Do you comply with health and safety regulations for small businesses? If not, our simple guide can help. If you run a small business with low risk, it is usually fairly easy to comply with Health and Safety regulations.

In this article, we take a look at some of the things you should know about health and safety in your place of business.

What are your Health and Safety Obligations as a Business?

In general, health and safety regulations apply to all companies. Whether you are a business owner or manager, you are responsible for the health and safety of your employees or the general public in your work premises.

Many companies just need to ensure that people are protected from the damages arising from their business. In this way, you also secure your company’s reputation and success.

Here are some tips to point you in the right direction –

• Nominate a Competent Person

As an employer, you must identify one or more competent people who will support you in fulfilling your statutory health and safety obligations.

If your company or organization has no internal health and safety management skills, for example, if the risk is large, complex or high, you can get external help from a consultant. However, you should remember that compliance with health and safety at work as an employer remains a legal obligation.

• Prepare a Health and Safety Policy

It is invariably a legal requirement that every company must have a health and safety management policy which sets out a general approach to health and safety. This policy should be clear and straightforward as to who does what and when.

If you have five or more employees, you must have a written health and safety policy in a place where everyone can see it. However, if you have less than five employees, it’s still worth doing.

Buy Insurance for your Company

If you have employees in your company, you will probably need employer liability insurance as it helps you pay compensation. This way, if any of your workers gets injured or falls ill because of the work they do for you, they can be properly compensated without jeopardising your cash flow.

However, if you have no employees or you are a family business and all employees are closely related to you, you may not need this type of insurance.

But as long as your business directly or indirectly deals with the public, it is important that you have public liability insurance to protect your business from financial loss in the event that a member of the public is injured as a result of your business operations.

Provide Information and Training

Everyone who works for you must know how to work safely and without risk to their and others’ health. This also applies to contractors and the general public. Therefore, you must provide your employees with clear instructions and information, as well as appropriate training.

You should also set up special training sessions for some categories of employees and the public, such as new employees, workers moving to a different department, interns, and visiting members of the public.

Always stay Updated

Finally, you can be one step ahead of general safety and health compliance rules by following news and events in your industry, so that you can update your health and safety policies as well as risk assessment as the need arises.