Health and safety for small business

What are the elements of a successful safety system?

The elements that facilitate good health and safety performance are listed in IOSH’s Principles of good occupational safety and health | IOSH. They are:

• Preventing accidents by designing out the risk during design, eliminating it from the workplace, or controlling it to reduce the likelihood of accidents
• Ensure the workers’ right to be safe from harm is embedded in business planning
• Leaders and managers demonstrate a full commitment to safety
• All elements of the business value chain collaborate to achieve safety goals
• Safety decisions are risk-driven and informed
• Freely exchanging information that promotes safe performance between all stakeholders
• Data is analysed and used to enhance health and safety performance
• Workers who are injured are helped back to full time work
• That appropriate values are adopted to protect workers

Through considering these elements, a small business can consider how best to build a tailored management system that reduces their health and safety risk. But avoid creating too many documents. Documents don’t make you safer, action does.

What’s the 'document trap'?

Global organisations often demand proof that a small business has a health and safety management system and good performance. During procurement the customer often demands copies of health and safety policies, risk assessments, procedures, training records and so on. This documentation is also demanded by different standards e.g. ISO45001. However, documents does not automatically make an organisation safe.

As the IOSH principles of good occupational health and safety indicate, it is the behaviours and actions of managers and workers that matters more than documentation. Burying the organisation in documentation may look impressive, but it is meaningless without managers and workers putting intentions into practice.

What’s the secret to safety success?

A common theme in safe businesses, whether large or small, is the consideration of the worker. Organisations must consider how well they engage their workers. How well they empower them to take action. How well they encourage them to take part ownership of the control of the safety in the workplace. Small businesses that achieve this typically have a superior safety performance and enjoy happier more productive workers.

One of the most important aspects of any safety management system is to be able to report unsafe tasks, unsafe equipment, or unsafe conditions. In other words workers report ways they can hurt themselves doing their job, using their equipment, or hurting themselves in an unsafe working environment. Engaged workers are more likely to question safety performance and offer ideas to improve it. Good organisations welcome this. It demands a reliable reporting system and an organisation committed to listening and acting quickly. Any delay in action will potentially erode morale and worker engagement.

What are the benefits of good health and safety for small businesses?

Safe businesses, large or small, all benefit by controlling costs better and reducing losses e.g.:

• Reduced wastage
• Reduced equipment and machinery replacement costs
• Reduced sickness absence and interim temporary worker costs
• Reduced production interruption
• Reducing liability insurance costs

Safe businesses also enjoy positive business effects e.g.:

• Attracting and retaining talented people
• Improved innovation
• Greater investor confidence
• Boosting customer loyalty and good public relations
• Building the reputation as an ethical business

Summary

The engagement of managers and workers in the development and delivery of a safety management system is important. It drives ownership, and implementation. In part this can be encouraged by improving their competency through IOSH’s health and safety courses. The rewards for a safe business is to be successful and have the better potential for growth.