Consider health and safety consultants for COSHH assessment

When it comes to the legal obligations of your business it is always necessary to take these seriously. It is not worth risking the future of the company on a failure to adhere to current regulations in the workplace. This is why it can be prudent to speak to the risk advisor specialists about COSHH and how it applies to you.

There is certainly help available to you in the realm of workplace risk management and you can get incredibly good value from these services which allow you to optimise the Health and Safety Executive requirements within the organisation.

The wellbeing of workers is of paramount importance to any company and so experienced health and safety consultants can look at any business environment and provide solutions to the issues faced by the firm and the management of its key processes.

By enlisting the services of health and safety consultants you can take control of your legislative responsibilities and effectively streamline the management of the business environment.

This can be done by looking at all areas of the business and, by carrying out risk assessments, the costs saved can be enormous as the price for failing to comply with regulations can be unthinkable for any business. The performance of your staff can be improved considerably through safety training, stress management and a workplace where all risks have been considered and reduced.

First let's shoot the elf!

Read our article on helping small firms understand that health and safety is not just about compliance, but business success and a moral imperative.

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Reviewing UK Health & Safety Law

I am watching with interest the debate generated following the appointment by David Cameron of Lord Young of Graffham, the former trade and industry secretary, to investigate concerns about how health and safety laws are applied and the development of the compensation culture in the UK over the last 10 years.

The review, as I understand, will primarily investigate concerns over the 'application and perception' of health and safety legislation and its connections (if any) with the increasing 'compensation culture' in the United Kingdom, during the last decade.

Many of the daily national newspapers are running editorials on the subject and unsurprisingly have had great glee it would seem in publishing the ‘urban myth’ health and safety stories that we have become all too familiar with such as the trainee hairdressers not allowed to practice with scissors or the school children having to wear safety goggles when playing conkers!

Whilst it seems that we have many, many health and safety laws, quite often in my experience it is how they are being interpreted and put into action, often by over cautious employers, ever fearful of being sued. This undoubtedly has had a negative affect on the ‘minds of the British public’.

A review of health and safety law should not come at the expense of maintaining basic standards and I do not expect the outcome of Lord Young’s review to lower our standards in the UK. Hopefully the review will address the issue that these laws are primarily there to protect people and not pave the way for costly litigation even when the claims are of a spurious nature.

Tim Meese, Head of Global Consulting

Sypol says goodbye to Bill

Last Friday we said goodbye to Bill Holmes, one of our long standing health and safety consultants, who has been with us since 2001 and has finally decided its time to start his long deserved retirement.

Bill started as a Health and Safety Advisor, and worked his way up through the Safety Team to become Director of UK Regions, managing the Sypol consultancy offices in Scotland and Northern Ireland. He then became Director of Safety, responsible for the provision of EHS consultancy services in UK and Europe, before spending his last two years with us as a Principal Consultant supporting two major accounts for on-site support, auditing and inspections and the provision of services for Liberty Mutual client Seagate Technology Inc in Northern Ireland.

Bill said "I feel so fortunate to have worked at Sypol and all the wonderful people associated with the business. I will miss the camaraderie and friendship but I will however try to the best of my endeavours to make good use of my time."

Bill was presented with golf vouchers and will be spending some of them on a golf driver he has had his eye on.

We wish him all the best in his retirement and thank him for all his outstanding work over the years.

Web training - the ultimate challenge

I am now well advanced in the development of a comprehensive ‘traditional’ training package to an international and diverse workforce. Having grappled with the practical challenges of delivering such training I am now faced with another challenge – WebEx training for international delegates!

Having been on the receiving end of such training myself in the past and taken part in many conference calls where WebEx has been used, I see some challenges to delivering training successfully in this way. Those of us who have taken part in conference calls with a relatively large number of participants know only too well the ‘tell tale’ signs that somebody is not paying full attention! The sounds of computer keyboard, background conversations or even snoring do not give the facilitator much confidence that the message is being adequately received.

Technical issues aside, how to deliver health and safety training via WebEx that can be verified is an important issue for my customer. So far, we are discussing introducing a number of questions or slides into the presentation that can be put over to the delegates in order to solicit a response (and make sure they are there!) and prompt discussion. We will also issue a multi-choice questionnaire following the training which must be completed successfully in order for them to be signed off as completing the training.

A benefit of this approach is hopefully it will make them pay attention during the training session, but even if they do not they will have to go back through the presentation in order to source the correct answers. Issuing delegates with different questions will also prevent any collusion and somebody gaining accreditation without the right effort!

Tim Meese, Head of Global Consulting

Congratulations to RBG Kew

RBG Kew is celebrating winning one of the prestigious RoSPA Occupational Health and Safety Awards 2010. The Silver Award was presented at a ceremony at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel at the National Exhibition Centre on Thursday May 13th.

Sypol assist Kew in ensuring excellent occupational health and safety for staff as well as for visitors to all of their sites. Pat Hatton is a consultant for our Safety Team, and is on the far left of the picture.

The RoSPA Award scheme is not only about reducing the number of accidents and cases of ill-health at work; it also encourages organisations to develop robust Health and Safety Management systems.

David Rawlins, RoSPA’s awards manager, said “The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew has shown a commitment to protect the health and well-being of its employees and others. Organisations which do this deserve to have such dedication recognised and that’s where the RoSPA Awards come in”.

“As well as there being clear ethical reasons and legal requirements for good health and safety management, there is also a strong business case. RoSPA is delighted to publicly honour organisations which have demonstrated their work to improve performance in this sphere.”

Tracey Lea, Kew’s Health and Safety and Sustainability Manager, said “This Award is the culmination of three years hard work, both at Kew and at Wakehurst Place, by a lot of people from across the business and we should all feel rightly proud of the achievement. This award represents a solid foundation from which we can build and the challenge now is to not only maintain current standards but to continuously improve.”

International Safety Training

Things have taken an interesting turn in the last few weeks. Talking with a number of customers they have expressed a need for help with developing and delivering health and safety training to their international and diverse workforces.

“What can be so difficult?” the customer asks.

Having developed international training schools for multi national delegates before, I am aware of the amount of development and preparation time needed to successfully pull this off!

Technical content aside, adequately catering for different cultures, language skills, travel arrangements and general level of comfort for delegates who are away from home and outside of their normal country environment should not be under estimated if you wish to maximise the learning opportunity. Indeed, having spoken with colleagues and contacts who have undertaken such exercises in the past only confirms my own experiences.

One of our customers wishes to develop and roll out training in the Asia Pacific region. As an example of how different cultures may impact upon training I remind myself of the following example:

• Any questions?
  In the UK, if you were explaining something or asking somebody to do something, you would expect that person to ask a question if there was something they didn’t understand. Certainly, you would expect them to respond if you asked if they had any questions. This is not always the case. Some people you encounter may even think it rude to ask a question. Therefore, you may find that a lack of questions does not necessarily mean that something has been understood.

The trick is to be fully prepared but be flexible enough to cater for the unexpected!