Health and Safety is not just a necessity for keeping your staff safe in the workplace; it ensures that all of your business processes run as efficiently and productively as possible, it adds credibility to your reputation and increases your chances of securing contracts, and if something was ever to happen in or around your premises, it also proves that you have all of the safety measures in place so that you avoid fines or legal costs.
Every business knows that Health and Safety is absolutely essential to their business, but as legislation can be confusing and ever-changing, it can be difficult to keep up and ensure that your business is complying.
To make sure that you are complying with Health and Safety legislation, here are our top 10 tips for employers.
1. Obtain Health and Safety Advice
Health and Safety isn’t just something that business owners and employers know about or are able to implement themselves, unless they have an employee that has significant experience, so seek competent advice from an expert.
2. Write a Health and Safety Policy
Every business needs a Health and Safety Policy that they adhere to and this should outline: the potential risks/hazards in the workplace, how you are managing them, what should be done in the event of an incident, and what members of staff are responsible for delivering each element.
3. Carry Out a Risk Assessment
Assessing the potential risks in your workplace are essential for writing your policy and ensuring that you have sufficient measures in place to prevent them from occurring. A risk or hazard is anything that might actually cause harm to someone.
4. Always Consult Your Employees
Carrying out a risk assessment aims to improve the running of your business in the safest way possible, so who better to help you do that than the staff themselves? They know the work they do every day, so ask them what situations they think can be improved.
5. Increase Awareness in Your Business
Awareness is a very powerful tool in prevention, so ensure that all of your employees have a good basic knowledge of Health and Safety in terms of potential risks and the prevention measures that they can implement themselves as well as the ones that you have in place. Remember to cover this in induction when you employ anyone new.
6. Provide the Necessary Training
Awareness comes from training, so make sure that all of your employees know how to work safely without any risks to their health. Getting this information across is vital, so get creative with how you present it and make sure it is in a format that everyone understands. Be as clear as possible and provide everyone with instructions and information that they can take away.
H&S Tip! Don’t just forget about it once the training is complete, make sure to provide training once every year or two years so that everyone is up-to-date.
7. Get Employers Liability Insurance
If you have all of these Health and Safety measures in place, your workplace should be as safe as it can be, however, accidents can happen. In the event that an employee is injured or becomes ill as a result of the work that they do for you, employers liability insurance will cover you if any compensation claims are made against you.
8. Always Refresh Your First Aid Measures
Every workplace needs first aid measures in place from the actual equipment to having an actual person designated to take charge of first aid in an event and making sure that all employees are aware of the first-aid arrangements. Make sure to always check equipment and refresh your staff’s knowledge on the topic.
9. Provide Workplace Welfare Facilities
Health and Safety isn’t just about avoiding hazards, it’s also about providing employees with a suitable workplace environment and this includes facilities; toilets, ventilation, lighting, seating and workstations. Always make sure that this includes facilities for those with disabilities.
10. Always Review and Update Regularly
It’s all well and good making sure that you are compliant with Health and Safety right now, but you need to always know that this is the case. You can’t just leave this for a couple of years and expect that you’re still providing the level of safety that you should be as legislation is always changing and updating to improve the workplace of all businesses.
Make sure to review your Health and Safety annually, this way you can ensure that all your safety policies and risk assessments are up-to-date with current legislation, approved codes of practice and guidance and that all your employees have a good level of awareness.
Need More Help with Your Overall Health & Safety Strategy?
ActiveHSE provides many publications and resources on Health and Safety, including policy log books and checklists that can be tailored to your business. If you need any advice or guidance on which ones you need, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
info@activehse.co.uk | 07921 278986