Making Workplace Health and Safety our priority in 2019
In 2017-2018, 30.7 million working days were lost due to work-related illnesses and non-fatal workplace injuries in Great Britain. A total of 493 cases were prosecuted, resulting in £72.6 million in fines being distributed.
There are many ways having healthy workers can benefit our employees and business, including:
- Fewer employees taking absences for illness
- Higher-quality services being provided
- Less money spent on replacing workers
- Increased productivity and moral
- Better use of resources
- Decreased employee stress
- Smaller expenditures for return-to-work programmes
Our ‘safety’ culture in our workplace
A ‘safety’ culture consists of shared employee beliefs, attitudes and practices towards health and safety. By emphasising the importance of a safe working environment, we can keep our employees safe and become more efficient. Here are five ways we instil a ‘safety’ culture in our workplace:
Commitment
We provide safe work practices and promote the fact that unsafe actions are not tolerated. We have developed a ‘safety vision’, including key policies, goals, measures and strategic and operational plans for health and safety.
Leading by example
Managers and supervisors have a shared vision of health and safety goals and objectives. They visibly show how they are involved and set examples to motivate employees to get on board.
Getting the right tools
We have the right safety equipment, maintain that equipment, and check that it is worn properly by our employees.
Providing training
We promote safety training sessions and have regular tool box talks. The management are present during training sessions to demonstrate that health and safety is part of the company-wide culture.
Staying ahead of the game
We encourage our employees to report health and safety concerns. We have developed a system for tracking accidents, correcting hazards and reporting near-miss accidents so that preventative measures can be looked into.