Health and Safety Tips to Protect Your Employees

Source: Unsplash | Anthony Ginsbrook

As a business owner, you have the responsibility to maintain the health and safety of your employees. Regardless of the type of business you own, or the scale of the workplace, health, and safety procedures are a must; which means taking the necessary precautions to ensure that accidents don’t occur. A hazard can happen at any point and aren’t always preventable, but taking a closer inspection at how you can minimize risks is your main responsibility as an employer.

With this in mind, here is a useful guide that will help maintain the health and safety of your employees in the workplace.

Seek the help of a professional

It would be in your best interests to hire a professional with experience in the health and safety sector to inspect your business premises, to measure and evaluate how the likelihood of risk can be lowered. This person should have the title of a ‘Health and Safety Consultant’ or similar and have the correct training and knowledge to be able to assist you correctly.

Write a health and safety policy

Once you’re aware of where the risks may lie, it’s important to inform your employees on how they can maintain their safety on-site. One way to do this would be to write out a health and safety policy and hang it in a position where all staff members will see it. While you may never have considered writing out a policy before, it is, in fact, the law if your workplace has five employees or more. The content should cover the job role of each employee, when they do it and how they do it. This policy can also include a 10 panel drug test to ensure everyone knows that this is a drug free workplace for everyone. It doesn’t hurt to occasionally drug test your employees to ensure everyone is sober while on the job.

Hire an electrician

All businesses use a huge amount of electricity on a day-to-day basis; from flicking on the light switches to firing up PCs. There may be some instances when certain appliances aren’t working correctly, which is usually down to faulty electrics. Cowley Narooma electricians clarify that while some business owners may wish to fix the problem themselves, this would be highly discouraged. An electrical DIY job could be the difference between life and death, so you should always hire a professional electrician to maintain the wiring systems in your business for you. You can find a trusted electrician in your area by searching ‘electrician near me’ on Porch.com.

Training

Every one of your employees should be aware of the health and safety aspects in the workplace, so they don’t impact the wellbeing of themselves and others. It would be wise to provide training sessions so they are fully informed of the posed risks and how they can be dealt with. Leading Safety Training White Card Course specialists remind us that certain industries also require specific training and accreditations, construction workers require a white card and as an employer you need to ensure all workers have the appropriate training and documents. It would be advised to also ask the opinions of your employees of how their safety can be maintained and any further feedback on their training to make sure that it’s applicable to them. When implementing training into your workplace health and safety strategy, be sure to make a note of when it is given, so refresher courses are held at the relevant times for existing and recently hired employees.

Business insurance

Accidents in the workplace do happen. Even when you have taken out all the necessary measures to ensure health and wellbeing is taken care of, there are always instances when employees may fall ill or suffer an injury while at work. If so, there is that chance that an employee may put in a compensation claim against you. In most cases, taking out the relevant employee liability insurance will protect you financially, but wouldn’t be relevant if there are no employees or the business is family-run.

Pregnancy

When a woman informs their employer that they are pregnant, it’s a manager’s responsibility to perform a well-conducted risk assessment to prevent injury or illness occurring.

Some of the factors that need to be taken into consideration include:

• Physical demands: Pregnant woman shouldn’t be expected to take part in strenuous activities during the late pregnancy stages, especially. If, however, the woman claims that she is fine to carry on, you won’t be liable to pose these limitations on her.
• Working hours: Working hours should be cut to a reasonable amount during the late pregnancy stage. A cut-off point of 40 hours would be advised.

Temperature

Many employers completely overlook the importance of the workplace climate, and while there are no protocols on the maximum temperature, there is a rule that a comfortable working temperature of 16 degrees should be adhered to, regardless of the industry sector. The ideal maximum working temperature should be around 27 degrees when employees carry out light physical work.

Maintaining safety levels in the workplace is one of the most important parts of running a business. You want to be able to guarantee the safety of each and every one of your employees, and you can do that by taking note of the above points.