Making your workplace safe

Regardless of your business' size, health and safety is something that you should prioritise, especially in the leisure and catering industry, advises Deborah Wyatt of Business Link.

Business Linkis a government network run by the Department of Trade and Industry that provides practical and impartial guidance for new and existing small and medium-sized enterprises.
Businesses are obliged to ensure the health and safety of their employees and customers, whilst also protecting the environment.

Owner-managers tend to look at health and safety compliance as another legal responsibility or burden whereas, when handled correctly, it can offer potential cost savings.

Other benefits of a well-managed health and safety policy include protecting your reputation with your customers, suppliers and local community. It can also help enhance employees' loyalty and attitude at work.

Put someone in charge
It is important to ensure one person is responsible for overseeing your business' health and safety responsibilities. If your business is small, then this should be the most senior person.

This person's main responsibility is to think through the areas addressed below in order to develop a health and safety policy. This should be done in consultation with all staff, ensuring that everyone is kept informed of the business' approach to making their workplace safe.

Assess the risks A risk assessment is the best way to start managing your workplace health and safety. This involves identifying the people who could be at risk, and what the potential risks are. This could be anyone involved in your business such as employees, customers, suppliers and yourself.

You also need to identify what the risks are. Hazards usually fall into one of three categories. These include workplace hazards, such as the layout or structure of a building: activity hazards, such as using machinery: and environmental risks, like dust or any other by-product of the work being carried out on your premises.

If you run a small hotel, for example, a workplace risk could be a particularly steep set of stairs and an activity hazard could be the use of sharp kitchen machinery. An environmental hazard could be air emissions or waste storage.

Health and safety policy Once these factors have been established, you should evaluate and detail the measures you intend to put in place to alert people to them. It is a legal requirement for those businesses with five or more staff to have a written health and safety policy. It is strongly recommended that all organisations put their policy in writing, to protect the staff and the employer.

A policy will explain your approach to managing health and safety, identify who in the business oversees it, and outline what will be done to deliver it. The policy should comprise three separate sections. The first is the statement of intent, which spells out in a short and succinct statement your commitment to health and safety and how you manage it.

The next area that should be addressed is the organisation of your health and safety, explaining whom in your business is responsible for health, hygiene and safety issues on a day-to-day basis. This would include carrying out the workplace risk assessments (which, from 2006, will also encompass a fire risk assessment), and ensuring new risks are identified.

In the arrangements section, you should explain how you will apply the commitments you have outlined above. You do this by detailing the precautions and measures, such as training or clear signage, you have put in place to reduce and hopefully eliminate any workplace risks.

And finally…
Once you have covered and thoroughly thought through the areas above, then you should be ready to implement the policy by putting it into practice.

Creating a safe workplace is not a one-off project - it should be an ongoing process that is reviewed by the person or people who have been assigned the responsibility. As your business grows, factors such as the layout, premises, staff levels and jobs may change and these can significantly alter the level of risks.

Lastly, don't forget the benefits that managing business health and safety efficiently will bring your business, both in saving costs and protecting your reputation.

Find out more:

Health & Safety Executive information on the catering industry

The business benefits of a safe workplace
The Business Link Health & Safety Performance Indicator, a free and confidential tool developed with the Health & Safety Executive, Department of Work and Pensions, and the Association of British Insurers.

The free Five Steps to Risk Assessment booklet
Call 0845 600 9 006 to locate your nearest Business Link service