Tag: Safe

Staying Safe When You Have A Dangerous Job

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success. Two key focuses are Career Discussions and Health/Wellness. Not all jobs have the safety of working in an office setting with carpets, computers and cubicles. Some jobs require getting dirty and some degree of potential hazard. In the latter set of jobs, it’s important to think about your safety at all times. The following contributed post is entitled, Staying Safe When You Have A Dangerous Job.

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No one likes the idea of being hurt when they are doing their job. Governments, businesses, and individuals have all been working for a very long time to ensure that workplaces are safe and secure, though this is something which some jobs make almost impossible. Unfortunately, some people simply don’t have the luxury of doing something safe each day. Whether you work as an industrial diver or as a security guard, though, you can always take steps to make sure that you’re not putting yourself at unnecessary risk. To help you out with this, this post will be exploring some of the steps which can be taken to make even the most dangerous jobs a little safer.

Following Policies

While a lot of the rules which you have to follow when you’re working may seem a little over the top, they are always there for a reason. Safety gear will protect your body from accidents, while policies which dictate how people are allowed to move around in dangerous environments will help to prevent them from happening in the first place, and this makes these rules well worth following. Of course, after a few years on the job, it will be easy to become complacent, and you may find that your employers have lost track of the policies they need to follow. In this case, researching the rules for yourself will be a good idea.

Working Together

Many of the world’s most dangerous jobs often end up being done by people on their own. This may not always increase the risk of an accident, but there are some roles which simply shouldn’t be done by people who are left to themselves. Truck driving is a great example of this, with a lot of accidents occurring when people are forced to drive for a long time without a proper chance to rest. Team truck driving jobs are considered much safer, as you will have someone with you as you drive, and this means that you won’t have to be focused for the whole journey.

Being Attentive

It’s not always easy for industries to put the right rules in place for their employees. While some companies manage to keep their teams safe, others will miss out on crucial areas, and this can often leave big gaps. Being attentive will give you the chance to spot these areas, and a little bit of creativity and initiative will help you to come up with ideas to make them safer. For example, if you have to work on wet floors all the time, it would make sense for your employer to provide you with shoes which are good for this environment. They can’t fire you for asking for this, with a lot of employers valuing this sort of input from their teams.

Keeping yourself safe should always be your priority when you’re at work. It doesn’t matter if you get your job done if you get hurt in the process, and the vast majority of employers will want to keep their team as safe as possible. To make this work, though, you have to keep your eyes open.

Five Ways To Keep Your Small Business Safe

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship, and Technology. In today’s digital world, a key to running your small business is keeping it safe, particularly in terms of your Information Technology (IT) operations. The following contributed post is entitled, Five Ways To Keep Your Small Business Safe.

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The general consensus with small businesses is that they start from home. Working from home is a huge privilege, and if you are running a business from home, you’re getting even more significant benefits than you could imagine. However, many people think just because they’re working from home; they’re safe in their business. The benefits of working from home cannot be disputed, but what about the precautions that you take to ensure that it’s a secure option for you. When you have a small business, you share everything online, from your current activity to your expectations for the coming quarter. People can see this information, and while this is the idea, it’s also a fine line between the audience you want to see your information and those you do not. Everything is accessible, so it’s in your interest to put that information out there while protecting yourself.

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While you keep that in mind, consider the following five ways that you can protect both your new online small business and your home at the same time. Given that you are working from home, protecting it is the best thing that you could do.

Choose The Right Hosts

Your online infrastructure needs to be stable so that you can ensure that hackers don’t come after your information. Use outsourced IT services if you don’t know how to run your network yourself, but make sure that your online services are 100% protected with a good internet host and provider.

Keep Buildings Secure

You’re working from home, so you can think about adding some extra security so that your business is also protected. If you have a driveway, think about getting driveway gates and driveway gate openers that are electric which you can control from inside the house. You deserve the utmost protection for your home and the faster that you can install that, the safer you and your business will be.

Get Registered

Part of being safe in your home business is ensuring that you aren’t going to be hit by huge fines from the taxman. Getting your small business registered is so crucial so that you can start making some decent income. Think about how you want your business to look to others, and get registered with the proper authorities as soon as possible.

Register For Domain Privacy

It’s vital that you don’t register your domain name and leave it as is. Using domain privacy is so important if you want to ensure that your domain is more than what the public can see. By registering for a private domain, you can keep your home address safe from public prying eyes.

VPN

Using a private VPN network to protect the history of your internet searches is so essential if you want to keep your privacy in your business. Your browsing online stays private, too, so no hacker can see what you’re doing. It’s all in the name of your protection, so take note and make sure you follow the right instructions for a healthy and safe business.

3 Ways To Keep Your Fleet Drivers Safe On The Road

Two of the principles of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Trucking businesses can be very lucrative if run the properly. A key aspect is keeping your fleet drivers safety. The following contributed post is entitled, 3 Ways To Keep Your Fleet Drivers Safe On The Road.

