Health and safety basics for business

If you have good health and safety practices, you will see six main business benefits.

Protect your staff

Effective health and safety practices help you protect your staff from injury. This may mean you are more likely to retain skilled and loyal employees by preventing:

• back pain and other musculoskeletal disorders - eg upper limb disorders - see safe manual handling at work and prevent repetitive strain injury at work
• injuries from slips and trips - see avoid slips and trips in the workplace
• falls from height - see work safely at height or in a confined space
• accidents involving vehicles at work - see transport  safety in the workplace
• aches, pains and strain from using display screen equipment - see computer health and safety at work

Looking after your employees' health will mean that your staff are less likely to suffer from:

• the effects of noise and vibration
• asthma - see manage risks from substances which can trigger allergies or asthma
• work-related skin disease
• asbestos-related illness - see occupational health risks

Reduce absences and sick leave

Another benefit of good health and safety measures at work is that employees are less likely to take sick leave. This saves the business the direct and indirect costs of staff absence.

Retain staff

If you reduce staff absence due to illness or accidents at work, you will save the time and costs of recruiting and training a new member of staff.

Reputation

Good health and safety measures will help you to build a positive reputation with your clients and staff and their friends and associates. The resulting good public relations could help to increase sales and generate more leads.

Productivity and profits

Good health and safety measures mean that your staff can do their work more easily and safely. This will boost morale, increase productivity and reduce costs.

Save insurance and legal costs

A good standard of health and safety in the workplace can reduce your insurance premiums, as well as the costs of accidents that aren't covered by your insurance, such as sick pay, production delays or repairs to plant or equipment. Uninsured costs can be greater than insured costs, and they have to be paid out of your business' income.