A one-stop-shop for safety and health
My guess is you’ll only have time to quickly skim through this information. Probably because you’re busy doing what you do best….running your business. With that in mind, please read the following four paragraphs. It will literally take you two minutes (I have timed it). It could, in the long run, save you time, money and lots of hassle.
Who carries out your health checks?
Settle back in your chair and take a moment to think of the name of the company who currently carries out your health checks. Now, can you remember when the tests are due and where you keep the company’s contact details? If you have hearing tests, does your current service provider use a sound proof booth? If not, why not? Do they use one of your “quiet rooms” and does such a room really exist at your workplace? Do they provide you with health related information for your employees or do you have to contact another company? And what about your Managers, who gives them health & safety information and training, is that yet another company?
Who gives you safety advice?
Now concentrate on the name of the company or person who provides you with your safety advice and remember where you keep their contact details? Do they send you a different “advisor” every time they visit your company and have you had to waste your time going over the same thing time and time again with them? Or is your safety advisor a one-man band? How often have you tried to contact him and had to leave a message on the answer phone? How long have you waited before he got back to you hours/days/ weeks? Think about what would happen if he was on holiday and you needed urgent advice? Worse still, what would happen if he was incapacitated for weeks, who would you turn to then?
Assessments, surveys and testing
Who carries out your COSHH assessments and general risk assessment, is it you (with the aid of a manual or disk) or do you have someone else who does it for you? How about your fire risk assessment, who carries that out for you? Who carried out your noise survey and are they qualified to carry it out? Is your safety advisor even qualified, have you asked about his qualifications? What about your PAT testing, manual handling assessments, sickness management the list goes on and on. I won’t waste your time with any more questions and believe me there are many more questions I could ask. Put simply, even if you know the names of the all companies involved and their contact details were to hand, you could still waste your time on the phone waiting to be put through to the right department or correct person in charge of your account.
Nothing in place?
However, this pales into insignificance if you don’t have any of the above in place. Think about the time it would take to find and contact all of the different companies you need to provide these services for you? Where would you find these companies, Yellow Pages, Internet, Trade Association, phone a friend? How reliable are the companies? How do you know that the people have the necessary qualifications to offer the service to you and what is their track record? Are they being recommended to you because someone is getting “an incentive”? Believe me, there are no shortage of companies out there who could provide you with the services you require, but it would be time consuming trying to find them.
Simple solution
So the question is quite simple, wouldn’t it be much less hassle and cost effective for you to have just one company to contact who could provide you with all your health and safety requirements? Just think about it, one telephone number, one company, one contact.