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As a business owner, safety needs to be your number one concern, especially when it comes to protecting your employees. An accident and an injury at work could prove costly for your business, not only from compensation claims sought by your employee but by the level of productivity that will be cut if you are consequently short-staffed because the injury has resulted in an employee absence. Your reputation might also take a hit if you are seen to show negligence as an employer, and that could have a knock-on effect on your profits.

Now, health and safety dangers are not only found on site. As many business owners are reliant on company cars, vans, lorries, etc. for business meetings and cargo purposes, there are all of the expected risks that can be found on today’s roads. According to Automotive Fleet, the annual accident rate for commercial fleets has risen to 20%. Sadly, many of these have resulted in fatalities, and so, if you do have employees working on the roads, you need to focus on their safety to ensure they don’t become yet another statistic.

So, what can you do about it? You can’t be with them on the roads, so you might think the situation is out of your hands. Not so, as there are a number of things you can do.

1. Make sure the vehicles are safe to drive

It is important to inspect your company’s vehicles regularly, and while both you and your drivers should take steps to know what danger signs to look out for, you should also seek the assistance of a qualified mechanic periodically. If there are any problems, you should deal with them immediately, and that means booking in your vehicles at your local garage, or looking for specialist service support if specific parts are needed, such as those Sprinter Fleet companies who have the relevant Sprinter van accessories and parts to maintain your vehicle.

2. Ensure your drivers are trained to drive the vehicles in your care

While you know your drivers need to be trained and licensed to drive your company vehicles, you should still invest in extra training to ensure their safety on the roads. This includes specific ‘behind the wheel’ training courses for vehicles they may or may not have had the relevant experience in before, as well as e-learning courses that might focus on particular aspects of road safety. With prices starting at around $85 with courses provided by Skills Driving, you don’t have a lot to pay, although even if at premium rates, you should never let a price tag get in the way of your employee’s safety.

3. Install a camera system in your fleet vehicles

In some instances, your driver will not be to blame for any accidents that might occur on the road. However, there are other instances when they might be, perhaps because they have tried to pull off risky driving maneuvers, or maybe because they have become distracted and taken their eyes off the road. A fleet vehicle camera system will let you see everything, and while the driver might resent being checked up on, you should remind them that you are doing it for their safety. You can then bring up any mistakes or bad driver behavior with them should you notice them, although, in theory, the driver will probably drive more safely knowing that their actions are being monitored.

Finally

There is much you can do to protect your driver’s on the road, so follow our suggestions if you are reliant on a business fleet. Let us know if you have any ideas too, especially if you’re an employer where day-to-day driving is a necessity for your employees.

Big Tech Wants To Create Software To Keep You Safe. But Will It?

A major focus of my blog is Technology. Today there are numerous new technological advances which were designed with the intent of increasing safety. What are some of these new technologies? The following contributed post is entitled, Big Tech Wants To Create Software To Keep You Safe. But Will It?

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Although the news around big tech, especially the Facebook scandal, is overwhelmingly negative, there’s no denying the fact that software has the potential to keep us safe. But exactly how companies intend to do this remains a mystery for many people, so here are some of the applications of software that are already keeping you safer and doing a good job of it.

Door Alarm Software

Over the last few years, specific IoT applications have gained traction in the market, including door alarms. Rather than just having an alarm next to the door which sounds if somebody tries to break and enter, new technology now allows homeowners to get alerts direct to their phone telling them that somebody is trying to gain access to their home.

Companies, like Ring, take this one step further by integrating camera technology. People can see the person at their front door and talk to them through their devices, no matter where they happen to be. Not only does this discourage burglary, but it also creates a record of people that have been to the front door: helpful in a possible investigation.

Blind-Spot Sensing

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Data from Aitken Aitken Cohn trial lawyers suggests that there were more than 3,100 fatal accidents in California alone last year. What’s more, around nine out of ten of those was the result of driver error.

Perhaps the most critical application of software technology, therefore, is in the realm of motor vehicles. New technologies are coming on board all the time which promise to keep drivers safer than they’ve ever been before. One of the most promising of these is the so-called blind-spot sensing technology. This is a kind of technology that will keep the car in a lane if it can sense a vehicle in the driver’s blind spot, even if the driver turns the steering wheel.

Facial Recognition

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In the modern world, keeping your data safe is just as important as keeping your property secure. Software is helping people to achieve this by reducing the traditional reliance on passwords and using alternative authentication methods instead.

Perhaps the most interesting of these is facial recognition. Already companies like Intel are using facial recognition (Intel uses an app called Security True Key) to unlock mobile devices if and only if they detect a person’s face. Although the technology sounds futuristic, advanced AI is enabling devices to recognize one person’s face from another based on a set of important input characteristics. Even small changes in the distance between the eyes can make a difference to whether the software decides that it is looking at the owner of the device or not. Expect this technology to make a big splash in the coming year.

Device Tracking

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The cloud opened up a whole new bunch of possibilities for people to protect their devices using their other devices. There are now apps like LoJack and Prey, which allow you to remotely secure devices that you may have misplaced. All you have to do is log onto the app on a trusted device and then instruct it to lock all linked devices – great if you ever leave your laptop on the train.