Five steps to maintaining the health and safety of your employees

As a full-service facilities management company, we are acutely aware of the importance of maintaining health and safety at work. During the current Covid-19 situation, this is more important than ever.

Our team builds safe work environments for both our employees and our clients through the ongoing maintenance and security of buildings, provision of cleaning services and dedicated office support, among other services.

To mark the UN’s World Day for Safety and Health at Work 2020, we have put together some tips we employ across all our sites.

Five steps to maintaining the health and safety of your employees.

1.     Understand the risks

Carry out regular risk assessments to identify possible hazards and dangers to your employees. Be realistic – how will a potential risk emerge, how likely is it and what is the possible impact.

Create a plan from the initial assessment with clear, actionable steps to reduce and address the risks, in order of priority.

2.      Talk to your team

Make sure you speak to all your employees to hear their perspectives and issues with their work environments and processes. This process can provide invaluable feedback, pointing to issues you hadn’t yet considered.

An open forum to discuss concerns and solutions also helps create and promote an organisational culture of safety and health, with everyone invested in improving their workplaces.

3.     Provide training

It’s also vital your team is supported by the correct training programmes. These can take the for of short workshops, presentations or on-the-job training.

At Elevare, we provide dedicated training for our employees in the form of our Quest training programme, a tailored training initiative that enables each of our employees to gain the skills and qualifications necessary to reach their full potential.

4.     Keep written records

From buildings to equipment, the team at Elevare is methodical about regular maintenance and checks. Create a maintenance schedule and make sure all reports are logged and centralised correctly.

It doesn’t have to be long but you should also have a written-down health and safety policy that clearly outlines your approach. This should also be shared with all employees and stored along with your risk assessments and other relevant documents.

5.     Continuously review and improve

As the way we work evolves, new occupational risks can come to the fore – from new technologies and equipment to remote working practices.

Keep reviewing your organisation’s progress when it comes to health and safety. What are the current strengths and weaknesses? Are there new risks?

Keep talking to your team, address problems as they arise and maintain written records of all your actions.

We hope you found these Five steps to maintaining health and safety of your employees useful.

For more information on how Elevare can help maintain the health and safety of your site, contact [email protected].