Many people shudder when they hear the term health and safety. It has been blown out of proportion in many areas in life. However, in the workplace it is still essential and cannot be ignored. The safety and health of each employee is so important. If you fail to look after the welfare of employees you may find yourself living with the guilt of ruining lives and even have to deal with legal issues that can see you fined or worse, sent to jail.
Tips for Preventing Accidents at Work
Managing health and safely is vital but thankfully the HSE are making it easier for business owners to learn their responsibilities and cut through the red tape.
If you have any concerns about the health and safety management in your organisation work through these tips and get everything up to standard.
- Make sure the workplace is safe by removing hazards completely or controlling the risks that cannot be fully removed. The workplace needs to be designed for the work that goes on in the area with suitable equipment and provisions.
- The work areas have to be kept clean and tidy. Encourage your employees to take some responsibility of the cleanliness in their work stations and hire a cleaner to tidy up the space. Mess and dirt increases the risks of accidents and illness from occurring. Such a simple task of tidying up can reduce many risks including slip and trips – a major cause of injuries in the workplace.
- Communication at work is a must; you need to generate an active health and safety culture. Encourage all workers to report any concerns and incidents to the right people within the company. When concerns or reports are handed in they need to be treated with respect and worked through to see if there are genuine risks and the risks then need to be managed.
- Provide health and safety to all those within your organisation. Your managers and supervisors must be aware of their legal responsibilities and have skills such as risk assessment and review. General staff still need training to a lesser degree, normally based on how to perform their job properly and safely.
- All equipment such as machinery needs to be properly maintained at all times. Safety guards and protective equipment has to be made available and used by your employees.
- Review your health and safety policy and procedures on a regular basis.
- Risk assessments need to be reviewed when a change is made to the way the work is carried out and at least once a year. Work the review dates into your yearly scheduling and make sure those responsible are aware of the dates.
Using these tips you can help to provide a safe and healthy place for all of our employees. Don’t ignore the importance of the policies and procedures, they affect everyone. Managing Safely must be part of the daily activities in your organisation. Provide the right training for your managers with the IOSH Managing Safely course.
Related Courses
- NEBOSH HSE Introduction to Incident Investigation
- Accident Investigation
- Accident and Reporting (RIDDOR)
Risk Assessment Content
- Introduction to risk assessment course
- Meet your legal requirement with a risk assessment
- Occupational health and safety risks you may not be thinking about
- How are your risk assessments?
- Are you competent enough for performing risk assessments?
- Use risk assessments to avoid prosecution
- Reducing risk in the workplace
- Working at Height - learn how to reduce the risks
- Are you putting your workers lives at risk?
- Reducing the risk of fire with NEBOSH fire safety training