All employers need to make a high priority to ensure all of your employees are fit to work and physically and mentally capable of doing the job you employ them for. With over 440,000 workers injured in non-fatal accidents in 20/21 and 123 deaths in the workplace in the same period, reading the risk of harm to employees shouldn’t be overlooked.
There are many different factors that can come into play when looking at health and safety in the workplace, and first and foremost, it can start with the hiring process and ensuring everyone you hire is able to carry out their duties. When interviewing prospective hires, why not add a pre employment screening to determine their health and better understand how to work with them to provide a safer environment and know their physical capabilities?
Alongside this, extensive health and safety training before they set foot in the company to work will help you to give them the knowledge to understand how to keep themselves safe when at work and what you expect of them in regards to working in a safe manner for everyone around them, not only themselves.
Being rigorous in this training and screening can allow you to make better choices and implement measures for enhanced workplace health and safety.
Management Responsibilities
From here, management needs to play a part in ensuring that everyone at work has the equipment and safety protection to reduce accidents and improve efficiency. Fines for willfully neglecting to provide personal protective equipment and safety apparatus can run into the millions depending on the severity of the breach and can carry jail times and prosecution, which will undoubtedly cost you more in terms of finances, reputation, and lost working hours than stumping up for the essentials in the first place.
Management needs to make an out of all the equipment required for workers to carry out their job role safely and recommend protection depending on your industry. On top of this, putting a comprehensive maintenance and upgrade plan in place to provide the best equipment for easier working conditions should also be paramount. Allowing workers to “make do” with old, outdated tools and machinery that need frequent repairs can put them at risk and detract from how efficient they will be.
Enact a clear reporting policy and invest in newer, more reliable equipment and tools to reduce the risk to persons and allow everyone to feel safe and secure at work.
Reporting and Recording Accidents
Any workplace needs to have a robust policy for reporting accidents and injuries on site, be it manually recording or digitally. Log all instances of faulty equipment and any potential issues this can bring, and log all repairs and maintenance in easily accessible files to allow you to implement a proper repair and maintenance programme and assess problems that keep recurring.
The same should be done for employees too. Up-to-date records of who was hurt, any witnesses to the injury itself and any treatment required can help you to identify what is going wrong and where the problem lies, be it due to inadequate training, employee misuse, faulty tools and so on. It would be best if you also track any changes or modifications to working patterns, methods or changes in who uses equipment or complete specific tasks to show you are mitigating risk and striving to reduce further issues. You can keep yourself covered if you need to provide proof of this for a workplace accident claim.
Conclusion
Improving workplace health and safety is an ongoing task that should be central to your operations and will help you to ensure everyone is safe at all times and employees can feel confident you have their best interests at heart.
