Health and safety can often have a negative reputation. Not because it isn't required – it most certainly is – but because it is seen as boring and monotonous, more akin to a form-filling exercise than anything more useful.

It doesn't have to be this way; health and safety should be part of your daily life, especially if you run a business or are responsible for employees, customers, and visitors in the workplace, but if you can explain why it's essential and what it all means, you'll get a much better response from those around you.

In the workplace, health and safety are crucial provisions. Employers have a fundamental obligation to offer an environment where health and safety hazards are managed, whether workers are situated in an office or on a project site.

With that in mind, here are some terrific strategies to improve workplace health and safety and assure everyone's safety at all times.

Understand It Yourself

You can’t communicate the vast importance of workplace health and safety, as well as broader public safety, if you don’t understand it yourself. Even if this is not your entire job and just plays a minor role in relation to everything else you do, it is still critical. You can miss something important if you don't completely understand the intricacies and what you should be doing.

Furthermore, if you don't know why something needs to be done a specific way, how can anybody else trust you to provide them with that information? People tend to disobey regulations when they don't understand why they are there, which can be problematic in a health and safety situation.

As a result, if you are in charge of workplace health and safety, you should be well-versed on the subject. What type of action you choose will be determined by how in-depth you wish to go. You can read books or look online for an overview, but if you want a more complete course with a certificate at the end, there are online programs you can sign up for. The more you know, the better, so consider your alternatives carefully and do what is best for you and the business. 

Seek Professional Assistance and Advice

Even if you study hard and learn as much as you can about health and safety, you will find it hard to know everything – it’s not your job, after all, and there is a lot to learn, including plenty of rules and nuances that might only relate to your industry, or that might not relate to it at all. This is why it can often be a good idea to seek professional help and advice when it comes to your health and safety within the workplace. 

One of the reasons for getting expert assistance is that, with there is a third party involved, your team members will be more engaged – it is simply the truth that when there is a meeting with an outside person or an entire course revolving around something and it’s a new person delivering the information, your employees will listen more closely.

Not only that, but when you have an expert helping you, you can be sure that accurate and up-to-date information is being passed along to your staff. Whether this is someone who can give an overview about health and safety in general or something more specific such as how to carry out ladder inspections when you work at heights, it’s a worthwhile thing to do. 

Find The Competent Person 

A 'competent person' is someone who has the necessary skills, experience, training, and understanding to administer health and safety protocols in your organization. In principle, this person can effectively monitor health and safety on their own and encourage best practices among your team.

In addition to developing a complete health and safety strategy, you'll need to select a competent person(s) to assist you in carrying out your responsibilities. Consider the following:

• Their perspective on health and safety
• Experience 
• Workplace skills – can they use the equipment etc in the right way? 
• Relationships 
• Concentration on performance 
• Physical fitness 
• Formal credentials (not required, but preferred)

If none of these characteristics fit the individuals of your workforce, or if health and safety is judged complicated or high-risk, you should seek assistance from an outside source, as we’ve mentioned above. This should be an adviser or consultant who has the characteristics mentioned above, is certified with proper training, and, most importantly, is insured. 

Have A Written Policy 

A written health and safety policy is a fantastic place to start when you are in charge of public safety and employee safety in any capacity. When you need to write a health and safety policy, you must also do a risk assessment of the business's premises, tools, and systems. As a result, you'll be able to identify the riskiest areas and determine how to lessen or even remove the risk they provide.

This is, of course, beneficial to you as a health and safety manager or company owner, but it will also benefit your staff and anybody who visits your workplace. This policy, which should be issued to all workers, will detail the risks, contingency plans, and why it’s critical to obey the regulations. Having this knowledge gives your team a lot more motivation to do what they're taught; if they know why they should or shouldn't do something, they'll be more eager to do it (or not do it, as the case may be).

Have An Effective Training Programme

Of course, just because you have a health and safety policy does not mean that everyone will read it, and even if they do, they may not remember everything. This can be troublesome since you will have thought they understood the rules and the reasons behind them when the truth is that they don’t – misunderstandings like this can lead to accidents and a lack of health and safety within the workplace. 

You can resolve this issue with a proper training programme. If it is consistent with the health and safety policy, it will be easier for people to recall what they are supposed to do and the reasoning behind each action.

You should include training in the induction process for all new employees, but you should also do it on a regular basis for everyone as a refresher. The more training employers get, the easier it is for them to learn the material. Not only that, but when workers are well-trained, they feel appreciated by their company and are more eager to work more and follow the rules. 

Have The Right Tools

A robust health and safety policy and frequent training are excellent, but if your staff doesn't have the necessary equipment, no matter how much they want to do things correctly, they may be pushed to take shortcuts, which can lead to dangerous errors and possibly fatal mistakes.

If the employees have the proper equipment in addition to the necessary training and are provided with all the information they need regarding the company's health and safety policy, there should be no reason for anything to go wrong – except when it comes to an event that no one could have expected.

In addition to providing appropriate equipment for your personnel, suitable signs describing the use of such equipment should be posted around the premises. It may seem too much at times, but it’s worth it to keep everyone safe and your company's image intact.

Top-Down Leadership

The very best health and safety practices for any business will always begin at the top. If a company owner does not follow the regulations and, for example, doesn’t wear a hardhat when required, doesn’t have the proper PPE, or takes shortcuts while operating equipment, why should anybody else? Employees will learn directly from their supervisors and, particularly, their employer, and therefore it’s critical that these managers and bosses adhere to the health and safety policy to the letter.

When employees see their bosses operating safely, they are more inclined to follow suit. As an added bonus, this will demonstrate to workers that you are a caring employer who wants the best for them, always resulting in a better working atmosphere conducive to increased productivity.

Peer-To-Peer Observation 

Another excellent choice when it comes to promoting good health and safety within the workplace is a peer-to-peer behaviour monitoring programme. You can implement this programme in a variety of ways, but the unifying thread is that workers make sure their colleagues are working in a safe manner. These behaviour observation programmes can give several chances for colleagues to talk about increasing safety on a regular basis.

Of course, this idea isn’t going to be something that everyone is happy with – it can feel like spying on colleagues and friends to some, and that’s not always going to go down well. As a manager, if you want peer-to-peer observation to work, you’ll need to explain that it’s not ‘spying’ but simply watching out for your colleagues and ensuring that work is conducted in the right way and in accordance with the health and safety policy, as mentioned above.