Communicating Health & Safety
Too often in business, Health & Safety is overlooked. Depending on the business, it can either be heavily enforced or not enforced enough. Upon a new starter’s arrival, they would have likely received the company’s Health & Safety policy in written form and then all the other company induction information. They’re then expected to read it in its entirety and follow it strictly. However, how can you ensure your new starter has actually read it, understood it and is implementing it?
Most people may skim through the document and assume its just the usual, “be cautious in hazardous areas or take regular breaks if working with computers all day”. The problem is, the company will also assume their employees have read the Health & Safety guidelines. Assuming is not knowing and is especially important should a Health & Safety concern arise.
Ensuring Health & Safety Regulations are Followed
Communicating with your employees the importance of Health & Safety is something done often, but not done effectively and not followed up. When receiving these communications your employees are likely to give you the nodded head response and then back to work, they go. So how can you ensure that Health & Safety is abided by?
Internally performing regular checks and tests will ensure your Health & Safety rules are followed and even though this is obvious, it’s not implemented enough. As external audits are usually scheduled in advanced and policies only skimmed through, there is no spontaneous testing that can provide realistic results. The newer the recruit the more regular the checks should be and the more dangerous the environment the more frequent the checks, as well. Performing your own unexpected checks will make sure everyone is alert in their environment and aware of the appropriate course of action, all the time. This will constantly keep your employees on their toes and be aware of the dangers in their working environment and prevents the more relaxed approach to Health & Safety.
Conclusion
The more dangers in the environment the stricter and more regular the checks. For an office-based job, this approach does not need to be as strict, because the environment is far safer, stable and unchanging. This is not to say that no internal checks should be carried out whatsoever, just less frequent for this instance.
Internally checking on your team not only provides you with the assurance that your workforce is operating safely but gives your employees confidence that should a problem occur, they know the necessary course of action to take.
Written By Leyla Hussein