Safety Checklist for Small Engineering Businessessubmitted on 22 January 2021
No matter how big or small your business is, you should always make the safety of yourself, employees and customers a priority. There will always be health and safety regulations that you must follow as a business owner and these change depending on where you live. Therefore, it is useful to keep this in mind and check what’s expected of you. Managing the health and safety aspect of your business can be a rather daunting task, especially if this is your first time managing a business. If you’re looking for some help, continue reading this article for an all-encompassing safety checklist for your small business.
Educate Your Employees
Your employees make up the backbone of your company. They are wholly responsible for the daily running of your business whether that’s behind the scenes or in customer-facing roles. As a business owner and their manager, it’s your responsibility to manage the health and safety training that they receive. How often you train your staff too on any health and safety measures comes under the law too, so make sure you stay regularly up to date.
Since you’re a small business with little resources, a great way to educate your employees could be to send them on a health and safety awareness course. On a course like this, trained individuals spend a full day educating your staff about the potential hazards on construction sites. This is a very practical way to make use of the resources you do have and helps protect your employees and others around them.
Have A Risk Assessment
A risk assessment is essentially a list of all the potential hazards in the workplace and the precautions in place to prevent them and instructions of what to do if they occur. A risk assessment is a great thing to have on your checklist as a small engineering business, especially because there will be many hazards to be aware of. Although employers are not required to have a written risk assessment, experts recommend that having everything written down is a great reference point to examine in the future. Also having your employees read and understand the assessment is useful for their safety too.
Appoint an Emergency Team
Another thing you should consider putting on your checklist is that of an emergency team or appointed persons in other words. Having a team readily trained and available at all times to deal with accidents while on the job is that one step further in ensuring the safety of your team whilst on site. Make sure your team know the potential hazards on site and brief them at the beginning of every shift. Regularly conduct drills to ensure they know their roles and tasks in an emergency. Allow other employees to observe the drills and ask questions too.
Being responsible for your team’s health and safety as a small business owner can be scary, but by following these rules you are definitely on the right track.
|
