Keeping Safety and Health Simple – ‘So What?’

Businesses of all sizes have varying obligations around keeping themselves and their staff, customers and supply chain safe. But what does that really mean in simple terms?

Managing health and safety is something that, over the fourteen years I’ve had in the trade, is best kept simple and proportionate.

I have worked in organisations and businesses where the systems in place have, for various reasons, been over cumbersome, overly complex, disproportionate to the business or plainly put – Irrelevant to what the business does.

Now, does this really matter? I would say absolutely it does. If any of the above rings true of your business or is within your sphere of control I would simply ask “what value is it adding to you or your business?”.

I am a big believer in putting things to the ‘So What’ test. The ‘so what’ test has been good to me when I am looking at system issues such as those discussed above and identifying the ‘so what’ helps to pin-point the ‘why’. Once you have circled around the ‘why’ of the system we begin to identify the reasoning behind it’s existence and apply the system in the spirit in which it was intended.

Lets look at an example;

Company ABC started with 2 personnel. They grew over the years to a small business of 10 people. Since growing to a size greater than 5 people the business has an obligation to formalise their health and safety arrangements (policies, risk assessments etc…). Company ABC use some of the free resources on the HSE website and pretty soon they have some basic policies and risk assessments – Great!

Company ABC expands into new markets, requiring some different skill sets and procures the services of a consultant (XYZ Safety) to ‘sort this compliance stuff out, we don’t want to get sued’ [Ed. I do cringe when I hear that sort of thing]. Company ABC now have a shiny new policy, a few more risk assessments and so forth. Business is booming and Company ABC have the opportunity to buy a smaller business, LMN Engineering. They do so and are faced with a new business with it’s own systems and processes. LMN Engineering used a similar safety consultant (123 Compliance) and have a vastly different set of policies and procedures, vastly disproportionate to their size however they believed they would just ‘grow into them’ – Not the other way around…..

So, we are faced with one business with two sets of arrangements varying in quality, consistency, content and proportionality. What is this bringing to the table? Is it, coining a corporate buzz phrase, making the boat row faster?

So what? Our example company have a management system they are working with that potentially adds little value to them or is inefficient versus what it could be doing for them – So what?

• It may not be suitable and sufficient.
• It may not meet the legal obligations of the business
• It may create additional work that someone has to complete or maintain that could otherwise be streamlined.
• It may not meet the requirements of supply chain accreditations or recognized standards resulting in a potential loss in new custom.
• It may not be providing the tools and instructions to the people within the business that should be following it to work safely and efficiently.

So what? Do the above characteristics, such as, unsuitable, insufficient, inefficient, non-compliant or missed sales opportunities, sound like characteristics you would like in your business? – I know I wouldn’t.

ABC Company, XYZ Safety, LMN Engineering and 123 Compliance are all fictitious companies however, do any parts of the example explained above resonate with you or have you seen elements of this in your experiences? We would love to hear your thoughts on this or share any previous experiences you may of had so we can continue the discussion further.

At Serene Safety we offer a retained services offering – What does this mean?

We don’t just work with our clients, we partner with them to make sure they can be the best they can be at what they do best. Our retainer service provides our clients with a named competent person to meet their obligations under the Management of Health and Safety Regulations, regulation 7. Our scalable packages start from a simple set-up fee and monthly subscription of £70 per month, rising based on the size and complexity of the client.

One of our values is ‘being simple to do business’ with and we do this with our retained services by:

• Providing flexible payment options through monthly or annual subscriptions.
• Security through our 12-month rolling agreements.
• A 15% discount on packages purchased up front
• 30-Day payment terms to qualifying clients
• Arranging site visits in advance at a time convenient to the client
• Communicating with our clients by whatever means necessary – Face-to-face, Teams, Zoom, telephone, SMS, Whats App, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc…

Our ”off-the-shelf’ packages can suit most organisations however we also have the option to mix and match certain elements across our 5 tier packages.

Get in touch with us to discuss these options or arrange a no obligation health check on your business.

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