Legal Responsibilities To My Employees
At SRM, we firmly believe that with the right guidance and knowledge any work environment can be safe and free from harm. The Occupational Health and Safety Act and Regulations speak at length about the legal responsibilities of the employer to their employees. No CEO or Managing Director of any company wishes harm to their employees, but accidents do happen. Lack of knowledge is why we get asked “What are my legal responsibilities to my employees?”
THE LAW
8. General duties of employers to their employees
(1) Every employer shall provide and maintain, as far as is reasonably practicable, a working environment that is safe and without risk to the health of his employees.
(2) Without derogating from the generality of an employer’s duty under subsection (1), the matters to which those duties refers include in particular –
(a) the provisions and maintenance of systems of work, plant and machinery that as far as is reasonably practicable, safe and without risks to health
(b) taking such steps as may be reasonably practicable to eliminate or mitigate any hazard or potential hazard to the safety or health of employees, before resorting to personal protective equipment;
(c) making arrangements for ensuring, as far as is reasonably practicable, the safety and absence of risks to health in connection with the production, processing, use, handling, storage or transport of articles or substances;
In Layman terms this is probably the most important set of legislation that we work with, we are employed by most clients to ensure that the duties of the employer are complied with, in order to aid in the prevention of injury and ill-health.
(1) Essential element of this section is the duty imposed on the employer to PROVIDE & MAINTAIN a working environment that is safe and without risk (as far as is reasonably practicable).
(2) They further impact the obligation raised in section one and break it down into various different ways that would be required to demonstrate compliance to Section 8. (1) i.e. you will be able to provide and maintain a safe working environment if you 2 (a) ensure a safe system of work for your plant and machinery. Basically what they are saying here (and it’s one of the few indicators that points to the requirement for an
OHS Management System) is that they want you to implement a system that will ensure that your plant and equipment are provided and maintained in safe working order. This has resulted in all the checklists and tests that need to be done on plant & equipment from time to time, examples of this would be a daily forklift inspection (not required by law but has been developed to ensure that on a daily basis you assess the suitability of equipment for use and maintain breakages i.e. a broken reverse light where necessary. This is just one of many examples.
2(b) Is a great point in which the legislator highlights the fact that the employer needs to consider the hierarchy on controls (eliminate; substitute; engineering; admin) before resorting to P.P.E in order to address risk. An example of this is noise, the employer needs to try to eliminate and engineer the reduction of noise before issuing P.P.E (earplugs or earmuffs).
2(c ) This point has to be one of my personal favourites and one of the least complied within the industry. The legislator is highlighting the fact that you need to assess and mitigate against the hazards created by substances (any solid, liquid, vapours, gas or aerosol, or combination thereof) through the various processes of handling, storage, use and disposal. This should result in a comprehensive substance risk assessment throughout the organisation. When they say substance it means each one individually i.e. hydrochloride acid and not acids in general. I state this point too often to clients will state on the risk assessment – Chemicals as a risk where its impossible to say that one chemicals hazards and risks are the same as another, especially in various different forms, concentrations and uses.
A key term to consider at this stage is: “reasonably practicable” means practicable having regard to –
(a) the severity and scope of the hazard or risk concerned;
(b) the state of knowledge reasonably available concerning the hazard or risk and of any means of removing or mitigating the hazard or risk;
(c) the availability and suitability of means to remove or mitigate the hazard or risk; and
(d) the cost of removing or mitigating the hazard or risk in relation to the benefits deriving therefrom;
THE EVIDENCE
- An Occupational Health & Safety Management System with procedures and checklists etc, to illustrate the provision and maintenance of a safe working environment, plant & equipment.
- Risk assessment for the organisation in which we demonstrate what controls have been implemented to mitigate hazards before resorting to P.P.E
- 2(c) would be read with the Hazardous Chemical Substances Regulations, Lead, and Asbestos etc. I would recommend a comprehensive list of all substances, which links to a risk assessment indicating the individual substances, forms, use, exposure (people, time etc) and the controls as per 2(b) above that have been implemented to reduce risk before resorting to P.P.E.
Use SHEQ Software
SRM and many of our clients use Mango Compliance Software – Mango makes it easier to get ISO 9001:2015 certification. By using a SHEQ software system, it will make it easier to implement Evidence-Based Decision-Making processes. Additionally, all quality data can be input into Mango and extracted in various reports and graphs.
