a potential for mishaps to occur. You need to ensure all staff are trained in health and safety regulations and safe working practices, including self-care aspects such as manual handling techniques.
You should also review your staff healthcare policies. Do you have resources for personnel support, such as counselling or regular health checks? You may wonder if it’s worth investing in resources such as these, but preventing staff absence or reduced productivity by helping them to manage their health could make a significant difference to your business’s performance.
Do you provide any benefits to your staff, such as private health care? Perks such as these help in two ways, first by improving employee satisfaction and retention, and secondly by ensuring staff get prompt medical care if they do fall ill or need hospital treatment.
You can also help your staff by providing advice and support if they’re facing serious or chronic physical and mental health challenges. Struggling with a serious health issue is hard enough in itself, but feeling under pressure from your employer can make matters far worse. You can help your employee to recover more quickly by being sympathetic and understanding, and arranging for a gradual return to work after a serious illness for example.
You can also support them if they suffer an accident or injury, no matter where this happens, even in hospital. For instance, you could refer them to a specialist medical negligence service such as the-medical-negligence-experts.co.uk. By showing you are concerned for their welfare and want to help them in any way that’s appropriate, you will earn their gratitude and respect, and they will be motivated to return to work as soon as they’re able.
The main focus of working in manufacturing is producing goods to the quality required at the optimum speed. For the most part, you won’t be thinking about staff health and wellbeing, because your attention will be on the processes that you are responsible for. However, investing in staff is a critical part of the operation, because healthy, happy staff work harder, produce better results, and are absent less frequently. Make sure your staff are healthy and happy, and you’ll achieve far higher rates of productivity for your business.
