Making sure that your employees benefit from good health and safety policies and practices is good business. For example, according to HSE statistics:

• There were 555,000 workplace injuries in 2017/18
• 7 million working days were lost due to work-related illnesses and workplace injuries in 2017/18
• The estimated cost of work-related illnesses and workplace injuries in the UK was £15 billion in 2016/17

If one of your employees is injured at work, the financial cost could be huge. First, there is the loss of productivity due to absence from work. On top of this, you may have to pay compensation, fines and court costs if you are discovered to be liable for the injury.

There is also reputational risk: people don’t want to work for companies that have poor health and safety track records, and customers could be deterred from awarding you contracts or spending money with you, too.

Whatever way you cut it, poor health and safety policies and procedures are a huge cost to British businesses. Which is why good companies do all they can to eliminate hazards and risks – starting with a health and safety audit in the workplace, working through risk assessments, and, if a hazard cannot be eliminated, employing appropriate working practices to reduce risk further.

As a last resort, it may be necessary to insist that your employees wear (or use) appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE).

When do your employees need PPE?

There are many situations when PPE may be needed. Typical examples include when employees are at risk of:

• Contact with chemicals or hazardous substances that could cause burns or other injuries or illnesses
• Being struck by falling or flying objects
• Breathing contaminated air
• Receiving electric shocks
• Exposure to excessive vibration or excessive noise
• Eye injuries caused by flying debris or chemicals
• Cuts, abrasions and punctures to hands, arms and legs

What PPE may be needed?

A risk assessment will determine what type of PPE is needed to protect employees from the effects of workplace risks. PPE items might include:

• Safety glasses
• Gloves
• Ear defenders
• Respiratory equipment or masks
• Hard hats
• Overalls
• High-visibility jackets

The PPE provided should:

• Be of a safe design and construction and meet legal safety standards
• Be well maintained and stored correctly
• Fit well and be as comfortable to wear as possible
• Be replaced according to manufacturer’s recommendations or if damaged

Finally, it is your responsibility to provide employees with any and all necessary PPE, and ensure that it is worn and used correctly.

How do you ensure that your employees use PPE properly?

If you don’t supply appropriate PPE and ensure that it is used properly, you could face legal action should an employee experience an accident or suffer a work-related illness.

However, some employees will baulk at wearing PPE, or decide not to wear it because of comfort or speed-of-work issues. Therefore, you should train your employees with respect to PPE, so they understand:

• Why PPE is necessary
• When it is necessary
• Where it must be worn or used
• The limitations of the PPE – what it doesn’t do (eliminate the risk)
• How to wear and use PPE properly, how to store it and maintain it
• When PPE must be replaced

Those responsible for health and safety in your organisation should choose PPE so that it protects against the hazards and risks that have been identified. They will also be responsible for ensuring that your health and safety policies and use of PPE is monitored, and that they remain effective (though many companies use external health and safety consultants to do this work for them).

What if your employees refuse to use PPE?

In rare circumstances, an employee may refuse to use PPE. This is putting them at risk – and you and your organisation, because it is your responsibility to ensure that PPE is used when, where and how necessary. To avoid this liability, you should take measures to enforce PPE use:

• Make the use of PPE a contractual obligation
• Ensure that your employee handbook makes plain that non-use of PPE is a disciplinary offence
• Take disciplinary action if PPE is not used

Clauses in contracts do not absolve your responsibility to ensure that PPE is used as stipulated. However, they do give you the option of taking disciplinary action, including considering it as gross misconduct and dismissing the employee.

Not all refusals are disciplinary actions

There are always exceptions that prove a rule, and the regulations governing PPE are no different. An employee may refuse to use or wear PPE for three very specific reasons:

1. A medical condition that makes wearing PPE either uncomfortable or harmful
2. The PPE does not fit properly and may compromise safety

• Religious grounds – Sikhs who wear turbans are exempted from wearing hard hats

In cases I and II, the employer becomes responsible for finding alternative PPE so the employee may do their task more safely. If this is not possible, then the employee cannot be asked to do that task.

