Health & Safety Is Nothing If Not Applicable To Your Firm

When we think about health and safety and how it applies to our premises, it’s easy to focus on solely complying with the standards you need to meet. That’s not a bad place to start, of course, but it’s always true that doing the bare minimum is never really a great way to achieve anything.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that we can have a ‘creative take’ on how safety might be applied at your firm. There are standards that need to be applied, measured and continually refined to make sure that our firms are functioning with an ideal injury percentage of zero each year.

Yet it’s also true that health and safety is nothing if those standards and practices aren’t properly applied to your firm and how it operates. In other words, it might be important to consider just what your premises needs, how you can get the best out of the health and safety advice, and what training you may need to give your staff.

In this post, we’ll discuss a few measures you can take to achieve that:

Consider Danger Areas

Consider the danger areas that are most likely to contribute to injuries in your firm. Note, a ‘danger area’ need not be a pit of vipers or a booby-trapped cavern, rather it might be an area where the comings and goings of staff, equipment and logistical processes require a closer look.

For instance, the loading bays that are used to bring inventory into your business should be considered first and foremost, as might your server and stock rooms. Enhanced risk assessments for these areas should take place semi-regularly.

Implement Specific Safety Measures

Specific safety measures are a great means of making sure that safety protocols are applied where necessary, as opposed to only using the blanket processes needed to match compliance.

For instance, edge protection can be a tremendous aid in helping you protect against the dangers of heights in your firm, be that a drop from your loading bay, or staircase, or area currently under renovation. It’s important to note that if a hazard is present, it’s likely only a matter of time before someone is injured by it. For that reason, specific safety measures are essential.

Personalize Your Training

Personalizing your training methods can be an appropriate way forward and will better help staff feel empowered to follow your protocols from day to day.

For instance, it might be that your storefront is starting to open up again thanks to the lapsing of societal lockdowns. But that means enhanced training regarding what Covid protocols and precautions you hope to put in place can be tremendously helpful.

Or, perhaps you run a unique firm such as a farm where visitors can enter, and so training staff in what to do should an animal be un-cooperative can be helpful, as can generating risk assessments to help your staff feel comfortable going forward.

With this advice, you’re sure to know that health and safety is nothing if not applicable to your firm.