Keeping Employees Safe and Healthy: 4 Things to Consider for the HR Department
Providing a safe place for employees to work in is not just a moral obligation, it is also a legal responsibility that employers have to adhere to everywhere in the United Kingdom. Depending on the field of business that you are in and the size of it, this could either be relatively easy or something that requires careful planning and seamless cooperation between multiple departments. However, the HR department in particular can play a huge role in keeping the employees safe and healthy, as will be discussed next.
Establishing Free Communication
It is beyond doubt that a lot of regrettable and tragic incidents in the workplace could have been avoided if there was an open line of communication between the Human Resources department and the rest of the employees. It is the job of the HR department to build a working line of free communication between itself and the rest of the office, where each employee is able to express concerns, lodge complaints and talk about health and safety issues at the office without hesitation. Establishing this line of easy communication is not particularly easy though, so the following steps should come in handy:
- Appointment of safety supervisors who can be tasked with encouraging inter-departmental communication
- HR personnel should meet employees in private to establish rapport and to check in on them
- Identification of vulnerable employees
- The department should frequently remind all the employees of the company’s HSE regulations
Strict Implementation of Effective Health and Safety Policies
Just as we discussed earlier, there are varying levels of potential dangers to employees, depending on the field of business that you are in. If the company deals in areas such as construction, manufacturing, packing, etc. where the employees must work in hazardous conditions, it might be up to the Human Resources department to make sure that all policies in regard to health and safety are implemented and maintained strictly. Labelling of unsafe areas as such, assigning clearance to potentially hazardous areas only to qualified individuals, and sending out general emails and notifications to warn the employees about health and safety policies are some of the measures that are expected to be taken by the HR department. Although it is not the job of Human Resource department to detect all the health and safety issues, it is definitely part of their job to inform the employees about the dangers as soon as the department is informed about it to prevent the need for someone like this slip & fall accident lawyer in Schaumburg to come to the defence of an injured employee.
Handling Insurance and Benefits
All good companies provide at least basic health and life insurance to their employees, but more often than not, it is left up to the HR department to sort all the complications of employee insurance out. You can make things easier for your HR department by selecting Applescott Insurance who can help select the best policies and plans. They ensure that they suit both the needs of the company and the employees that they are trying to protect. However, even after the insurance plans are researched, such as looking into the cost for key employee insurance, and set into motion, the claims will likely need to be handled by HR as well. Some of the prime duties in regard to insurance claim management are as follows, but they may vary, depending on the policies of the company in question.
- Making the employees aware of the benefits and protections that they are entitled to
- Making sure that the claims are processed as fast as possible and the employees receive their due compensations accordingly
- Helping employees get due medical care, accommodations and rehabilitation training, as and when required under the company’s employee protection acts
Working Closely with the Facilities Department
The Facilities Department handles multiple responsibilities, but its primary focus is making the work environment as functional as possible and of course, keeping it well maintained. In many ways, the safety of the workers depends largely on how well the Facilities Department is doing its job. The HR manager can actually work with the Facilities Manager to employ both basic and advanced health and safety measures. For example, the simple anti-slip safety mat can help prevent slip and fall injuries which cost both companies and employees dearly every year in the UK. This is just one example, but there’s so much more that can be done when the HR department works actively to convince Facilities regarding the necessity of investing in safety measures that can protect both the company and its workers.
Aside from these four, the Human Resources department should also hold periodical events for educating, training and reminding the employees about common safety measures. The events and the specific trainings will of course, be different depending on the nature of the work itself, but the goal remains the same, which is ensuring employee safety and maintaining a safe and healthy work environment.
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