TRAINING & EDUCATION
FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH
Reactec’s Business Development Manager, Nick Molloy, reminds the industry that workers who are informed and educated on health and safety issues are much more likely to follow the rules – and keep themselves safe.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) places great emphasis on the value of informing, educating and involving the workforce in health and safety matters. In principle, it’s a no brainer. Involving those workers who are most at risk from a specific threat, and who are well placed to suggest ways of guarding against those risks, would seem to be the obvious thing to do. However, the most obvious course of action is not always the most common.
Certainly, when it comes to Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAVS), businesses that have not informed, educated or involved their workers risk paying the price through increased incidence of HAVS, compared to employers who proactively manage the risk in partnership with their staff.
THE LAW While managers remain responsible
for health and safety in the workplace, the law does dictate that workers must be consulted on the practices in place. The relevant laws – The Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations (1977) and The Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations (1996) – are in place to guide the implementation and development of effective health and safety measures.
Reviewing your arrangements on a regular basis will help to ensure legal compliance and avoid the costly consequences of improper management. HSE and local authorities regularly make inspection visits to the workplace and can impose significant consequences for failure to observe legal requirements.
TWO-WAY STREET Having clarified the legal
requirements, employers should now be thinking of how they engage
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with staff. Fundamentally, involving workers in health and safety practices requires two-way communication between employers and employees. Ensuring that you take feedback and ideas from your staff onboard, as well as explaining the reasons behind your decisions, will a cooperative and collaborative approach, not just to health and safety procedures, but to working life in general.
“INVOLVING WORKERS IN HEALTH AND SAFETY PRACTICES REQUIRES TWO-WAY COMMUNICATION BETWEEN EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES.”
Where there is a risk of HAVS, for example, systems such as the Reactec Analytics Platform encourage tool users to take responsibility for real-time risk monitoring. The data collected is translated into simple and practical exposure reports, available company- wide, so that managers, team leaders and tool operators can together understand, discuss and manage the HAVS risk to each individual.
By giving your employees the opportunity to voice their concerns and suggestions, you’ll identify joint solutions to problems and guidelines that your workforce will more likely abide by and, in turn, demonstrate that you value the importance of teamwork.
BUSINESS BENEFITS A happier, healthier and safer
workforce will be far more engaged in the job and you’ll reap the benefits
of improved performance and productivity, quality and efficiency. A balanced and well thought out health and safety procedure should result in weighty cost savings from fewer accidents at work, as well as a reduction in unnecessary absence and ill health.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that businesses practicing worker safety involvement receive significantly fewer claims for work-induced health problems, and this is most likely a direct result not only of exemplary health and safety procedures, but also of workers abiding by those rules.
The business benefits of worker safety involvement are backed by research conducted by HSE which says ‘accident rates are lower where employees genuinely feel they have a say in health and safety matters (14%) compared with workplaces where employees do not get involved (26%)’.
Additionally, more than three quarters (77%) of employees surveyed felt encouraged to raise concerns in a good health and safety climate compared to 20% who felt encouraged to do so in a poor health and safety climate. And among employers, awareness of slips and trips is higher when there is employee involvement (62%), compared to where there is no involvement (28%).
Most importantly, if the results are visible within a business, they’re likely to permeate into the wider industry too – you’ll preserve credibility with customers and industry experts, helping to position the business as a best practice employer.
www.reactec.com INFORM : PROTECT : DEPLOY
REACTEC
www.tomorrowshs.com
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