07572464445
helen.byram@buzzsafety.co.uk

Some organisations are nervous about engaging a health and safety consultant. Here is a little bit of information on what to look for and the benefits that a good health and safety consultant an bring.

Why use a health and safety consultant?

Health and safety consultants bring specialised expertise and experience to ensure your management system meets legal requirements, industry standards, and best practices. We offer tailored advice, knowledge of risk and legal requirements, and strategies to enhance workplace safety; potentially reducing incidents and ensuring compliance. Their insights can save time, streamline processes, and ultimately contribute to a safer work environment.

What do I look for when choosing a health and safety consultant?

Look for a consultant with relevant certifications, experience in your industry, a strong track record, and client testimonials. Also, assess their communication skills, ability to understand your specific needs and values, and their approach to developing practical solutions. A consultant who prioritises collaboration and ongoing support can be highly valuable. Beware of consultants that offer ready made solutions with out detailed discussion to understand your business activities, organisational culture and areas of risk - these can fall far short of meeting your needs. Also be very cautious of of signing up to contracts that tie you in for long periods of time and / or rolling contracts with short windows to terminate the contract before you are committed for another prolonged period. I speak to many organisations stuck in contracts for up to 3 years they don't want to be in and that are not meeting their needs but still have to be paid on a monthly basis.

Why is a health and safety consultant who shares your values better than one who doesn’t?

A consultant who shares your values is more likely to understand and prioritise the specific safety culture and goals you want to foster within your organisation. This alignment ensures a more cohesive approach to implementing safety measures, making it easier to integrate recommendations and improvement seamlessly into your workplace. It can also lead to better employee buy-in and engagement with the safety initiatives, ultimately creating a safer and more harmonious work environment.

A short video to help business owners and managers understand the basics of risk assessment. Not sure what risk assessment is all about - watch this!

Introduction:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness………..Autumn is without a doubt my favourite season and my favourite time of year for carrying out site visits. However, as the leaves fall, temperatures drop, and mornings become misty and frosty there are some health and safety issues that we need to bear in mind a bit more at this time of year; so if  you are out and about completing bat roost or wintering bird surveys, or even aquatic invertebrate surveys this autumn; here are a few things for you to bear in mind.

Slippery Surfaces:

The falling leaves and wet boggy ground can create slippery surfaces, particularly when they become wet from rain or morning dew. Be cautious when walking on pathways or climbing slopes covered in fallen leaves. Use proper footwear with good traction and a good grip and remember to clean those soles and grips of caked mud.

Reduced Daylight Hours:

As autumn progresses, daylight hours decrease. Dim lighting can make it challenging to navigate safely. Ensure you have adequate lighting equipment, such as torches, headlamps, or portable floodlights, to illuminate work areas and pathways. Try to plan for site visits to take place during daylight hours.

Cold Weather:

It’s easy to get caught out with cold temperatures during autumn, especially when we have been having unseasonably warm days; but the temperatures will drop at some point. Falling temperatures can lead to cold stress or even hypothermia. Dress in layers to maintain warmth and use insulated clothing to protect against the cold. Don't forget to cover extremities with gloves, hats, and scarves and consider using outdoor gloves specifically designed for writing or tablet use so that it isn’t necessary to keep taking gloves off.

Wildlife Encounters:

Autumn is a season of increased wildlife activity, including mating and migration. When rural locations, remote or wooded sites, be aware of the potential for wildlife encounters, including for example dear which are on the move for mating season during autumn and are commonly seen on roads. For more information visit https://www.deeraware.com/

Visibility Challenges:

Fog, mist, or rain are common weather conditions during autumn. Reduced visibility can hinder site assessments and create potential risks when operating machinery. Identify measures appropriate for your site, for example marking out walking routes and working areas, wear reflective vests and appropriate lighting.

