Workplace Safety Tips: Don’t Leave Your Employees in the Dark

With daylight saving time approaching this November, it’s important to create workplace safety around shorter days. Your first shift employees get the short end of the stick after having enjoyed longer daylight hours for most of the year, to now driving to and from work in the dark. Help them acclimate to the upcoming change by following these easy workplace safety tips to keep your employees from being in the dark!

 

1. Light It Up

Keeping a well-lit pathway to the entrance is a fairly inexpensive and worthwhile project. Using solar lights along sidewalks cuts down on energy bills, but floodlights may also be necessary depending on your particular layout. If you decorate for the holidays, Christmas tree lights can help while adding some cheer so that the cold darkness doesn’t bring down the office mojo!

 

2. Defrost All Pavement

Workplace injuries and workman’s comp claims are no fun for anyone. Keeping the parking lot and walkways well-lit isn’t always a perfect system, but keeping them free of ice around the clock can contribute to your coveted safety reports. According to one source, “Pedestrians walking around at dusk are nearly three times more likely to be struck and killed by cars in the days following the end of daylight saving time than just before the time change.” This includes drivers having lower visibility in parking lots.

 

3. Your Biological Clock is Ticking

Although society’s clock will be set back an hour on November 5th, your biological clock may still tick to the beat of its own drum. Health studies point out that “changes in waking time coupled with the earlier onset of darkness throws off our internal clocks. This increases driving risks, primarily because, in our 24/7 society, we have a fundamental problem of already being sleep deprived.”

 

4. Help Employees Fight the Fatigue

An official practice only since 1966, daylight saving is still “new” to humanity. And while getting an extra hour of sleep sounds idealistic for most of us, it can actually lead to more fatigue and take days to readjust. After all, your circadian rhythm has been set for the past six months, so it’s sort of like having jet lag but worse. Not only that, but those with depressive disorders are said to be negatively affected most. The solution? Plan something fun the week following the one-hour fall-back to keep energy – and motivation – on the up and up!

 

5. Prime Time for Crime

When we exchange one hour of daylight in the evening for an hour in the morning, it leaves our homes and businesses vulnerable.

Why?

Because daylight saving time causes darkness to fall right as people are getting off work, hence leaving the office and home simultaneously vulnerable for burglars to strike. A study by The MIT Press reports a 7% decrease in crime and $59 million spared from avoiding burglaries upon entering into daylight saving time in the spring. The solution? Install security cameras and burglar alarms! It’s the best way we know how to guard your place of business – and your home – when you aren’t able to protect it yourself.

Per Mar and safety go hand-in-hand. Contact us if you’d like some help with ensuring the safest work environment for your employees!