Feature
Health & Safety Get skilled in safety By Catherine Jones, ELHS business development manager
In these days of what is recognised as an over abundance of company ‘red tape’, the issue of health and safety in the workplace shines out as a necessary evil. In fact, it is high on the priority list for most companies because, no
matter how large or small, businesses have a responsibility under the Health & Safety At Work Act 1974 to ensure the health and safety of all employees and visitors. It can cost substantial amounts if those regulations are not in place, but
educating managers and workforce on the ‘ins and outs’ can be a costly item to take off the bottom line, not just in hard-earned cash but especially in down-time.
‘Extensive ranges of online courses ensure that individuals and companies of all sizes can undertake cost effective a nd time efficient programmes of staff training’
Organising ‘time out’ periods to send staff on ‘how not to’ and ‘how to’ courses away from the place of work adds up to time lost on the job. The consequences of not doing so, however, can be a lot more damaging. In recent months, court fines imposed on companies where staff have
suffered injuries have varied between £8,000 and £600,000. In each case, the companies were punished for not providing appropriate health and safety education. One firm was ordered to pay out £37,000 for a worker injured after falling 1.75m from a ladder.
Those figures alone should focus the attention of employers on their responsibilities under the Health and Safety at Work Act – to ensure the health, safety and welfare of employees at work and that of those not employed but in the workplace. This duty towards employees does not simply cover the workplace, but
any location where they are required to work, including public places, at suppliers’ sites or in customers’ homes. This responsibility also covers contractors, sub-contractors, customers, suppliers and members of the public who may visit the workplace for any given reason, in addition to neighbours and people passing by the workplace. Most accidents are preventable – but the truth is that to save money, time
and resources many employers skip health and safety training and therefore disregard the welfare of their employees. The fact is that if employers don’t train their staff in the health and safety issues which apply to their trade and make them aware of the risks, they open themselves up to prosecution. By law, an employer who has five or more staff on the payroll should
record the general policy in place for employees’ health and safety at work and the organisation and arrangement in force for carrying it out. It means designing the appropriate systems and procedures so that
measures that need to be taken can be planned, organised, controlled, monitored and reviewed effectively. Putting in place the necessary training to cover all eventualities may be irksome for the employer, but the benefits outweigh the cost in time and resources needed. For instance, paying for employees to go on training ‘away days’ courses
is no longer a pre-requisite – far from it. Extensive ranges of online courses ensure that individuals and companies of all sizes can undertake cost effective a nd time efficient programmes of
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42 CHAMBERLINK September 2016
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