The importance of health and safety in the workplace is emphasized by legislature. There are many health and safety protocol that businesses must adhere to, for instance the need for a health and safety policy.
Health and safety is important not just in terms of the legality of your business, but also in terms of protecting employees, ensuring they’re adequately safeguarded whilst part of an organisation.
Health and safety is a discipline, and as such it can be trained. First aid at work training courses, for example, can equip employees, not necessarily all of them but some, with basic to advanced first aid at work skills. Accidents, no matter how safe the workplace are always possible, and so it’s a good idea that employees are trained not only in how to avoid accidents, but also how to deal with them if they do happen.
Whilst health and safety can be trained very effectively, it’s important to recognize that it’s a two-way process. The whole point of workplace health and safety is safeguarding employees, and so it’s important that there are channels of communication open to them. They should feel confident to be able to give their feedback and have the communication channels through which to do so.
Training should not be a one off event, and health and safety practice should be on going. Training itself should be broken into learn-able chunks and knowledge should be tested and practiced regularly. Some employees may quickly forget the basics of first aid or workplace safety, and so it’s important that this knowledge is rehearsed and reinforced.
