As a business, it’s vital to keep up to date with health and safety laws. The Health and Safety at Work Act (HASAW or HSW) was introduced in 1974 and acts as the main piece of legislation signed by Parliament to protect employees in the workplace from injury or death.
Employers have a duty of care to make sure workers are working in safe environments and prevent them from experiencing any harm. As a go-to guide for all employees, we’ve collaborated with visitor management system specialists United Carlton in order to ensure that your employees stay safe at work.
Information You Need To Know As An Employer
When looking at health and safety legislation, there are some things that employers should be aware of:
- If anything should go wrong at work, your employees should know who their first contact is and who is responsible for their health and safety. This information should be given to employees in written form.
- All potential risks to the health and safety of employees should be documented within a risk assessment. For whoever is in direct contact with these potential risks, then the risk assessment should be coordinated with these employees.
- At all times, employers and employees should work together to make sure that the working environment is kept safe and that risks are kept to a minimum.
- Equipment, clothing, and tools should be provided for employees free of charge. This is so they can do their job properly, efficiently and safely.
- Employees should be provided with all of the health and safety training that they need, and this should be free of charge.
- In case anything should go wrong, employees should be provided with first aid kits or insurance to cover injuries or illnesses that occur at work.
Things You Need To Remember As An Employer
Employees Working Together In The Workplace
Do employees work together in a way that ensures their own safety and that of their colleagues? Always check that employees are respectful and conscientious of each other before anything else, especially when working in mechanical or other high-risk jobs. No task in the workplace should be at the risk of another employee.
Repeat Training In The Workplace
Are your employees always demonstrating that they understand the health and safety training through their working practices? Throughout the course of the day, do they keep their practices consistent in relation to the training they were given? Furthermore, do employees use tools in the correct way? If trained correctly, then employees should look after materials provided for them and should make sure that all work property is cared for.
Listening To Your Staff As An Employer
By listening properly, you can address when employees have come to you with a problem relating to health and safety? This could be documented in written form to ensure that the same problems are not repeated in the future. Ensure that employees are encouraged to report incidents or potential incidents when they see them; equipment inadequacies, inadequate training, and an employee’s incompetence to follow procedure should all be reported by other employees.
Employer Working With Employees At Workplace
With regard to the health and safety legislation that you’ve provided, are employees cooperating or rebelling against the standards set? During training sessions, are employees listening, or are they negligent of the legislation that has been relayed to them? If this is the case, then your communication channels need to be clearer, or you need to demonstrate to employees the importance of health and safety at work and how it can keep them and others safe in the workplace.
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