Driving:

Autumn and winter driving can be particularly hazardous, dazzle from the sun, glare from wet roads, reduced visibility, heavy rain, ice and fog can create difficult driving conditions. Ensure that you have considered whether driving is necessary, planned your route including places to take regular rest breaks, and made sure that your car is well maintained and is autumn and winter ready, for example ensuring screen-wash and anti-freeze are topped up, lights are working correctly, tyres are suitable with adequate tread. For more information on autumn driving, please visit https://www.theaa.com/driving-advice/seasonal/autumn

If you would like support risk assessing the hazards associated with site visits or assistance with any other aspect of health and safety in your business, please call Helen  - Health and Safety Specialist on 07572464445 or email helen.byram@buzzsafety.co.uk

As a health and safety consultant, when I talk about health and safety as a key component in the sustainability of a business, more often that not I will be asked ‘what has health and safety has got to do with sustainability?’ Well, rather a lot actually – when talking about the long term sustainability of your business, the health, safety and wellbeing of your employees is key.

Changing the Image of Health and Safety

To really appreciate the role of health and safety in sustainability, we need to reframe it. For as long as I can remember health and safety has been viewed (generally) as being burdensome; the focus on keeping the director out of jail and doing what is necessary to tick the boxes and keep the regulators away. Of course, we can’t ignore legal compliance and minimum requirements must be set; but the focus of health and safety should be on looking after your people because you want to – they are your most important asset. If ever I’m lucky enough to walk in to see a new client and hear the words ‘I want to took after my people’ or words to that effect – my heart sings, I know we are on the same page; their priority is the wellbeing of their people and health and safety will be implemented with purpose not resentment.

Changing Priorities

The world is shifting – we know sustainability is key to the future of the planet. Focusing on the profitability of an organisation above everything else might bring an increase in profits, but failing to look after your people and consider your impact on the environment is unlikely to bring longevity in today’s business climate. Employees quite rightly are beginning to prioritise their wellbeing and the sustainability credentials of employers when scanning the job market. Likewise, consumers and clients are becoming much more savvy, choosing ethically and sustainably produced products.

What makes a Business Sustainable?

The Triple Bottom Line concept identifies 3 components of the business sustainability model.

PEOPLE-PROFIT-PLANET

These 3 components are inextricably linked – to be truly sustainable, a business cannot focus on one to the detriment of the others.

So, back to health and safety. Good health and safety management plays a key role in looking after your people. A well designed and relevant health and safety management system will work for and with your organisation.  A health and safety manual should not sit on a shelf gathering dust only to be dragged out when the regulators come to visit – I’ve seen that many times and it achieves nothing.

It's all about the Bigger Picture

Investing in good proportionate health and safety management and creating a culture where employees feel safe, listened to, able to raise concerns and valued will unlock discretionary effort, increase productivity, reduce staff turnover (reducing the associated loss of skills and knowledge and the inevitable recruitment cost), reduce sickness and lost time following incidents. All of this will impact positively on the business in terms of reducing costs, reducing downtime, driving up profits, improving public image and reputation. It will of course also achieve the ‘traditional’ aims of health and safety by reducing the incidence and costs of accidents and increasing legal compliance and increase in profits.

Greater profit allows for better financial reward for employees, investment in the local economy,  greater investment in green technology and sustainable practices which again feed employee satisfaction and reputation whilst benefitting the planet. Everyone wins. For me People-Profit-Planet is a cycle of continuous improvement that has no beginning and no end and should be actively and passionately pursued. We should be constantly striving and improving our working conditions for our people and fairly rewarding people for their efforts to create a sustainable standard of living, a sustainable society, ongoing investment in green technology and genuine ethical and sustainable practices and overall, a sustainable planet.

In this conversation Yvette Whitwam of Beanstalk HR and I talk about our personal experience of peri-menopause and it's impact on us as people running our own businesses. We discuss how employers can support their employees from an HR and health and safety perspective.

I’ve been to see a couple of new clients recently. I’ve left both meetings feeling frustrated and annoyed. Not with my clients, but because they have both received extremely poor service from so called ‘health and safety consultants’.

Now, I’m not knocking health and safety consultants – I am one, after all. But I am knocking health and safety consultants and consultancies that appear to be trying to exploit the knowledge gap that some businesses may have.
Many firms don’t necessarily know enough about health and safety to really know what support they need, what they can expect or what they are signing up for.

Some less scrupulous consultants promise to provide a tailored health and safety management system and then slap a ring binder containing nothing but generic template documents on the table and claim everything necessary is contained within for example.

