Benefits of using Health and Safety Consultants
The prime concern of any organisation is to have an effective safe work environment, regardless of the size of the business. This can be really challenging for the owner of the organisation because their main focus is on the products and services. On the other hand, the safety of the employees cannot be compromised at any cost. It is important for the organisation to follow the health and safety guidelines set by OSHA. OSHA is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. However, if an organisation fails to comply with these guidelines or statutory and regulatory requirements, they end up with huge fines and penalties. And what is even worse, a lot of incidents which could have been avoided.
Many organisations have already set up the safety department but this is not everything that is required to create a safe work environment. It is important to evaluate the safety procedures regularly by bringing in another set of eyes. Therefore, for small business owners it can be very helpful to hire an outsourced health and safety consultant who makes sure that work environment is safe and compliant to guidelines set up by OSHA or e.g. ISO 45001 if relevant.
How Health and Safety Consultants Work
There is a misconception that outsourced health and safety consultants will just walk in and make unnecessary and unwanted changes; but this is not how it works. In fact, sometimes an organisation only requires small changes to make the workplace a safe place to work in. In some cases when there is a need of some necessary bigger changes, the health and safety consultant address the issues with the owner and staff members to make sure the issues are resolved within a timely manner. Some organisations wonder how they can determine which consult is best for their company. It is significant to hire a consultant or a consulting firm that will do total auditing and evaluation of organisation’s practices. A consultant to be hired should have significant knowledge about regulations and statutory and regulatory requirements. A consultant firm should also propound employees training to assure that they all are well aware of the right safety procedures. Some relevant training to look for are IOSH and ISO 45001 which is the standard for an Occupational Health and Safety Management System. The use of outsourced health and safety consultants often increase efficiency and is more cost effective than maintaining an internal department.
Benefits of a Health and Safety Consultant
Now that we know how health and safety consultants work, let us have a look at the benefits of hiring health and safety consultants for an organisation.
Recognition of Health and Safety Drawbacks
The health and safety consultants impartially assess and analyse all the areas of the organisation and highlight the areas with inefficient current practices. Not only do they assess the issues, they also guide the organisation on how they can overcome those shortcomings so they can comply with regulations.
Staff Protection
The basic benefit of using a health and safety consultant is to protect the staff from workplace injuries and illness such as backache, asthma, falling and slipping from heights etc. Safety of employees should be the first and foremost priority of the organisation. It also helps in reducing absences and ultimately ending up saving direct costs.
Improvement of Bottom Line
Having a safe workplace actually improves the bottom line of the organisation. It might look like that hiring a consultant will be expensive or an additional expense for the organization, however that is not the case. Due to a safer work environment, there are lesser chances of incidents at the workplace. That means the employee’s compensation insurance will also be lower because of the lesser claims.
Development of a Corporate Awareness
Health and safety consultants embrace health and safety of an organisation by assessment and analysis of current practices and identify areas that lack awareness.
Prevention of Potential Health and Safety Hazards
It helps a business to be more proactive than reactive to the problems. It highlights the possible areas where incidents or hazards can occur thus helps in prevention of these hazards by taking certain measures beforehand.
Every organisation has different health and safety needs which needs to be taken into account. If you are looking for some support with your health and safety management system, feel free to contact us for a free consultation.
