How to Ensure Your Start-up Follows Workplace Health and Safety Regulations

When starting a business, health and safety should be one of your key priorities. Often when people are starting their own business, they can get so lost in finances and advertising that they can forget to take into consideration just how important workplace health and safety is. Accidents in the workplace happen every day, and most of these can be easily avoided. Before you go rushing in, here is why it is so important that your start-up considers workplace health and safety.

Personal Protective Equipment

Work clothing is so important to have when starting your own business. For any business, you need to risk assess the need for workwear clothing and understand the laws behind this. As an employer, you must protect yourself and any employees, providing suitable safety workwear. This safety wear can be anything from protective clothing to safety trainers. You do not need to have a huge budget for this, as companies like engelbert strauss have a whole range of affordable safety clothing for your start-up, with plenty of features and available in all sizes.

If your business includes any outdoor work, providing comfortable, warm and waterproof clothing is a must. A start-up needs to be appealing to workers and showing that you have their health and safety as a top priority will ensure that you attract great workers who will want to stay with your company. Find appropriate work attire this winter to avoid any problems with your start-up.

Planning

If your start-up is going to include more than five people working for you, your new business must have a health and safety plan written down. This is the law, and not having one could mean your start-up is shut down before you have even started. An effective plan will include every single hazard that could exist in your workplace, and a hazard level must be given with an appropriate way of responding to this risk.

If your company is going to involve construction or other heavy lifting, your plan will be a lot bigger than a workplace that involves office work. Writing a health and safety policy can be tough, and recording everything that may go wrong can be difficult. Luckily, the government have provided a step-by-step guide to writing your health and safety policy according to the law.

Prevention

It is all well and good writing a report, but if you do not act on this, the health and safety within your workplace will not be good enough. Training is a really important part of any start-up, and all employees should complete an appropriate health and safety course. Any potential risks need to be managed effectively.

This may be something as simple as taping down loose cables or assuring there is adequate lighting in all areas. Fire exits should be easily found, and any fire exit signs should be appropriately placed around the work area. Starting an accident log book is a simple and easy way to enhance workplace safety as any accidents that may happen can be logged in here.

This means you can then see what you need to do to ensure this does not happen again. Unfortunately, accidents can happen however careful you are, but preventing as much as you can will minimise this risk.

Insurance

We insure our homes, our mobile phones and our cars, but the workplace is often not thought of during a start-up. Health and safety claims within UK organisations can cost employers a lot of money. Having workplace insurance is well worth the cost, as if the worst thing should happen and an accident occurs, this could drain your bank account and ruin your business before it has even got on its feet. As long as you follow the steps listed above, the chances of this happening are very small.

Ensuring all workers have proper health and safety training and that you have covered all bases will mean that you are less likely to have to pay a claim. For small businesses and those uneducated on all health and safety issues, something little could be missed that could leave you bankrupt. Taking out employer’s liability insurance helps to cover you on all bases.

Keeping your employees and yourself safe is paramount when starting up your business. However big or small, accidents can cost you a lot of money and can mean sick days being taken for things that could have been avoided if measures had been put in place beforehand. Personal protective equipment is very important and can protect workers from physical harm. Do not forget that your workplace should focus on wellbeing and employees should be supported with all issues, not just their physical health. Planning and preventing can make certain that your start-up is a safe place for all workers.