Every employer wants to maintain a safe and healthy workplace. Whilst keeping your staff safe is important, it's also your legal responsibility. This applies to every employer; including businesses that hire office workers.
Managing Health & Safety in your workplace will help you to protect your employees' health and wellbeing. For example, ensuring everyone is trained in the best Health & Safety practices will ensure they know how to respond. If you don't, it could result in workplace injuries, or even legal proceedings.
In this guide, we'll discuss how to manage Health & Safety in the office, Health & Safety law, and how to control safety risks. By working with Peninsula, we'll support you to ensure all your office Health & Safety requirements are met.
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What Health & Safety legislation applies to offices?
Several pieces of Health & Safety legislation apply to those working in an office. But, the main one employers must follow is the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1992. This states the duties of employers to ensure the health and wellbeing of their staff.
Other pieces of relevant legislation are:
- The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
- The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992.
- The Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992.
- The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992.
- The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992.
- The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.
- The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases, and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) 1995.
- The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005
Breaches of any of the above legislation can have serious consequences for your business. If this legislation is not followed, it could lead to the injury or ill health of your employees, which could lead to visits from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), as well as financial and legal damage.
What are the Health & Safety requirements for an office-based business?
Office-based work, though low risk, still has hazards associated with it. Employers still need to control workplace hazards associated with safe access to the workplace as well as considering hazards associated with working from home occasionally, or hosting visitors on site.
Other Health & Safety requirements for employers include:
Risk assessments
Employers must perform is risk assessments. The purpose of completing a risk assessment is to formally document the process of identifying hazards at work are likely to cause a risk of harm to your employees, or visitors.
Should require further support with this aspect of Health & Safety, our in-house experts have created this free risk assessment template that's available to download.
Health & Safety Policy
Every business is required to create a Health & Safety policy. The policy should describe your approach to Health & safety as an organisation. It should have three key sections:
- Statement of Intent
- Organisational structure
- Health & Safety arrangements
Employee safety handbook
An employee safety handbook should be created; its main purpose being to communicate essential need-to-know Health & Safety information to your employees. It should include any site safety rules, as well as procedures for reporting hazards and accidents.
A key element for office working is to detail a procedure for employees to follow should they need to have an eye test or get glasses for use of the computer screen.
A key element for office working is to detail a procedure for employees to follow should they need to have an eye test or get glasses for use of the computer screen.
Accident and incident reporting
Employers are also required to record and investigate accidents that take place during work or as a result of work activity. Meaning, that any time a workplace accident occurs, you must keep a record of it in an accident book. Depending on the injury, you might also have to report it to the Health and Safety Executive.
Determine your first aid needs
It is important to consider the first aid requirements for your organisation. A first aid needs assessment will help you determine how many first aiders you need, to what level they need to be trained, and the requirements for the contents of your first aid kits. All of these aspects are dependent on how people could be harmed at work, as well as covering for sickness or absence.
You must also ensure your workplace has:
- A fully stocked first aid kit.
- Information for employees that informs them of first aid arrangements at your work.
How do you maintain Health & Safety in the office?
To maintain Health & Safety within your workplace environment, and to avoid major injury occurring, there are several steps you can take. Such as:
Communication
Communication with employees on matters that pertain to their health and safety at work is a fundamental requirement of legislation. Regular tool-box talk training, safety meetings, safety posters, as well as the sharing of risk assessments all play a key role in communication with your employees.
Appoint a competent person
Next, you should appoint a competent person to oversee your Health & Safety management. This is someone with the skills, training, and knowledge to maintain a safe environment.
In lieu of an internal competent person, you can just ensure that the person tasked with overseeing health and safety management has access to expert competent advice.
Provide Health & Safety training
Another step you can take to maintain Health & Safety in your workplace is to provide Health & Safety training.
For example, in an office environment the training required will include:
- General Health & Safety awareness
- Display screen equipment
- Fire safety awareness
- Manual handling
- Stress in the workplace
- Lone working (where employees are working alone in the office)
- First aid (for your appointed first aiders)
FAQs: What are the key Health & Safety risks in an office setting?
What are the examples of office-related Health & Safety hazards?
There are several hazards that employers working from an office will have to consider. For example, wet floors from cleaning could cause the public to slip or fall. Consequently, you can reduce the chance of injury by using wet floor signs. Other potential hazards include:
- Poorly maintained electrical equipment or damaged electrical equipment.
- Display screen equipment (DSE), for example, computer or laptop screens.
- Manual handling tasks, such as lifting heavy objects.
Remember to consider factors that affect your staff members mentally - such as workplace stress. Setting achievable goals, reasonable deadlines, and discouraging working outside of working hours will ensure that you can ensure that they maintain a healthy work-life balance.
How Peninsula can help you with Health & Safety in the office
Due to the low-risk nature of office related work, safety can often be overlooked. It is vital that employers have a keen focus on the health and safety of their employees because there are significant hazards associated with this kind of work.
If employees are affected by stress for example, it can lead to them taking long term sickness absences, having a knock-on effect on the efficiency of your business operations.
If employees are affected by stress for example, it can lead to them taking long term sickness absences, having a knock-on effect on the efficiency of your business operations.
But, with Peninsula's support, you take the stress and worry out of managing office related safety risks. We’ll guide you through risk assessments, create your Health & Safety policies, and provide 24/7 expert advice and guidance whenever you need it.
Contact us today to learn about the comprehensive support we can provide you with.
Contact us today to learn about the comprehensive support we can provide you with.
