Workplace health and safety is all about sensibly managing the risks to protect your workers and your business. Good health and safety management is characterised by strong leadership and involving everyone, from the top down - managers, workers suppliers, contractors and customers.

The benefits most widely discussed are that health and safety protects people, but often health and safety is seen as a burden to business. Too much paperwork, too many laws, the red tape and the headaches!

It doesn’t need to be viewed that way. Growing a positive health and safety culture is just one of the benefits of managing health and safety successfully.

Why is health and safety important?

It’s good to know the benefits, so we’ve listed 10 reasons why health and safety is important.

It makes good business sense to:

1. Boost staff morale and productivity - a safer workplace is a happier workplace. This can lead to improved staff turnover rates.
2. Reduce risk and lessens the likelihood of incidents. Less paperwork and fewer staff absences.
3. Reducing downtime caused by illness and accidents means less disruption and saves your business money.
4. Avoid repetitional damage and lowers insurance costs.
5. You legally obliged to comply with health and safety law. Legal breached can result in fines, prosecution and even imprisonment of senior execs.
6. A good health and safety record is a source if competitive advantage, it builds trust in your reputation and brand.
7. It attracts investors and partnerships as you may need to demonstrate your commitment to health and safety.
8. Makes you feel good. Thinking about people you have helped by providing a jobs and safe place to work. You have put a lot of time and effort into this!
9. Saves you money. Health and safety should be seen as an investment, reduces incidents and staff leaving, saving the cost of recruiting and training up a new employee.
10. More and more job hunters seek roles with employers who share their values, so a strong corporate image may start or retain the best employees.

Focusing on health and safety will save you money in the long run...

Rather than being an expense, health and safety procedures should be considered as an investment as the results are just as important as any other measurable business objective.

Check out our range of Health and Safety documents here.