As someone that runs a business, you will know that there are plenty of costs you need to bear.
Operational costs are, for the most part, the biggest expenses to affect your profit. They are the fees one must pay to keep the company running like a well-oiled machine.
Each business has such costs, and they vary depending on the size of the firm and what they do. If you have a team of people, you will no doubt realise how expensive employees can be to your business! Yes, you have to pay them a salary for their work.
But, employees can cost businesses a lot of money in other ways. One example is absence due to sick leave. The law says that employees must get some money, even if they are not at work carrying out their duties. It’s for those reasons that it makes sense to use occupational health services.
It’s a good way to cut down on long-term absence
Sometimes your employees may fall ill because of something related to their work. For instance, let’s say that you run an electronics repair service. You have plenty of engineers that work as a team at their test benches. Many of those engineers will spend a lot of time soldering and even welding in some cases.
What happens if you don’t have adequate ventilation in your repair centre? Or perhaps there aren’t enough storage facilities for the tools your workers use? In the first case, some of your workers may have breathing difficulties from the toxic fumes. And, in the second, a trip or fall hazard could present itself, causing a severe injury.
As you can imagine, those are two examples that you could resolve. But, if you don’t do the right inspections on your working environment, issues will soon mount up.
Occupational health providers don’t just find out how well an employee is at any given time. They can also suggest ways to improve working areas so that you can prevent those issues in the future.
They can provide frequent workplace assessments
As an employer, it’s your legal duty to ensure your workers aren’t at a great risk of injury or death. As dramatic as that sounds, things like that occur each day in some workplaces. That’s why it’s essential you don’t end up becoming part of such a sad statistic.
Occupational health firms offer a broad range of services that you can use in your business. One of those services is frequent workplace assessments.
In a nutshell, you can invite them to assess working areas and identify any areas of concern. Examples include, but aren’t limited to, the following:
- Slip and trip hazards;
- Electrical, gas and water hazards;
- Faulty equipment and machinery; and
- Inadequate safety provision for workers.
You might think that you could just carry out those checks yourself. But, there are many valid reasons why it pays to use an independent organisation. First, they aren’t connected to your business. That means you don’t have any influence over their findings.
Second, you have a record of when the checks got carried out. And, when you’ve resolved any highlighted issues.
If an employee were to sue you for negligence, you have proof that you’ve had inspections carried out. And you’ll also have the documents to show that you’ve had problems resolved. So, from a legal standpoint, you are covering your back, as it were!
You are helping to improve morale and motivation
Sure, employees love the fact that they have a good, steady job and an income applicable to their skill set. But, what they crave is knowing you have their workplace interests at heart.
They want to know that you aren’t making them work in an unsafe environment. It’s a morale-booster to see occupational health assessors inspecting the working area. That’s because they feel you care about their safety in the workplace.
Let’s face it; there are plenty of ways to boost morale at work. One of the best ones is knowing that your boss cares enough to sort out any issues that may affect your well-being.
You could save money
Yes, they help to lessen the threat of legal action. There are also other ways occupational health services can help you to save money. They can work with you to improve efficiency in the way you do things in your business.
For example, let’s say that your employees carry out a particular task hundreds of times a day. Such repetition could have an adverse effect on their health and increase the scope for error. It might get suggested to you that you could automate those tasks.
That way, your workers can get on with other duties and improve the efficiency of your processes.
How to choose an occupational health services provider
As you can imagine, there are plenty of OHS providers that you can select from these days. But, how do you choose the right vendor for your company? Well, it turns out there are a few questions you need to ask before you appoint a particular firm:
- What level of service gets provided? You have to pay for their services, so you need to know what you get for your money;
- How involved do they get? Are they just a workplace assessment provider, or do they offer other services for firms;
- What information gets supplied? Do you get copies of reports and medical records for each employee;
- How do I get billed? Some OHS providers work on an invoice basis, whereas others may want upfront payment.
You will also need to ask some other questions too. For example, are they an established firm or are they a new startup? What is their level of experience and expertise? And what happens if you don’t agree with their findings?
Choosing an OHS provider doesn’t have to be hard work! All you need to do is ask a few basic questions so that you can choose the right one for your business.
Thanks for reading!
