How many times do we see construction workers in potentially dangerous situations? How many times do we pass a job site and see a worker in an unprotected trench?

Any company that takes workplace health and safety seriously knows that it needs to get employees on board with its safety policies. If workers aren’t willing to follow along and take workplace safety seriously, it’s impossible to create the safest work environment possible.

Occupational health and safety is rarely a one-size-fits-all situation, even within the same company. Different jobs require different approaches to safety.

More than 60 hotel companies in the American Hotel & Lodging Association pledged to provide service workers with panic buttons as part of their commitment to the 5-Star Promise initiative, a promise in the hospitality industry to improve employee safety. The idea is simple: to give employees a means to protect themselves.

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) has been around for what seems like forever, protecting workers’ rights to a safe and accident-free workplace.

In the old days, work was work and home was home and the employee was only the employer’s problem at work. These days, though, employers are smarter, and they’ve come to recognize that poor worker health isn’t just their problem – it’s an expensive problem, costing US businesses $84 billion every year.

Employees deserve to work in conditions that are as reasonably safe as possible to ensure they are free from harm while on the job. This isn’t just wishful thinking, either; as an employer, you’re required by law to adhere to dozens, if not hundreds, of health and safety rules and regulations.

If your company has the goal of creating a safe workplace, it’s best to start simple. That means addressing some of the most common accidents at work. Once you have the basics down, you can move onto more advanced safety measures. But the best thing you can do to set a good foundation is to understand the accidents and injuries that are most likely to occur and minimize your risk of those taking place.

When it comes to workplace safety, there’s nothing worse than being left in the dark, figuratively and literally. As far as the latter is concerned, most companies have no choice but to have employees working at night or in dark conditions.

When it comes to safety concerns in the workplace, the list goes on and on. There are dozens of variables to keep track of at all times, and this can be an exhausting endeavor for any manager or site owner. However, approaching safety concerns in the workplace by prioritizing the most common issues first will help keep your place of work as safe as possible for the majority of your workers.