It’s great to see the stretch in the evenings, now that we have moved our clocks forward.
The extra daylight hours means that temperatures are on the increase, allowing the grass to grow faster, resulting in regular lawn maintenance in our gardens, parks and sports pitches. This increased outside activity should also see an increase in footfall into our showrooms and workshops. While we may look forward to this increase in business, we should not get too complacent by taking our eye off the ball, especially when it comes to health and safety in the workplace. Having more customers arriving on our premises has the potential for increased risk and hazard to people. Make sure your public liability insurance is up to date.
Many of the dangers to your employees and customers can be minimised by providing regular training to your staff. In my own place of work I am very impressed with the training facilities that are provided by my employer. Some of them are compulsory, such as manual handling and first aid but there are lots more to choose from that are optional and mostly free. Courses available include Display Screen Equipment User Awareness; Interacting Effectively with Colleagues; Being an Effective Team Member; Handling Difficult Situations with your Customers; Managing Pressure and Stress, and many more. The vast majority of these courses can be done online and can be completed within 45 – 90 minutes. You don’t get an official qualification but you will benefit immensely by taking the time to do them.
As well as providing manual handling and first aid courses, one important item that tends to get overlooked is the company’s Safety Statement and the appointment of a safety officer. The Safety Statement should be revised annually as unforeseen accidents may have occurred during the year and measures to avoid it happening again should be listed in the Safety Statement. The safety officer should, ideally, be a member of staff. Their function is to ensure that safety procedures are adhered to, report any accidents and near misses that may have occurred and to update the safety statement accordingly so as to prevent similar incidents happening again. The Safety Statement should be available to all staff members at any time. It could, for example be left in the staff canteen.
There are many training providers around the country. Some of them will come to your premises to carry out the training, provided that there are enough participants to make it worthwhile for them to do so. If you are a business with low staff numbers it may suit you to just send one or two of your staff members at a time to the training centre.
I particularly liked doing the Interacting Effectively with Colleagues course. It is great for team building. There is nothing as bad as working in an environment where staff do not get on with each other. Low morale among staff can be contagious, which could lead to a situation where your customers even notice that there is something wrong. That is not a great place to be in. The mental health and morale of your staff is just as important as their physical well being.
I hope you enjoy the long days ahead and wish you a profitable, and hazard free, spring and summer season.