I am also knocking health and safety consultancies that promise to give health and safety advice and support, place businesses on a 12 month contract – with difficult cancellation clauses – and then simply quote legislation down the phone without giving real advice and assistance.

This has led me to consider, what (or who) is a good health and safety consultant and what can you expect from a good health and safety consultant.

I guess there are two aspects to consider. Firstly the person (consultant) themselves, and then the service that they will (or won’t) provide.

Knowledge and experience

Well, there is the obvious of course. A good health and safety consultant needs to have knowledge and experience in health and safety. They should be able to demonstrate this through their working experience and their qualifications.

Knowledge and experience of your industry is also helpful, but not necessarily essential. Many health and safety skills are transferable between industries and most experienced health and safety professionals will have a network of trusted, competent professionals from whom they can seek advice and direction.

But, you do need a consultant who will be honest and tell you if something is outside of their competency. No health and safety professional can ever know everything, no matter what they tell you. The important thing is that they know their limitations and are willing to do the necessary research to gain the knowledge and information they need to help you.

Charterships and accreditations can be important. They can be a good way of demonstrating that knowledge is kept up to date, but they are not the be all and end all.

Consultants may be able to demonstrate continual professional development in other ways. I have been asked if membership of the OSHCR is important – in my opinion, no. There is already a professional body for safety professionals (IOSH) which requires the maintenance of a CPD cycle.

I don’t really see what OSHCR offers in addition to this.

Someone you like

Knowledge and experience, are the starting point of a great health and safety consultant. But just as important is to engage someone who you feel you can develop a strong working relationship with. This is someone you are going to need to be honest with, and who in turn needs to be honest with you, and in truth from time to time you may have to have some difficult discussions. Therefore, it is important that you actually like the person. I would never advocate engaging a consultant without meeting them first because you need to be able to develop a strong and respectful working relationship.

If you are engaging a larger consultancy, you should ask whether you will receive support from the same consultant each time because different people work in different ways. Consistency in support and delivery is very important.
The last thing on my list of the top 3 things to look for when engaging a consultant is how willing are they to adapt their service to meet your needs?

The service

Does the consultant show you a list of packages and say these are the services we offer?

Or do they talk to you about your business, determine the current status of your health and safety arrangements, listen to any constraints you might currently have, ask you about the type of support you think you would like and then make a proposal based on your specific needs? A proposal which of course can be amended if you feel it doesn’t meet your needs.

I recently heard of a business who engaged a consultancy on a 12-month contract believing they were getting specifically written documentation and telephone advice whenever required because that is what had been agreed (verbally). They signed a contract based on this. They were given a folder full of generic templates (many not even relevant) and no further assistance was given to make these specific to the organisation. When they tried to access telephone advice, they were quoted legislation but no advice or guidance on how to comply. Essentially, they paid for a service that they could not use, that was not designed for them and which did not meet their needs. At the end of their 12-month period, they tried to cancel but missed the 4 week cancellation window and the consultancy tried to roll the contract over. They are now engaged in legal proceedings.

At Buzz Safety, we take great pride in writing the contract to suit the needs of the customer, but in addition, all contracts can be revised to suit the customer’s needs and cancelled at any period with 1 month notice. I have no desire to hold customers to payments if they no longer wish or are able to use our services. Crucifying and creating a financial burden on SMEs is not what we do, we care about the businesses that we work with.

We are always happy to discuss your health and safety needs, whether large or small and can provide a service to suit you.

Mental Health at Work and Mental Health First Aiders

Mental Health at work is something of particular interest to me. I had post-natal depression following the birth of my first child and struggled with it for approximately 3 years before I finally felt I had it under control. It affected all aspects of my life at home and at work and I am so pleased to see the upsurge of understanding and conversation surround this subject. So it was with some surprise that I read the findings of a recent review conducted by the HSE on Mental Health first Aiders in the Workplace, if you would like to know my thoughts, please read on.

The Emergence of Mental Health at Work

Wednesday 10th October is World Mental Health Day and I’ve been reflecting on the recent report findings published by the HSE regarding Mental Health First Aiders.

Mental Health is an area that has traditionally been overlooked in the workplace, regarded as something not work related and generally speaking, a taboo of society that people both in and out of work are reluctant to talk about.

Thankfully this is changing, but change takes time. We as a society, have started to shift our thinking and this is now starting to transfer into the workplace.

