Effective health and safety leadership means listening

Oct. 24, 2012 - PRLog -- When it comes to safeguarding the welfare of staff in the workplace no expense should be spared. After all, the price of negligence and injury to businesses can be astronomical, meaning few firms can afford to fall short of guidelines and requirements.

A fundamental way to ensure compliance is by investing in comprehensive health and safety systems, a process that will certainly involve professional consultants. However, simply relying on outside advice, which often comes at a relatively high cost, really isn’t the most efficient way to develop procedures fit for purpose.

Not that we’d ever advise against bringing in the experts, mind, it’s just that there are several steps business leaders can take to help reduce the cost of health and safety, not to mention effectiveness (in turn having a reductive effect on possible charges). Put simply, every organisation in the country should also be placing an emphasis on opening up dialogue with staff in order to develop and implement in-house policies.

A key reason for this is that employees have priceless first hand knowledge of potential hazards in their workplace. As such they are uniquely positioned, with a far greater knowledge of everyday dangers than someone who doesn’t turn up to the same business premises five days per week. Better yet, the amount of training required to bring people up to speed may well be reduced, as it’s likely people will have a good understanding of policy based on their own input into the developments therein. Furthermore, as they will not be charging for ideas and suggestions, it will also ease the burden on the corporate purse, an offer few leaders and owners can afford to ignore right now.