Health and safety in the workplace are no joke. In fact, if something goes wrong, or there is an accident and you, as an employer, are found to be responsible, it could mean be looking down the barrel of a whole storm of problems.

Issues that include being liable for compensation and a potential PR nightmare. You will then be relieved to find out that there are some things that you can do to promote safety in the workplace for both your customers and your employees. Read on to find out more.

Do Assign Health and Safety Responsibilities to a Particular Person

One action that you can take to keep your employees and customers a great deal safer is to assign the responsibility for health and safety to one person. In fact, by doing this, you can make sure all safety decisions and actions are approved by this person before they happen. Something that means, because of their expertise, that any potential problem will be flagged up before they cause an issue.

Of course, that does mean that you will need to recruit an effective health and safety manager and provide regular updates to training as well. Something that can help you both maintain safety in your workplace, and avoid being on the wrong side of the law where employee wellbeing is concerned.

Do Take Action to Minimize Any Possible Risks and Hazards

Once you have someone that can take responsibility for your health and safety process, you can start to take action. The aim of such action being to will minimize any potential risks and hazards.  Sadly, there is a vast range of situations that can potentially go wrong in the workplace. From something relatively simple such as a chair and desk being used in an unergonomic fashion, to something much more terrifying. Such as an employee coming to work under the influence of illegal substances and causing an accident.

Of course, employers that use heavy machinery or vehicles often use a screening process like this hair drug test to ensure that this doesn’t happen. In fact, because such tests can detect illegal drug use up to 3 months after use, just having such a program can act as a deterrent. Therefore boosting safety in your business.

Don’t Forget to Cover Your Business with the Right Insurance

Finally, when it comes to managing health and safety risks in your business, don’t forget the financial side of things either. Sadly, many companies can find themselves on the brink of bankruptcy because they have to pay out vast amounts of compensation. Either to employees or to customers that have suffered an injury that the organization has been deemed responsible for.

In fact, you may be liable if someone has an accident on your property, or even if your product has failed in some way and caused injury or harm. With that in mind, you must account for the financial risk as well as the other types. Something you can do by investing in the right insurance cover for your business.

You should also keep in mind that if you have employees who will be out on the road driving for any part of their job, you may be called when there has been an accident. Accidents happen so quickly, and with the increase of cars and trucks on the road, you need to be prepared. This means having the details of a truck accident lawyer to help you and your employees should the worse happen. Business insurance will not always cover these types of claims, so being prepared for every situation is crucial in protecting your business.