StrategyDriven Risk Management Article | 7 Ways to Ensure the Safety of Your Commercial Premises

7 Ways to Ensure the Safety of Your Commercial Premises

There are plenty of things that can impact the success of your business. But there’s arguably none worse than a safety incident at your premises. If that happens, your business won’t just face financial repercussions, but it could also face legal ones, too. Plus, as a good employer, it’s essential that you create a safe environment for your employees. In this blog, we’re going to run through some effective methods for ensuring that your commercial premises are as safe as can be.

Hire an Expert

To put your business on the path towards impeccable safety, you’ll need to know what the safety threats are. Sometimes, this is an easy process because identifying safety issues is relatively straightforward. In other types of facilities, it’s more difficult. If you’re unable to clearly identify what the safety concerns may be, then it’s recommended that you hire a safety expert to do the job for you. They’ll be able to tell you where your potential weak points are and make recommendations for how you can improve things.

Take Care of the Infrastructure

There are plenty of things that can cause a safety incident at your business. The leading non-human cause of accidents is faulty infrastructure. As such, it’s important that you make every effort to ensure that the infrastructure of your business is watertight from a safety point of view. For example, are your safety valves up to standard? Is your roof watertight and secure? This is something that requires ongoing management — you can’t just look at these things once and expect them to work forever. After all, things do lose their quality over time.

Train Your Staff

Most workplace accidents are a result of human error. That’s not to say it’s the employee’s fault, however. If they haven’t been specifically trained to use the company’s equipment properly, then it’s actually the company’s fault, not the employee’s. Health and safety training isn’t the most exciting task, sure, but it is a critical one. You should be conducting regular training sessions so that your team is always up to date with the latest practices. It’s a good idea to hire a professional to lead the training sessions unless you have specific training in that field.

Maintain a Clean and Tidy Environment

There are plenty of workplaces that are safe when they’re in spotless condition. It’s when they’re not in a spotless condition that issues arise. This is a particular issue in warehouses and factories, but in truth, all business premises can suffer from being untidy. It just makes the environment more dangerous — it’s not hard to see how an injury could occur if someone was carrying something and tripped over an item that shouldn’t be there. As such, it’s imperative that you’re working to keep your work environment clean and tidy at all times. If you have a particularly busy workplace, then it could be a good idea to hire a cleaner to do the task for you.


Take Every Incident Seriously

Serious accidents in the workplace are rare. However, when you look at the events leading up to those incidents, you usually find that the signs that something bad was going to happen were there. It’s just that those early signs were non-serious injuries, so no one took them seriously. It’s for this reason that you should take every incident in the workplace seriously, even if the injury is extremely minimal. You might have just gotten lucky this time around — the next time could result in a serious injury.

Health and Safety Tools

It’s essential to invest in the correct health and safety tools for your site. It’s not hard to see how a fire extinguisher could be extremely useful if the premises experienced flames. There’s much more to know about safety equipment than you might expect, however. There are various different types of fire extinguishers, for example, with each type being used to put out a different type of fire. You will also want to have an extensive first aid kit, as well as any equipment that is specific to your particular line of work.

Secure the Premises

Finally, be sure to work on securing your premises so that no one can enter the building. The chances of someone entering your facility with the intention of doing harm are extremely small, but it’s not zero. Having keypad access, CCTV cameras, and other security equipment won’t just protect your team of staff but will also ensure that your site is kept safe when you’re not there too.

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, 5 Expert Tips to Make Money from Your Blog

5 Expert Tips to Make Money from Your Blog

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, 5 Expert Tips to Make Money from Your Blog

As your website grows, you can use it to make money from your blog for a great additional revenue stream. Here are some expert tips to get you started on the path to monetization.

Hire a Quality Digital Marketing Agency

Almost every online business needs to do digital marketing now. Given the large number of other companies, blogs, or channels, it’s essential to push your business a little further to beat the competition. But the field itself is vast and complicated. Reach Digital is a reputable digital marketing agency that can help your business grow on the Internet. They can do this by using professional methods to make your business stand out against competitors. These include SEO, PPC, and social media campaigns, among other valuable and impactful techniques.

Use Google AdSense

If a lot of people visit your site, Google AdSense can bring in extra money. The good news is that once it is set up, nothing else needs to be done. Connect your website to Google AdSense, set up your site’s settings, and then sit back and let the money roll in. The algorithm slowly learns what your site is about. Next, it starts to show ads for products in your niche that are relevant to you. Then, you get paid when a user clicks on an automatic ad. Over time, the ads become more relevant to your users, resulting in a steady growth in ad revenue from clicks.

