Owning your personal safety

Effective safety will always rely upon an employer having robust safety procedures. However, no matter how well an employer or client host organisation manages safety, there is always a reliance upon individuals to take some responsibility for their own health & safety. This is even more important at Hays because we do not directly supervise you during your temporary assignment. Incident investigation outcomes by Hays have identified the following contributing factors towards injuries: There are numerous actions that you can proactively take to protect yourself whilst at work that are fully within your control including:

Getting in the Right mindset: epecially if you are performing a higher risk role or working in a higher risk environment it is important to arrive at work mentally prepared. This may mean resolving those distractions you can manage before you get to work. Consider where your head is at before you commence work and identify if you are likely to display any of the behaviours listed below. Take an ‘internal’ 5 minutes before you start work and consciously commit yourself to remaining vigilant for the whole day paying particular attention to: Never Rush 

You may be keen to make a good impression, however rushing and injured on the first day week of a job or making a mistake that needs to be fixed does not make a good impression.

Not getting distracted or becoming complacent

You may have performed the same task for many years and think you know all there is to know about a job, but non work-related problems affect our decision making. Lack of sleep, family, finances and job security are all common distractions that take our mind off the task at hand. 

Always staying alert

Many tasks we complete each day are performed on auto pilot. The ability to make many decisions and perform multiple tasks at once allows us to perform efficiently. However, this can also be dangerous, especially when working in higher risk roles or working environments.  A combination of auto pilot and being distracted can significantly increase your risk of injury or harm. significantly.

How to report a Health & Safety issue or concern