Safety Briefing – why does it matter now?

As Coronavirus stay-at-home measures begin to lift and businesses reopen, health and safety will be at the forefront of everyone’s minds. Businesses will be reviewing their Risk Assessments and control measures to ensure they minimise risk to their employees.

 

It’s not hard to imagine that in a few months we will start seeing and hearing adverts for "Did you catch Coronavirus when you returned to work?". This is an inevitability! Certain law firms will be focusing on employment and safety issues that arise out of this period, so Claims Defensibility should also be a consideration.

 

If your employee contracts Coronavirus after they have returned to work and decides to make an Employers Liability claim, whilst they may struggle to prove cause, demonstrating negligence may not be as difficult.

   

This may be the case if risk assessments and records are inadequate or it cannot be demonstrated that the revised safety procedures and arrangements have been clearly communicated to employees.

One possible problem with returning to work is Legionnaires Disease. Please click here to read a few tips about how to prevent this.    

Safety Briefings, Ascend Risk's latest Health & Safety Management System feature is hugely relevant at this time.

 

From any Risk Assessment, Checklist, Method Statement or Safe Working Procedure, you will be able to record a time/date of a safety briefing directly into the employees training and have them sign that they have had the briefing.

 

What do Safety Briefings add:

• Improves the workplace training process, completing every stage at the time of the briefing.

• Enhances claims defensibility through documented employee engagement, reducing your risk of liability further down the line.

• Removes the need for paper records.

• In multi-site organisations, gain instant visibility to formal training needs, allowing you to quickly identify learning gaps in a central record.

 

If you have any questions regarding safety briefings then do not hesitate to contact us on 01245 449060 or visit AscendRisk to find out more.