How to Create an Effective Health and Safety Plan for your Business

Thousands of people across the world die each year at work, and many more suffer injury or illness because of conditions at work. While you might not think it should be high up on your list of priorities, health and safety is an important part of working life. Whether you work in an office or a lumber yard, there are hazards in your workplace which could result in serious injury or a continual health burden. From stress to continual noise to ergonomic risks, health risks can cause absenteeism and poor staff health and well-being overall. Not only this, but you put your business at risk from legal action too.

If you have been tasked with creating an effective health and safety plan, then it can be quite a daunting prospect. You need to make sure that you comply with the law, as well as ensuring the best management process for your workers.

A health and safety plan is necessary to make sure that your employees know that management are concerned about their welfare. If management don’t care, then no one else is likely to be.

There are three core elements that every health and safety plan should have:

• Leadership and management
• A trained and skilled workforce
• An environment where people are trusted and involved

As an employer, you have a legal obligation to manage the health and safety of your employees, so the minimum that you should do to meet the legal requirements is:

• If you employ more than five people, you need a written health and safety policy. This should include a statement of vision, the aims and objectives of the plan, how you’re going to do it and who is responsible for what.
• Assessments of the risks to employees, contractors, customers, partners, and any other people who could be affected by your business. Any significant findings should be recorded in writing.
• Arrangements for the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of the preventive and protective measures
• Access to competent health and safety advice
• Provide employees with information, training and instruction about the risks in the workplace, how they are protected and how they can deal with the risks.
• Ensuring there is adequate supervision in place
• Consult and review with employees about their risks at work and how they deal with them

Creating and setting up a health and safety plan is not a one off, however, you should regularly assess, tweak and improve your plan to both move with any changes in your business as well as things you might have overlooked the first time around.