Workplace injury law

How to stay on the right side of it

All employers have a legal duty of care to protect the health and safety of their employees whilst they are in the workplace or on-site. This includes several measures including providing appropriate health and safety training, providing personal protective equipment like hard hats and gloves, proper training on the machinery, and carrying out regular maintenance of machinery and equipment.

Achieving optimum health and safety at work involves getting everyone on board from the employer’s management team to the site worker. If a company does not get this right in terms of health and safety, then it can lead to bad outcomes for everyone. Here is a list of some measures that every workplace should be following to avoid coming into conflict with employees and workplace injury lawyers.

Health and Safety

The law states that employers are responsible for the welfare of their employees and anyone else who could be impacted by their business. In cases where an employer cannot make a situation %100 safe then they need to have done everything they could do to make the situation reasonably practicable.

Risk Assessments 

One way you can make sure that your employees are safe is to conduct risk assessments. These are incredibly useful tools when it comes to workplace safety and protecting your business. You can ask lawyers such as Lamber Goodnow Injury Lawyers that can give you advice on things to look out for. Without them, you will be flying blind to what hazards are active in your workplace and this can lead to accidents and legal proceedings.

Risk assessments are especially important when it comes to lone workers or a high-risk industry. Employees are vulnerable to additional risks in these scenarios, and this can be made much worse when workers are away from supervisors. Without someone keeping an eye on hazards such as slips, trips, and falls then they are more likely to happen.

Choose your Health and Safety Supervisors

As an employer, you need to choose a competent person to help the business achieve compliance in health and safety. They must have the skills and experience for the job. The person can be anyone within the business but needs to cover everything in your business. You can also employ multiple people if you have a large business with multiple areas.

Incident Reports

Even with the most strict and careful health and safety policy in the world, accidents can and will still happen in the workplace. There are of course several ways to significantly mitigate and reduce the severity of the accidents, but it is unlikely that you can avoid them completely.

It is important that when an accident does happen, as an employer you should be proactive. After ensuring that the person involved is okay then you should always fill out an incident report. This covers the details of the incident and can record the details of the injury. Not only can this make sure that the injured party is okay but provides a written record of the injury.

Workplace Injuries

There is no way to completely avoid injuries in the workplace but that does not negate your responsibility to your employees. You need to make sure that you have done everything reasonably possible to prevent accidents and look after your staff. Follow simple procedures and appoint the right people to stay on the right side of workplace injury law.