Assessing the risk in your workplace – Is it COVID SECURE?
From 1 June 2020, many workplaces will have welcomed their employees back to work. There will be many workplaces still waiting to re-open their doors to their employees. As an employer, you will have to provide a safe workplace and ensure you have assessed the risk within the workplace, looking at all risks and mitigating these risks by the social distancing guidelines.
The message is to your employees ‘if your workplace is open, you are encouraged to go back to work’.
If your business is within the specific work settings detailed below, as a starting point, the government has introduce guidance to help you assess the risk within your workplace GOV.UK :
- Construction and other outdoor work
- Factories, plants and warehouses
- Homes
- Labs and research facilities
- Offices and contact centres
- Restaurants offering takeaway or delivery
- Shops and branches
- Vehicles
- Car showrooms/ garages
When assessing the risk, consult your ideas with others, refer to your appointed health and safety representative, if you do not have one, we can help and support you with our COVID-19 Risk Assessment Package.
This can include either one or all of the following:
- Developing a tailored COVID Risk Assessment to meet your workplace requirements
- Deliver COVID Tool-box talks to your employees so they fully understand their roles and responsibilities within the workplace
- Carry out a follow up COVID Workplace Inspection to see if the safety measures are working, if not, we are here to help to tackle the problematic issues to get your place of work safe
- Deliver COVID Awareness training which looks at how to get back to work safely, keeping safe social distances and using Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in the workplace
We have open COVID Awareness courses running at our training centres please contact us for dates and availability on 08000 842 297. The course is for 2 -3 hours, if you are an Oswestry BID Levy Payer, this course is FREE on selected dates. The course can be delivered at your premises, please get in touch with your enquiry.
Once you have implemented your risk assessment you should share the results of your risk assessment with your employees. If possible, you should consider publishing the results on your website (and the government expects all employers with over 50 workers to do so). Employers with less than 5 employees do not have to have anything in writing, however it is good practice to have the risk assessment discussions documented.
You will need to print and display in your workplace to show and declare you have followed the guidance at GOV.UK.
Remember it is the duty of the employer to protect its employees and the responsibility of the employer to ensure risk assessments are carried out within the workplace to provide protection to those employees returning to work. Employees need to feel reassured and safe when at work and when returning to work.
As always, we are here to help and support you, take advantage of the COVID-19 Risk Assessment Package, contact us on 08000 842 297, or simply fill out our contact form with your enquiry.
BACK TO WORK | ASSESS THE RISK | KEEP WORKERS SAFE