8 Tips To Minimise Health and Safety Costs

1. Study your industry and find out what the Government recommend and what your competition are doing. The aim is to use best-practice, but not implement systems that don’t add value, or are not required.

2. Use Health and Safety Consultants. While it may cost to have them in the short term, it is a cheaper and faster solution than having your employee research and learn these health and safety skills. In addition, the consultant can quickly identify and mitigate any risks in your business. By way of comparison, look at how you use other experts like accountants, lawyers etc.

3. Use your employees! They do the work, use the machines, and have lots of ‘street-smarts’. Ask them for ideas on how to improve health and safety in their workplace (PS if you ask the question, be prepared to do something with the result or risk damaging the safety culture).

4. Purchase quality safety equipment. The age old argument of cut-price short wearing Vs long-life value.

5. Train your staff! So they don’t hurt themselves or break and damage that expensive equipment.

6. Consider investing (depending upon your size and complexity) in a software solution to minimise administrative work. Such software can also be used to mange maintenance of equipment, vehicles, when safety equipment must be replaced, what training is yet to be completed.

7. Assign a dedicated Health and Safety Manager. The Manager can pick up on the consultants work and become the local champion.

8. Look for a safety equipment provider that may offer different terms eg negotiate discounts for using a sole supplier, or free up cash and go for the rental option.