In all three cases, if you cannot find alternative PPE or an alternative position within the company for the employee that does not require the PPE to be used or worn, you may dismiss the employee without the fear of discrimination.

PPE is a no-brainer, but not simple

Protecting your employees is a no-brainer, but this doesn’t mean that maintaining good health and safety practices is easy.

Laws, rules and regulations change constantly. Integral SM is here to help you keep your employees safe, and make sure that you stay within the law as you do so. We provide a full range of consultancy services, including health and safety audits, risk assessments, and health and safety training. Contact Integral today to discuss all your health and safety requirements.

Whatever the size of your organisation, health and safety in the workplace is an important issue. The latest health a safety statistics published by the Health and Safety Executive show that British businesses lost more than 30 million working days in 2017/18 due to work-related illness and injuries. In 2016/17, injuries and ill health caused by working conditions are estimated to have cost £15 billion.

These eight steps serve as a health and safety blueprint that will help your company to avoid the loss of productivity and extra cost burden caused by work-related accidents, injuries and illness.

1.      Create a workplace health and safety plan

You’ll need to identify health and safety hazards and put polices and procedures in place to eliminate or reduce risks. The first step is to create an effective H&S plan, and ensure that you involve your employees. This will make sure that they understand you take their health and safety seriously and get them taking their own health and safety equally seriously.

2.      Ensure leadership

Appoint someone to lead health and safety in your company. To make it plain how important you consider H&S to be, planning and execution must be sponsored from the top. It should be visible and spoken about, with policies and practices set and performance monitored.

In smaller companies, a documented health and safety system may not be necessary. However, the actions of the business owner or senior managers should set good examples for staff to follow. In larger companies, the need to document policies and procedures is more important (and a legal requirement). Health and safety leaders will need to ensure that these policies and procedures are reviewed regularly.

3.      Carry out a health and safety audit and risk assessments

You can’t manage what you don’t measure. In the field of health and safety, this means that you must have an independent workplace health and safety audit. This will help you to determine the H&S hazards and risks in your business and if your existing policies and practices are safe and legal.

Risk assessments will aid you in identifying the level of risk of individual hazards and what actions you may need to take to eliminate or reduce those risks.

4.      Ensure Competence

From leadership, through management, and on to individual responsibility for health and safety, a company should ensure competence to undertake responsibilities. This means the people who lead the health and safety effort should have the skills, knowledge and experience necessary to do so.

Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (MHSWR), a company must appoint at least one competent person to help it comply with its legal requirements toward health and safety. In many cases, this may mean employing an external specialist or consultant.

5.      Train employees in health and safety

Just as you would train employees to do their job effectively, employees should be trained in health and safety pertinent to their roles. You may need to produce written policies and procedures, and make them available to your employees. Training may be provided in groups or by individual coaching, and employees will need to be supervised until competency has been assessed and confirmed. Employees should sign off to confirm that they have received health and safety training and understand what is required of them.

Remember that if correct training is not provided, you may be endangering your employees’ lives and your business.

6.      Make health and safety an everyday conversation

Put health and safety on the agenda at team meetings, one-to-ones and on your company newsletter, and create KPIs that promote health and safety in the workplace. Seek feedback, and encourage employees to share their views and ideas – you’ll be surprised how employee engagement can create impetus for identifying hazards and doing things more safely.

7.      Investigate health and safety incidents

If an incident does occur, irrespective of whether it causes injury, investigate it to find out what happened and why. This will enable you to take the actions needed to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. It may be that a hazard needs risk management revisiting, or an individual or team needs extra health and safety training. Whatever the outcome, a policy of investigating every incident will help to reinforce your commitment to improving workplace health and safety.

8.      Keep records

Keep records of all incidents, inspections, risk assessments, workplace health and safety audits, training provided, etc, etc.