Considering the emergence of mental health at work as an issue now being discussed openly in the media and in board rooms, I was surprised by the recent review conducted by the HSE and its findings published in RR1135 - ‘Summary of the evidence on the effectiveness of Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training in the workplace’ http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrhtm/rr1135.htm

HSE Review

The review centred around 3 main questions: -

  1. Has there been an increase in awareness of mental health amongst employees (i.e. all staff

employed by an organisation, including leaders/managers) receiving MHFA training?

  1. Is there evidence of improved management of mental health in the workplace as a consequence

of the introduction of MHFA training?

  1. Is there evidence that the content of the MHFA training has been considered for workplace

settings?

As someone who works in the field of health and safety and who has a keen interest in mental health issues due to my own experience with post-natal depression, it would seem to me that the review questions were ill thought out, and the subsequent report quite simply unhelpful!

The report found:-

Are the Findings Fair?

Anyone who works in the field of health and safety knows how long it can take to changes attitudes. Every time I speak to a new potential customer, I ask them if they have heard of mental health first aiders? Sometimes they have, sometimes they haven’t. However, I haven’t met anyone that thinks it’s a bad idea! The point is, tis is still a new concept, it is filtering through but it takes time.

The review found there was ‘evidence that MHFA training raises employees awareness of mental ill-health conditions’ – this is a positive and perfectly logical finding.

However, the finding that; ‘there is limited evidence that MHFA training leads to sustained improvement in the ability of those trained to help colleagues experiencing mental ill-health’ gives me 2 main causes for concern.

  1. It strikes me that you can’t introduce something like this and expect employees to come flocking overnight. This must be about trust and it will take time.
  2. What exactly are the HSE expecting the first aiders to do, what does ‘help’ mean?

In relation to my first concern, for me it comes back to the fact that this has historically been a taboo subject and to varying degrees frowned upon. Just because you have trained staff to become mental-health first aiders, employees can’t suddenly be expected to confide in them. Many organisations will also have some ‘history’ associated with mental health. They may have dealt with it badly in the past and it will take time to gain employees confidence, and of course some staff are just going to feel uncomfortable talking about it.

My second concern relates to the role Mental Health First Aiders are expected to play. They are not health professionals. As far as I can see Mental Health First Aiders are trained to help individuals recognize the signs and symptoms of mental health issues and help support those who may be suffering not to prevent it in the first place or treat the symptoms. I think the concept of help needs further explorations.

The finding that gives me greatest concern is; ‘There is no evidence that the introduction of MHFA training has improved the organisational management of mental health in workplaces.’ Is this the reason for having mental health first aiders – I don’t think so. Surely this is equivalent to saying that the introduction of traditional First Aiders has done nothing to improve the organisational management of injury prevention’. It seems to me a completely illogical statement.

I don’t understand how you can look at mental health first aiders in isolaton. Surely the introduction of mental health first aiders into the workplace is part of an overall strategy. A business can’t expect to appoint a mental health a first aider and for all mental-health issues within the workplace to fall into part of a well-managed organisational strategy, and I can’t understand why the HSE review would suggest that this would be an expected outcome.

Sadly, I think this report is poorly thought out and very badly timed. There is so much positive talk about mental health currently and we all need to jump on the wave. We need to give concepts such as mental health first aiders time to ‘bed in’. Let people become comfortable with the idea, give organisations time to build an organisational strategy and explore new methods. Fantastic new initiatives have recently been launched such as  www.mentalhealthatwork.org.uk I have no doubt the HSE did not have the intention of creating negativity in relation of mental health, but I fear that could have been an unintended outcome.

Let’s get behind these strategies on International Mental Health Awareness Day. Let’s spread the word about Mental Health First Aiders, the Mental Health at Work website and the fantastic work carried out by Mind, The Royal Foundation and their partners. The business world is just waking up to mental health at work and in my view we should promote awareness and understanding as much as we can.

I for one will certainly be undertaking Mental Health First Aider training in the future, and signing up to some of the amazing courses offered on the Mental Health at Work website http://mhaw.uk.com/training/

If you would like to discuss mental health strategies in your workplace, Helen at Buzz is happy to talk to you about the area which is of particular interest to her. Please do get in touch

Health and Safety law doesn’t apply to me – I have less than 5 employees!

