When it comes to health and safety in the workplace, it is not one area of your business you want to scrimp on as doing so could have significant repercussions. You will want to have an excellent health and safety policy in your business that can safeguard your employees and your business should something go wrong.
If you are looking to improve the health and safety of your workplace, below are some tips to help you get started and ensure you create a safe working environment for you and your employees.
Understand The Law & Formulate A Plan
You will need to ensure that you or your company’s designated health and safety officer has intimate knowledge of the laws governing health and safety in the workplace. If you are struggling with this, you can find a firm providing 24 hr employment law advice for workplace health and safety issues, among others. You will need to create a plan to address health and safety in your workplace to ensure the safety of your employees, and you will also want to inspect your facilities.
Inspect Your Workplace
Once you have a loose plan in place, you will need to inspect your workplace and assess the risks there. You will want to look for faulty or broken machinery, trip hazards, and dirty areas, which can all contravene health and safety regulations. You will need to be hypercritical with your workplace, as when an independent assessor comes in to assess your workplace health and safety practices, they will be looking for the slightest of flaws in your operation.
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Provide Adequate Training For Your Employees
Ensure that you provide adequate training for your employees to do their duties to the best of their ability. You may need to provide materials handling courses to train staff to pick things up correctly without getting hurt. You will need to train them how to operate any machinery you have in your business premises. You will also need to ensure that you offer refresher training for employees to avoid forgetting any vital aspects of it and potentially cause a serious accident. You can seek the help of HR outsource firms such as Avensure.
Regular Assessments
You will need to schedule regular assessments of your workplace and staff to ensure everything operates within the guidelines. You may catch staff members doing things that go against the training they had, and you will need to pull them up on this. A regular check of your premises for potential hazards needs to happen all the time if you want to prevent accidents from happening.
You can also read: Managing Quality Control: How can your Small Business benefit?
Keep Extensive Records
It is also vital to ensure that you keep extensive records for health and safety. Any time someone gets injured in the workplace, you need to record it, and you will also want to record the training each member of staff receives. That way, if they do something that injures themselves and you have proof, they have had sufficient retraining, they will not be able to sue your business. More information about the records you should keep for your business are available online to help ensure everything is above board.
