3. Top Health and Safety Tips

People are scared of/bored with/dismissive of health and safety.  But it is fundamentally important!  But being scared/bored/dismissive are barriers and means it is hard to know where to start.

So how can you avoid that feeling of helplessness?  To get you started, we have put together five top tips which we think will make you face health and safety calmly!

Top 10 tips

1. Be proportionate

Health and safety rules must be interpreted so as to be relevant to your organisation.  The legislation applies to all workplaces, but the way a fire and rescue service would approach risk assessing is very different from the way an accountancy practice would.  But the rules are the same!  So don’t be over the top, don’t get mired in detail.  If you can’t see the wood for the trees, take a step back and look at your organisation as a whole.  Deal with the significant stuff first.   

2. Get your Health and Safety Policy right (and keep it simple!)

Do not confuse policies and procedures – they are very different beasts.  A good Health and Safety Policy is a document which sets out an organisation’s arrangements for complying with the parts of the law which affect it.  It must not include procedures – sometimes a few procedural bullet points are necessary, but not chapter and verse.  Procedures are what you have in place to support the Policy.  They are produced as a result of what the Policy says.  If your Policy includes procedures, it will be too big, unreadable, nobody will be able to find out what they need to know, and your organisation could end up being LESS healthy and safe!

3. Learn to love risk assessments

Many people struggle with risk assessments, but they are the foundation of a good health and safety system.  A well-written risk assessment is a powerful thing – it can be used to persuade senior staff and Directors to do what you need them to do.  A risk assessment can’t be argued with.  A great way to get staff on board with the dreaded H&S is to get them to contribute to or even write the risk assessment for their area of work.  After all, who knows what goes on at the coal face better than the miner hacking out the rocks?  Risk assessments are fabulous!

4. AUDIT TRAIL!

Health and safety is primarily about keeping people safe.  But an important secondary aspect is preventing your organisation from being sued.  The best way to achieve this is by record-keeping.  Meaningful record-keeping, that is.  Imagine the scene: a disgruntled employee sees an ambulance-chasing advert on TV, “Have you been injured at work?”.  He contacts them saying that he has a bad back due to a work injury and was never given any manual handling training.  The ambulance-chasers sue, the company (who provided in-house manual handling training but have no proof of this) cannot defend the claim, the employee wins.  NB The ambulance-chasers win £24,950 (a claim for more than this has to go to court), give £4,950 to the employee and keep the rest.  All this can be avoided if you keep records: signatures, dates, email trails, certificates, inspection reports, photographs, completed checklists, training records, qualifications; the list goes on and on.  Throughout this Guide, we will tell you what to record.  A good audit trail is essential!

5. Share, communicate, inform

Don’t keep the joys of health and safety to yourself!  Battling cynicism is exhausting and unnecessary.  If you are proportionate (see Top Tip no. 1 above) your colleagues won’t feel overwhelmed.  Instead, ask them for their opinions about how to improve health and safety at work.  Make it clear that anyone can discuss their concerns without fear of having their worries dismissed as insignificant.  Tell everyone about upcoming changes such as new equipment or new contracts for example and how these will affect their health and safety.  If you make the workforce feel included in what’s happening, they will understand how important they are to the success of the organisation as a whole.

6. Delegation is a lovely word….

So often, Health and Safety is handed to (i.e. dumped on) one person and then forgotten about.  Yes, there has to be a Competent Person (and a Deputy) to be the conduit for everything H&S, but he/she only has to make sure things happen, not necessarily actually carry them out.  So delegate!  The relevant workers should conduct risk assessments, managers can be responsible for inspections and maintenance, the Office Manager can run the DSE assessments.  Getting workforce buy-in for H&S is notoriously difficult, and delegation is an answer to this.  People will feel they matter, that their opinions are valued and their knowledge appreciated!

7. Don’t worry about getting sued!

Coming at health and safety from the angle “we’re only doing this because we don’t want to get sued” is the polar opposite of the right approach.  If you do your best (follow this Guide!) you will be fine.  The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is there to help, not hinder.  They will only prosecute where there is flagrant disregard for the law.  They will appreciate an organisation that is clearly trying to do its best, but may have got something wrong.  They will offer help and advice.  Their primary job is to keep workers safe.

8. Keep it simple.

When we see an over-complicated health and safety form, we know it has been written by someone with insufficient knowledge.  Someone who is fearful of getting it wrong, so they have chucked in everything bar the kitchen sink.  Every time you have to make a health and safety decision, think first, “What am I trying to achieve?” and go from there.  Remember who will be the ultimate audience for this decision (who will have to complete the form, read the document, be trained, change a system of work) and make sure they will be able to understand your decision and the reason for it.

9. Seek advice, but make sure it is good advice!

Don’t think you will appear a failure if you can’t solve a problem.  Never be afraid of asking for help.  YourHS.space is here to help and the HSE website is very helpful.  DO NOT listen to unqualified advice or to hearsay.  We have included health and safety myths throughout this Guide to demonstrate the problems caused by misunderstandings and misinterpretations of H&S legislation.  Always be 100% certain that you are getting your advice from a trusted source.

10. Stay calm

Health and safety raises hackles.  Some people love to complain and will use H&S as justification for having a moan.  It’s perfectly acceptable for you to ask for time to consider an issue (unless it’s an emergency, obviously) so that you can think things over and seek further advice if necessary.  And sometimes, you will have to decide what is really the issue at the root of any complaint – has it been raised by a worker who is unhappy, who has problems at home or who is worried?  In these cases, you might have to involve HR.

It is also very important to stay calm if an emergency occurs.  Write down for yourself what you would have to do in the types of emergencies that could arise in your workplace.  Practise what you will have to do.  If you are certain that your response will be the right one, you will find it easy to take charge and deal with the situation.  If your response involves others, have an informal workshop and work it through with them.

Health and Safety Myth

Top tip - conduct a risk assessment and you won't have to ban fun activities!

A retirement village was told that they could not put up Christmas lights in the corridor outside their apartments due to health and safety and because of a fire risk.  However, management are allowed to display decorated and lit Christmas trees in other rooms.

There are no health and safety regulations which prevent Christmas lights being used in a public area.  There were concerns about the potential for plug sockets to be overloaded and obstruction of escape routes, but this should have been explained to residents rather than using a catch-all “health and safety” excuse.  Christmas lights do not need a portable appliance test, so the fire risk argument is also misleading.