When it comes to the health and safety of employees and visitors to your workplace, it is you, the employer, who is responsible.
To reduce the risk of an incident occurring on your business premises, it is important that you take steps, some on a daily basis, to make the environment as safe as possible. Here are some health and safety practices that all employers should adopt as part of their day-to-day business operations.
Carry out regular risk assessments
You probably carried out a risk assessment for safety and security when you first moved into your business premises. However, it’s important to keep this as information up to date. Regular assessments should be carried out of the premises and whenever anything changes. For example, employees move desks or receive new equipment. Elements to check and maintain regularly include electronic equipment, office furniture, bathrooms and kitchens.
Appoint health and safety leaders
If you are busy or away from the premises a lot of the time you will be unable to keep an eye out for any potential hazards or to record any incidents. If this applies to you, it is important that you appoint one or more employees to take care of health and safety issues on a day-to-day basis. Obviously, these individuals will need adequate training.
Ensure your premises is clean and tidy
Slips and trips are common in business premises and in a lot of cases can lead to expensive injury claims. Ensuring that the building is kept tidy will reduce the risk of such incidents occurring. For this purpose, you may wish to hire professional cleaning services. You should also encourage staff to keep their workstations and the common areas as clean and clutter-free as possible.
Provide training and information
Accidents or injuries often happen because employees or visitors are unaware of best practises on health and safety. Provide regular training to employees on all aspects of health and safety in the workplace and put up safety notices in visible locations. For example, a tap that gets very hot should have a warning notice until the problem is permanently fixed.
Stay updated
Health and safety laws, regulations and recommendations can regularly change, so it’s important to stay on top of these developments. If you are not able to do this yourself, make sure the health and safety leaders are able to. They can do this by subscribing to relevant email notifications. You should arrange for regular meetings with these employees so they can relay this information to you.
Some employers are reluctant to do anything more than the minimum required to ensure compliance with health and safety legislation. In fact, some try to get away with doing very little. But doing what you can to make your business premises as safe as possible doesn’t have to be costly or time-consuming. Indeed, there are many benefits that come with creating a safe workplace. The advantages include better staff retention, less working days lost because of absent staff and a good business reputation.
Thanks for reading!
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