Every year, employees suffer hundreds of thousands of injuries of varying degrees.

Most countries have rules and regulations aimed at promoting workplace safety and minimizing workplace hazards. However, it’s often challenging to pre-empt and eliminate all risks in their entirety.

This notwithstanding, it’s still essential for employers and employees to know the types of injuries they could suffer at work.

Here are the most common ones.

1. Cuts and Lacerations

Different office equipment and machinery can cause cuts and lacerations on your hands. These can be as simple as paper cuts or as complex as sawing one’s hand.

 

While there are many causes for these, you need to take quick action whenever they occur. Anytime you, your employee, or a colleague get a severe paper cut on their hands, ensure to contact a specialist in hand surgery for specialized help.

2. Slips, Trips, and Falls

These are among the most common workplace accidents and the cause of many lawsuits.

Whether it’s an office, shop, or manufacture’s workshop, there is always the possibility that someone might take a fall.

Falling is also another common workplace injury that can lead to severe injuries.

Some of the ways of preventing this are by ensuring your floors have an anti-slip quality and that they remain dry at all times. Also, have a warning sign when cleaning so that people can be more careful as they walk on a wet floor.

3. Injuries from Falling Objects

These tend to be common in workshops, factories, and construction sites.

However, workers can also find themselves on the receiving end of falling objects at the office from cupboards and shelves.

The best way to counter this is by ensuring to provide factory and warehouse workers with protective gear. At the office level, ensure adequate storage space to allow people to maneuver without causing injurious items to fall on them.

4. Muscle Strains

Strained muscles are common to employees whose jobs involve heavy lifting. With an incorrect posture and lack of proper lifting equipment, workers can suffer back and neck strains, worsening with time.

Neck strains are also becoming increasingly common for office workers. Think about the laptop posture that tends to have the head turned downwards. Without work stations that support a good posture, these employees also begin to feel the strain on their necks.

Encourage good posture, have adequate lifting equipment, and allow your employees to take frequent stretching breaks every couple of hours.

Round-Up

While these are among the more common injuries, there are numerous injuries people can suffer at work. Their nature is also mostly dependent on the nature of work.

However, good continuous safety training, comfortable, spacious workspaces, and necessary equipment and protective gear go a long way into minimizing the number of incidences in any workplace.