Workplace inspections are vital for various reasons; in place they help prevent accidents, injuries and incidents, as well as identifying potential hazards for corrective action by a health and safety representative, conducting a critical inspection of a workplace. Regular workplace inspections are an important part of the overall occupational health and safety program and management system (if present).
If you are a business owner, workplace inspections are something you definitely need to consider, not only to protect your employees but for your own wellbeing. By failing to comply with certain health and safety regulations; you may find yourself liable as employers have duties under health and safety law to assess risks in the workplace.
Why are inspections useful?
During an inspection of your workplace, your health and safety representative will identify all your workplace elements, the environment, equipment, your work process (depending what your workplace is) and your staff and their job roles. Attention will be payed to certain elements that are likely to develop into an unsafe or bad condition, either due to wear, weather conditions, corrosion, chemical reactions, misuse, etc. Environmental issues include hazards such as noise and vibrations, lighting, temperature and ventilation. The process consists of how the employee interacts with such elements (machinery etc) in order to complete their job roles.
Once all has been examined you can work on how to prevent such accidents if they were to occur. For example, working on a construction site there would be an unspecified number of potential hazards, such as falling from height, vibrations from heavy machinery and so forth; although after an inspection had been conducted, you would know what is required in order to work safely and how to prevent those hazards.
Not only do inspections create a safer and more efficient workplace they also create a level of control within your business by increasing the understanding of job roles, and efficiency between your workers and you.
What are the risks of not carrying out workplace inspections?
By not carrying out inspections may cause highly increased health and safety risks and potential hazards.
As well as this, a lack of communication between you and your employees is also considered as a high risk as they may not be fully aware of what they are doing might be wrong and may cause hazards or potential risks. This could result in extra cost for yourself/the business owner, simply because your employees may be operating machinery incorrectly either causing the machinery to break or to cause a severe hazard. Although, when carrying out risk assessments all your machinery will be tested and therefore shouldn’t break or be faulty or if it is, you will be aware of it before an accident happens…
In conclusion, to safely and efficiently run a business (regardless of the type of workplace) it is imperative you have all the necessary health and safety procedures in place.
If you are a business owner and you are looking to have a workplace inspection carried out – please contact us on 0330 107 0165.