Make Money from Your Blog with Affiliate Links

Affiliate marketing is used a lot on the Internet. And almost all successful blogs now use it to make extra money. Each sale made through your unique ID link earns you a small commission. For example, if you have a great blog about photography, you could add affiliate links to stores where people can buy lenses. You shouldn’t have too many affiliate links on your website, or it will look unprofessional and hurt your SEO ranking. Instead, you should make content that fits well into your niche and incorporate links naturally throughout to avoid Google penalties.


Include a PayPal Donation Button

Asking for money on a blog is one of the oldest ways to make money from it. If your audience is dedicated enough, they are more likely to give you money. But you need a steady source of a lot of traffic to make good money from donations since only a small number of people will think about it. If you think you can make money from donations, put a PayPal button in a prominent place on your site, like the menu bar or the sidebar. Always set up a thank-you message for donations, and think about letting your best donors know in public.

Use Blogger Outreach Posts

As your blog gets more popular, SEO and link-building experts who work for clients might get in touch with you. They will ask you if you would be interested in publishing relevant posts with links bought by clients for backlinking purposes. This is called “blogger outreach,” and you will get a small fee for publishing certain posts. They do all the work for you and only have relevant internal and external links. Your SEO score is also helped by posts that are relevant, which most outreach distributors will offer since it also benefits their link clients.

Summary

It’s not easy to make money from your blog. But with some expert guidance from a digital marketing agency, you can thrive. You can also use affiliate links and accept outreach posts.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | The Business Benefits of Lean Management

The Business Benefits of Lean Management

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | The Business Benefits of Lean Management

If you are looking for ways to ensure that your business is as efficient and as profitable as possible, then taking a closer look at lean management is probably a sensible idea.

What is lean management? It is a production method that focuses on reducing times during the manufacturing process, whether it is in the production itself or at the logistics end. It is a method that aims to strip everything back to its bare essentials with a view of increasing productivity.

What are the benefits of lean management?

There are a number of benefits you are likely to see if you adopt a leaner approach to running your business, including the following:

Faster lead times

Perhaps, the biggest benefit of adopting a lean management style is that it will enable you to get things done much more quickly than you are now. Anything that is unnecessary will be stripped away, leaving you and your employees to focus on getting the job done.

Any step that is not vital to the manufacturing process will be removed, and stricter inventory processes will be implemented to ensure that you always have just the right amount of inventory for your needs which means less time managing excess stock and more time working on the task at hand.

An improvement in quality

A lean management style is likely to lead to an increase in quality because it enables you to more easily identify any problems in your manufacturing processes, and it will also help you to come up with more innovative solutions to those problems, Not only that, but it enables you to invest in things like automation and better cleanroom design which will lower the number of mistakes and defects that are made well in advance of them hitting the marketplace.

Better levels of customer service

With a lean management style. Every step of the process is documented, which means, when problems do arise, you can more quickly resolve them by checking the log and pinpointing issues. It will be easier for you to make the customer happy when you have all of the information you need to help them, and even more importantly, all of the info you need to eliminate aspects of the product that the customers find unnecessary.


Greater efficiency

Of course, when it comes to efficiency, lean management is hard to beat. Working practices are standardized and the best processes are put in place to make working in your business as simple as can be. Not only is this good for efficiency in and of itself, but it helps to boost staff morale too, and as you will know, happy workers are more productive workers.

Peace of mind

When you implement lean management practices, you have the peace of mind that comes with knowing your business is optimized to the nth degree.

As you can see, lean management can reduce errors, increase productivity and boost your bottom line, so be sure to consider it for your business going forward.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Choosing The Perfect New Building For Your Restaurant

Choosing The Perfect New Building For Your Restaurant

Are you interested in setting up a restaurant? If so, then there’s a key ingredient that you have to get right to guarantee your success. You must ensure that you choose the perfect building for this new business. Here are some key factors you must take into account making this decision.

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | Choosing The Perfect New Building For Your Restaurant

Location

First, you should think about the location of your restaurant. Location is key when it comes to getting the right level of foot traffic. If you choose the wrong location, then your restaurant will already be destined to struggle. When looking at the location, consider aspects such as transport links. Your restaurant needs to be accessible to as many people as possible. Don’t fall into the trap of choosing a building that looks great but there’s nothing around. People aren’t going to drive out of the way to take a chance on a new restaurant. It needs to have a local base of customers ready to bite.

