With the passage of time, there have been tremendous changes in the way business is carried out.
Where industrial revolution transformed the business activities in one way, introduction of concepts like total quality management and Six sigma changed the objectives and strategies at the business unit level in the other way.
A more or less similar revolution was observed in past few decades when some scholars and practitioners started arguing that human beings, or employees, of any organization should also be considers as one of the resources of a firm.
This lead to the birth of the discipline we know as human resource management.
If you are a person who owns a small business having some workforce, one of the basic kinds of knowledge you should have as a manager, and leader as well, is about personal injury laws! Personal injury laws are aimed to protect people from the injuries they can have either by being directly involved in any dangerous activity, or from similar actions performed by others.
The importance of personal injury laws becomes even more evident when you have a small workforce involved in any kind of activity which frequently exposes them to heavy materials, chemicals, very high level of noise, radiations of any kind and other similar substances which can prove dangerous if mishandled.
There are generally two categories of personal injury laws; one category deals with the acts on behalf of someone himself/herself (negligence) and the other category includes injuries arising from similar acts from others (intentional).
As an employer you should take enough steps to abide by these laws regarding employee health and safety.
Make it sure that all the employees are well aware about the personal injury laws.
They should avoid any such acts by which they can cause a harm to themselves or others working around them.
All such laws need that the working premises should be safe foe those who work there.
As an employer, it is your duty to keep the working environment free of any such causes of incidents.
You should make security checks regular and from time to time.
It is important that you get certificates about the condition of your factory or working area so that you may have ample amount of evidence to protect you from laws suits.
It is a legal duty of all the employers to abide by all the personal injury laws and to make the employees aware that how thy can benefit from such laws in terms of worker compensation plans.
An adequate amount of compensation has to be paid to the employee in case he/she suffers from any injury on the part of organization's negligence about the working conditions and environment.
In case some employee files a lawsuit and proves that the fault is on the part of management, penalties are very high.
The basic need is to make employees aware of how the personal injury laws can both save and chastise them for committing any act which may cause any injury to themselves or their co-workers.
One good way to do this is to conduct training sessions and awareness workshops about personal injury laws.