Commonly known as the HASAW or the HSW, The Health and Safety at Work Act is the main piece of legislation that Parliament signed in 1974 to help protect employees from health risks or injury at work. What the act suggests is that employers should ‘ensure so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work’ of all employees’. To help employers with this often complex and important piece of legislation, we’ve collaborated with United Carlton, who provide innovative photocopier solutions to businesses, in order to provide a go-to guide.
The Essential Need To Know
If you’re an employer with employees under your provision, then this is what you need to know:
- Make sure that everything that may affect the health or safety of any employee is covered within a risk assessment. This needs to be overseen by employees so that they understand any risks to their own health.
- If anything goes wrong, explain to employees who is their first contact and who is responsible; this should be written and given verbally.
- As an employer, you should work together with employees so that everyone is working to ensure the safety of the workplace.
- You should provide any health and safety training free of charge.
- Employees should be provided with protective clothes and tools that allow them to do their job properly.
- In case an employee becomes hurt or ill at work, you should provide employee insurance.
What To Keep Track Of As An Employer
Employee Training. Do employees demonstrate that they understood their health and safety training when they were first given it? As well as this, do employees work safely by using tools correctly on a regular basis? For example, are they looking after materials that are being used and checking that materials aren’t being damaged unnecessarily?
Employee Relationships. Do employees maintain the health and safety of themselves and others by working with each other in a calm and respectable way? Without performing any tasks that will have an impact on the safety of others, employees should always be conscientious of their surroundings when they work.
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Employee relationships with employers. Are employees respectful of you in regards to the way you’ve delegated health and safety legislation, and are they doing their best to implement a best working practice at all times? Are employees care free, or, do they make sure that they are listening to senior leaders when health and safety matters are addressed? If employees aren’t listening as well as they should be, then greater communication is needed when relaying health and safety information so that employees are always kept safe.