Smaller businesses are the ones who struggle the most with getting to grips with health and safety. Whilst it may seem that a larger business will have far more intricacies that will dictate a much more complicated health and safety plan, in reality many of the things that businesses need to get right in terms of safety will be the same for small companies as they are for larger ones, and with far more resources, it will therefore be easier for larger businesses to always be covered.
However, health and safety doesn’t necessarily need to be a tricky area. In fact, even the smallest of businesses can get health and safety consultancy without it having to cost them a fortune, and any company with five or more members of staff will have the same need to draw up a safety plan as a company with five thousand employees.
The first thing to do is to work out who will be in charge of your health and safety. Whilst this can be you or someone in your company, a small company is far less likely to have the resources to ensure someone within the company has all the relevant training. Instead, it is usually far more cost-effective and far more successful to simply use external health and safety consultants as and when you need them.
In many cases, you may only need health and safety consultancy for a limited time too. Whilst the realms of health and safety may be completely new territory for you at first, as you learn from the services health and safety consultants offer you, you will start to understand the best way to do everything from undertaking risk assessments to implementing new procedures to act on those findings.
The majority of workplace accidents happen within smaller businesses and this is usually due to lack of resources and knowledge. However, the right consultancy will be easy to find and will almost certainly help to ensure that you are as prepared as even the biggest companies, without any excessive costs.