If You’re Doing This – Your Business Isn’t Safe!

One of your main priorities when you own a business should be keeping it as safe as possible. Making sure your business is safe is essential, not only for you, but for your employees and anybody else that your business may affect. For example, if you have clients visit you on site, then you will need to take extra precautions and ensure you have the right type of insurance on top of this. Many health and safety prosecutions cost businesses tens of thousands. It’s in your best interests to keep your business as safe as possible. 

Below, we’ll take a look at a few things you might be doing that can indicate your business is not safe. Take a look:

Putting Off Building Repairs And Maintenance

If building repairs and maintenance is at the bottom of your list, then you’re putting your team at risk. Not only that, you run the risk of something serious taking place, such as an injury due to unsuitable working conditions. Your Fire Detection Systems and other equipment should be periodically tested and repaired if needed, and the building needs to be made safe in any other way necessary. 

Relying On Employees To Keep Things Clean And Healthy Although employees can tidy up after themselves, relying on them to keep the workplace properly clean is probably a bad idea. You need to make sure containers are provided for waste, and that waste is removed on a regular basis. Ceilings and walls should be kept clean, and the workplace must be hygienic and healthy overall. Hiring a specialist company to come in and do this is far better than expecting employees to do it to the right standard – especially when it means taking time out from their actual paid duties.

Not Paying Attention To The Comfort Of The Workplace

The workplace must be comfortable for your team to work in. This is a must for both their health and wellbeing. The building needs to be a reasonable working temperature. This needs to be figured out based on the type of work. For example, if strenuous work is carried out in the building, then it will need to be cooler than for other types of work. 

Good ventilation is important, as well as heating systems that do not give off dangerous fumes. Each employee needs to have plenty of space to work too. Their workstations need to be suitable and they need to have plenty of space to get their duties done. 

Ignoring Your Responsibilities

You have a responsibility to your team to keep the workplace safe and ensure everybody is on the same page. While they do have some responsibilities for their own health and safety, you need to make sure you know exactly what your responsibilities are and that you’re sticking to them. One of the first things you need to think about is appointing a competent health and safety person. This person needs to be knowledgeable and trained in health and safety and know what to do in a multitude of situations. 

It’s also up to you to ensure that injuries and near misses are written out. Injuries both big and minor need to be reported and written down. This is essential for the insurance companies and for employees who decide they might want to make a claim – if you have not written down what really happened, you may be liable. Sticking to regulations laid out by the local authority is a must, as is carrying out risk assessments. This needs to be consistent and thorough so that you can be sure your workplace is as safe as can be. 

Ignoring The Concerns Of Your Staff 

If your staff have concerns, you should listen to them. As they are doing the work, they will have a good idea of anything that could potentially trip them up. Make sure you have an open door policy and show them that you will listen to them. Do something about their concerns so that they know they can trust you. If something happens based on something you have been told but you didn’t do anything about it, you could be held responsible. This could cost you thousands upon thousands if you’re taken to court – and even more if you lose clients and employees because of it. 

Are you doing any of the above here? Make sure you come up with a health and safety plan/policy now to protect your business and staff.