Exterior

You need to look at the exterior of the property as well. This is important as without the right aesthetic and curb appeal, you will struggle to build up the right level of foot traffic for your restaurant to be a success.

You can of course buy a building and then spend time improving the exterior. But there will be buildings that already have a beautiful outside and a modern design. This guaranteed to help you attract customers once you are ready to open the doors of your restaurant.


Facilities

Next, you should think about the facilities that are available in the restaurant. For instance, you should consider whether you require a cold storage area. Depending on the food that you are serving, this could be essential. You may also need to buy equipment and convert a space using solutions such as a sliding door cooler. In terms of other facilities, your restaurant will require two restrooms or spaces that can be adapted for this.

This is one of the reasons why the cost of the building is just the beginning. Once you buy or rent a property, you will need to spend time and money adapting it to match the requirements of your new business venture.

Space

Finally, you need to think about the space that a building will provide. No one wants to eat in a cramped restaurant and a small space can also throw off the vibe of an area. It’s important to think about the capacity that you want or expect for your restaurant and ensure that you have the space to match. Don’t forget, a lot of businesses will expand their space by adding outdoor areas. However, this will be seasonal and you’ll also likely need planning permission to add an area like this once your restaurant is up and running.

We hope this helps you understand some of the key points that you should consider when choosing the right building for your exciting, fresh restaurant. In doing so, you can guarantee that you do attract customer interest and easily hit profitability in your first year.

StrategyDriven Corporate Cultures Article | Is Your Company Doing These 5 Things to Promote a Safety-First Culture in Logistics?

Is Your Company Doing These 5 Things to Promote a Safety-First Culture in Logistics?

StrategyDriven Corporate Cultures Article | Is Your Company Doing These 5 Things to Promote a Safety-First Culture in Logistics?There is often a conflict in logistics management between ensuring the highest level of safety and meeting strict delivery deadlines. However, security shouldn’t be compromised because of time constraints. Both an environment of safety and prosperity are achievable.

It can be argued that safety considerations are given greater weight in the logistics sector than in other fields. After all, if safety isn’t prioritized, truckers, delivery personnel, and train or bus drivers endanger the public. The good news is that by following the five guidelines below, your company can promote a safer environment for its employees and the public.

Efficient Communication

Maintaining a culture where safety is prioritized and accidents are avoided requires open lines of communication among all employees. Three-way communication is essential, including both vertical and horizontal directions. To put safety devices like a tachograph into every step of a process, you have to be willing to talk about things openly and honestly.

Constant Learning

It’s essential to put in the time and effort to train well before setting out. Ongoing learning is essential for the development of a safety-first mentality. Things change, and so do people’s memories. It’s wonderful how quickly we make errors if we don’t use them or review them often. Consolidating learning and reducing the impacts of the memory curve can be done with brief, easy-to-understand safety courses that just take a few minutes.

Constructive Feedback

When everyone in your company is concerned about safety, you have a “safety-first” culture. Collisions, near-misses, and suggestions for improvement are all reported. When looking for new or straightforward methods to reduce vulnerability, your drivers, warehouse employees, and packers may provide some of the best ideas. To support the idea that events, near-misses, and suggestions for improving safety are talked about at work, the way to report them must be clear.


Hire Managers

Hire a manager to work late hours after tracking commercial truck fatality rates. When the night shift begins at 11 pm and ends at 5 am, these managers check in with all drivers to ensure they are well rested and aware. By giving them the authority to take charge and prioritize safety even when they are tired or in other potentially dangerous situations, you reduce the chance that any of your employees will be involved in an accident, from warehouse employees to HGV drivers. You can also track them by using a fleet management system from a trusted source like Webfleet.

Quality Assessments

Would it be possible to quickly and accurately evaluate the skills of every employee, and support that assessment with information that is both current and conveniently accessible? It is necessary to provide appropriate HSC training for employees to adhere to both federal and local laws and business policies. However, official certification as evidence of conformity is often only necessary once or rarely. If you want to create a more secure culture, you shouldn’t look to the past for clues about the present.

To Sum Up

When you make a commitment to safety an integral part of your business’ culture, it stops being something you have to think about and starts becoming automatic. The success of the whole company, which depends on the success of each worker, can’t be made to last without first creating a safety culture.