Make safety a key business objective

Health and safety should not be an afterthought in any company. If you are not working to keep your employees safe from harm, you are putting them at risk and threatening the success of your business. Your employees are your most valuable resource. A commitment to their health and safety in your workplace will show that you understand this.

Ensure your company is admired for being a conscientious employer who puts the wellbeing of its employees at the top of its agenda. To learn how we can help you achieve all this with a health and safety blueprint, contact Integral Safety Management today.

There will be no excuses for being caught out by cold weather this winter. Meteorological experts are already forecasting that after such a long, hot summer, we could be in for a very cold few months around Christmas and the turn of the year. If the predictions are right, your company is going to face extra health and safety issues.

Our advice is to do the very un-British thing: take notice of the weather forecasters. Don’t leave the health and safety of your employees to chance this winter. Prepare now for wetter, colder, darker days ahead.

Make someone responsible for health and safety in your workplace

While everyone has a responsibility for their own welfare at work, it is good working practice to assign someone overall responsibility for health and safety in the workplace. This will help ensure that all risks are assessed correctly, and that changes in health and safety laws, rules and regulations are accounted for and that you take all reasonable steps to adhere to the employer’s duty of care in the UK workplace.

Understand the main health and safety risks in winter

Most risks to the health and safety of your employees increase in winter. In particular, you should be wary of:

Slips and trips

Wet weather and icy conditions make surfaces more slippery. Darker conditions hide obstacles.

Traffic accidents

We tend to think of winter conditions increasing the danger on public roads – which is true, of course; but rain, snow and ice can also make your outside areas, footpaths and entrances extra hazardous for pedestrians and workplace traffic such as forklifts.

Illness

Cold weather increases the likelihood of illness, especially for workers who operate outside. Absence because of illness can seriously impact business performance.

Take positive action to improve health and safety in your workplace this winter

There are several actions you can take to improve workplace health and safety and the welfare of your employees as autumn and winter approach. These five tips will help your business keep performing at its peak this winter.

1.      Remove leaves and repair paths

Ensure that falling leaves are removed from pathways – they are particularly hazardous when wet. Inspect paths and walkways for potholes and broken or lifted tiles, and replace or repair immediately.

2.      Improve lighting inside and out

Ensure that your workplace is well-lit. Remember that you won’t have the benefit of sunshine blazing through the windows.

Outside, pay attention to dark areas, and those places where existing lighting casts shadows. Ask your employees to point out where they have difficulty seeing because of darker conditions.

3.      Make sure your heating system is in good working order

Don’t leave it until the cold weather strikes to turn your heating system on. Check your heating early, and have it serviced by a professional. This should ensure that you won’t be forced to close and lose a day or two’s productivity because your workplace is too cold.

4.      Ensure staff are properly clothed

Staff who work outside should be provided with warm and waterproof workwear. Workers in warehouses and distribution centres may suffer from draughts and cold floors; would it be wise to offer them warmer clothing, too?

5.      Drive safely on the roads

Increase awareness of the hazards of winter driving, by providing the RoSPA winter driving tips factsheet to all your employees.

Ensure that your fleet vehicles are kept in good condition, and that your drivers plan routes to avoid congestion, poor road conditions, and roads that have not been gritted.

Be prepared for a rough winter

It is wise to minimise risks to your operations during the winter months, to ensure minimal disruption to your operations. Your winter health and safety preparations should include:

• Identifying hazards and minimising risks
• Reviewing, measuring and monitoring your health and safety plan
• Getting feedback from your employees to ensure their concerns are listened to
• Putting in place emergency procedures to make certain your staff are safe and that any disruption to work is kept to a minimum in periods of adverse weather conditions

The earlier you act, the better prepared you will be for winter. A health and safety audit in the workplace will ensure that your current H&S policy, practices and procedures comply with current laws, rules and regulations, and that your employees benefit from maximum protection and minimum risk when the weather suddenly turns ‘unexpectedly’. To learn more, contact Integral Safety Management today.