Health and Safety in the workplace shouldn’t be taken lightly as being safe at work is a fundamental principle to both employees and employers. According to UK law, it is the employer’s duty to provide information and training to employees about safety requirements and risks involved at work. Regardless of the size of an organisation, it is important to have proper health and safety processes in place. Having a health and safety consultant is the best way to ensure required health and safety standards.
A health and safety consultant work as a third-party professional with specialist knowledge and expertise in the field of health and safety. One of the major benefits of hiring a health and safety consultant is that they will not have the added concern of having to juggle health and safety with other positional matters; the consultant focuses solely on making sure your company meets all rules and regulations, keeping you safe and compliant.
As many employers don’t have the time or expertise to manage health and safety internally, they prefer to outsource it to the best health and safety consultancy in the UK. With a health and safety consultant, their business stays on the right track with the support of the right people having expertise and years of experience.
To have effective health and safety management & compliance, it is important to ask yourself questions like when was the last time we have conducted a risk assessment? Do we have a robust and effective Health & Safety Policy in place? What about safe systems of work, a near-miss reporting procedure, or a Health & Safety Handbook? Who’s our competent person for health and safety?
A health and safety consultant offer professional advice and guidance to organisation and employers. Their job includes assisting organisations to reduce health and safety risks in the workplace while providing the best practice consultancy to manage the process internally more efficiently.
Some of the qualifications you can expect from your health and safety consultants are NEBOSH, NCRQ and IOSH. Moreover, a day-to-day task of a health and safety consultant includes producing safety policies and procedures, auditing business processes, advising and training on health and safety practices, carrying out risk assessments and much more.
Health and safety consultants are highly knowledgeable can adapt to your organisation’s industry and have the capacity to work across many sectors like charities, third sector, construction, franchises, care sector and manufacturing. Health and Safety tools give you the ability to measure performance as a result of efficient health and safety procedures while providing a safe working environment for everyone by identifying and reducing hazards in the workplace.
One of the most significant advantages of engaging health and safety consultants for your organisation is that they will give an objective assessment of a company’s health and safety status, providing an honest assessment of where the firm excels and where danger areas exist.
After seeing the overview, a firm may decide whether to proceed with the proposal or not.
A health and safety consultant works for a number of firms in a variety of sectors.
As a result, they will have useful information and a diverse set of talents to contribute to your organisation.
A health and safety consultant’s extensive expertise and skill set enables them to satisfy the health and safety requirements of your organisation and industry.
When a corporation engages workplace safety assessments, the evaluation will be unbiased. The consultant will enter your organisation with a clean slate, unaffected by internal conflicts or prior safety violations.
Finally, but certainly not least, is the most recent knowledge of practice standards.
Due to the fact that health and safety consultants are often self-employed, they attend seminars and webinars, interact with industry bodies, and stay current on changes to safety practice or training.
All of these factors contribute considerably to the success of the firms for which consultants work.
Apart from these significant advantages of having safety consulting services, the following are some common queries that most firms have about health and safety:
We’ve attempted to answer everything succinctly so that you can absorb it fast and get the most benefit from it.
One of the most prominent benefits of hiring a health and safety consultant for your business would be that they will provide an outside view of how a business’s health and safety situation fares, and therefore a company will have an honest overview of where it is excelling and what are the risk points.
Once a business gets to know the overview, it can decide whether to go ahead with the proposal or not.
A Health and Safety Consultant works for a variety of different businesses ranging from different industries.
Thus they will have valuable knowledge and a vast amount of skills to offer your business.
The significant knowledge and skill set of a Health and Safety consultant will enable them to meet your business and industry’s health and safety specifications.
When a business hires a health and safety consultant, they will have an unbiased judgment.
The consultant will work for your business with a clean slate and won’t be affected by internal affairs or past safety records.
Lastly but not least in any way is the latest knowledge of the practice standards.
As consultants are usually self-employed, they attend seminars, webinars, meet with industry agencies and keep up to date with modifications to safety protocol or training.
All of these things significantly support the businesses for whom consultants are working.
If a company is having fewer than five people, it doesn’t have to write down its safety arrangements or have a policy.
However, an organization with more than five employees must have a written copy of their arrangements and risk assessments.
If a company has fewer than five employees can show that they have considered safety by drafting a short safety strategy for their company including the information on –
→ Responsibility of key people
→ Emergency arrangements like easy access to first aid equipment
→ Providing training in relevant H&S matters
→ Specific and potential risks within the company
Health and Safety consultant provides a wide range of services to employers and organisations that improve the H&S standards of an organisation while complying with the latest regulations of the system.
These services generally start with an audit of your existing processes, procedures and standards as it gives a clear picture of where an organisation is at with regard to managing safety while recommending how they can improve to incorporate the best approach to health and safety management in their industry.
Additionally, your health and safety consultant will investigate where you may be liable from a statutory or civil perspective and provide an easy to use action plan that will outline priority areas.
The purpose of the health and safety audit is to identify the main and important areas where your organisation can improve its health and safety practices and processes followed by the implementation of the best market practices to make your health and safety management a more efficient process.
The process of auditing, advising best practices and referring to useful tools by a professional team is known as H&S Policy. An H&S Policy shows your dedication, commitment, and concern about the health and safety of your business and employees. Moreover, an H&S Policy is a legal requirement if a business has five or more employees working.
It is important to utilise the H&S Policy by enforcing regulations at the workplace and carry our training to get the maximised results. Regularly review the documents to ensure a safe and productive work environment.
The cost of a part-time health and safety consultant is often cheaper than that of a full-time in-house staff who deals with health and safety issues on a daily basis. You’ll need to figure out how much money your company has to spend on safety consulting services before deciding which alternative is ideal for your company’s requirements.
To ensure the safety of your employees, you’ll need to commit a considerable portion of your money to health and safety operations and employ a full-time safety officer. Whereas a lesser budget and a consultant who can draw up health and safety rules and examine them periodically may be more appropriate if you operate a firm with minimal risk aspects.
For small and mid-sized businesses, it becomes costlier to hire full-time employees for health and safety roles.
Thus, the best option is to look for safety consultants who are experts to effectively carry out the work in a cost-effective manner.
Even for huge businesses, having a full-time employee for a safety role may not work because of their biased view developed by the company’s internal affairs.
Moreover, being familiar with the physical environment; they may not be able to immediately identify the potential risks.
Outsourcing your health and safety process helps organizations to keep up with the latest legislation changes and reduce workplace risks, and that’s the reason thousands of organizations in the UK outsource their H&S processes. Employers have multiple benefits of outsourcing to the best H&S consultants.
Personalized Health and Safety consultancy services take care of everything for you, from policy creation to workplace audits and risk assessments that dive deep into your business to provide the most accurate policies delivered by dedicated advisors.
Get in touch with our team of health and safety professionals by dropping us an email at [email protected] or fill in this form to take the conversation further ASAP!
