No matter how big or small your business is, if you employ staff then you must comply with the laws and regulations governing health and safety in the workplace. For both young and established businesses, this can be a daunting task to get your head around. There is a lot of information to get to grips with and changes to be made, and you must always be on the ball in order to avoid an injury claim. However, we have created these top tips that will, hopefully, help to make this process easier. Let’s take a look:
1. Appoint health and safety officers
Depending on the size of your business, it will help to appoint one or more employees to help you fulfill your health and safety responsibilities. Ignorance or being swamped are not excuses for lack of compliance, so delegate in order to do the job properly.
2. Conduct risk assessments
Every business and business premises is different. Therefore, you must conduct a risk assessment to identify the potential hazards particular to your organisation. Make notes of potential risks and how you plan to minimise them. Your risk assessment should be updated on a regular basis in order take account of any new hazards.
3. Create a health and safety policy
Create a comprehensive policy for your business to provide details on how you will manage health and safety in your workplace. To comply with health and safety law you must record and retain records of any injuries and incidents that occur in the workplace. So, it’s necessary to include this procedure in your health and safety policy.
4. Educate your staff
Make sure staff have read the health and safety policy, and that they know where to access it for future reference. Provide a channel of communication that staff can use to ask any relevant questions or make any suggestions. Provide training to staff on how they can work in a way to minimise the risk to their health and safety.
5. Notify relevant authorities
If your employees come into contact with hazardous substances, such as asbestos, you may need to notify the Health And Safety Executive and apply for a license. If you are negligent in this respect, your employees could raise a compensation claim if they suffer from illness or injury due to hazardous working conditions.
6. Provide standard facilities
Aside from the facilities you need to operate your business, you must provide employees with an environment that meets the sanitary and comfort standards.
7. Keep up to date
Like any field of law, developments occur on a regular basis in health and safety law. It’s important to keep up to date with these changes and so that your business remains compliant with the latest laws, regulations and recommendations. The best way to do this is to sign up for regular alerts from the Health And Safety Executive’s website.
We hope that your business will find this information helpful in complying with the health and safety legislation.