There’s a commonly-believed myth that health and safety law doesn’t apply to businesses with less than five employees.

However, this belief is wrong and can place your business and your employees at significant risk!

This misconception stems from a strange quirk written into health and safety law. The Health and Safety at Work Act tells all employers that they are required to:

“Prepare a written statement ………………… of his general policy with respect to the health and safety at work of his employees and the organisation and arrangements …………. for carrying out that policy”

 The Health and Safety at Work Act, written in 1974, requires that this policy should be written down.

When the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations were issued some years later (1992 originally), they required that although all employers must have such arrangements in place, employers are only required to record them in writing if they have 5 or more employees.

These regulations also specify the requirement for employers to carry out Risk Assessments. Again, employers are only required to record the significant findings if the employer has 5 or more employees.

“Where the employer employs five or more employees, he shall record—

(a) the significant findings of the assessment; and

(b) any group of his employees identified by it as being especially at risk.”

There’s much confusion surrounding this, but failure to recognise that you must thoroughly assess risk and put a health and safety policy in place – even if only verbally – could land you in hot water.

For example, I was contacted once by an employer with only two employees. His business had been randomly inspected by an HSE inspector. The director was unable to demonstrate – either verbally or in writing – that they were aware of their health and safety responsibilities nor had they any arrangements in place to manage the risks created by their work activities.

As a result, a huge financial burden was then placed on the business. They were required to pay the HSE Fee for Intervention  (currently £129 per hour) and were served with four improvement notices, all of which required action by a certain date.

The improvement notices required training, inspections, surveys and the provision of an LEV system. The cost to the business – all at once – was huge.

Had the company director been aware of his legal duties and put in place a simple health and safety management system that could grow with his business, these costs would have been met incrementally and slowly, not placing a huge financial burden on the business all at once.

But most importantly, the lack of arrangements for managing health and safety placed staff at significant risk for a prolonged period. Staff were freely inhaling carcinogenic welding fume with no controls in place, noise levels were excessive potentially leading to hearing loss in future, and pressurised systems on site had not been inspected.

The financial cost was significant but the risk to human health was even more so. Given that many conditions develop over time and the nature of the hazards to which the workers were exposed, the potential for a delayed effect on their health in the future remains.

Personally, I would always advocate having a simple policy that states how you manage health and safety and record the significant findings of your risk assessments, regardless of your business size. No matter how experienced you are in the world of business, it can be a very stressful event when an HSE Inspector comes to call. It is always difficult when we feel we are under scrutiny, and we won’t always think as clearly as we would like to. Write it down in a simple format and it is all there at your fingertips whenever you need it.

Here at Buzz Safety, we are very happy to meet for an hour’s free consultation to help you better understand your health and safety obligations. Please feel free to contact us, whatever your health and safety query

07572 464445

helen.byram@buzzsafety.co.uk

A question that we’re frequently asked at Buzz Safety is ‘Why is Health and Safety important to my small business?’.

Other regular questions and statements we hear include:

So, where do I start? There is so much to say, and far too much to write in one blog.

There are the obvious answers:

But these obvious answers often fall on deaf ears.

So, what can a simple, yet effective health and safety management system do for your small business?

Well, in a nutshell, this is what; surely all businesses want to be profitable. And to be profitable, staff need to be as productive as possible. Productive staff are borne out of happiness and high morale, which often comes from a feeling of being looked after and valued.

Plus, in order to maximise sales, a business requires a good public image.

These can be achieved through a tailored health and safety management system.

In truth, the list of reasons why you should care about health and safety could go on and on.

Set aside the fear of prosecution – although the potential for prosecution is real and should not be ignored. In my view, fear of prosecution is way down the list of reasons for putting health and safety systems in place – there are so many positive reasons that come before that.

Sound and effective health and safety management, as part of a good overall management, will help you to achieve a successful, profitable business.

In my view, at the end of the day, good management of health and safety can be summed up as good business sense.

I will continue to explore the benefits of a good health and safety system, along with potential consequences of not managing health and safety in future blogs.

In the meantime, I am happy to speak to any business, small or large about their health and safety needs, in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire and beyond.

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