Dr Tok Hussain (Consultant Occupational Physician) from Healthwork Ltd writes a guest blog for us this week discussing the benefits of Occupational Health to employers. Occupational health (OH) is a service that many employers value in looking after their employees as well as managing health related and corporate risk. Occupational health is a specialist branch of medicine concerned with the effects of work on health and health on work. So, for example, an occupational health nurse or doctor might be carrying out hearing tests to ensure workers don’t develop deafness as a result of their work. The nurse or doctor might also be seeing someone who has had a heart attack or is suffering with anxiety and then advising about how that worker can safely return to work. Occupational health focuses on providing the best possible advice in relation to health and work. Occupational Health focuses on: maximising people’s opportunities to benefit from healthy and rewarding work while not putting themselves or others at risk of harm; the elimination of preventable illness caused or aggravated by work; advising about workplace health matters; helping to rehabilitate those who have suffered injury or sickness back into work; helping support those who because […]
Working out how to cope with COVID at work this winter isn’t easy because the data is conflicting. Are we going to have more deaths? More illness but fewer deaths? More flu and less COVID or more COVID and less flu? With more local lockdowns happening and more schools shutting temporarily one thing’s for sure, no one knows what is going to happen. If you’re planning how to cope with COVID at work this winter, we have some tips that might help. If you have 25% absenteeism, can you still operate? What about 50%? If nothing else, the last six months have shown us some new ways of dealing with a lack of people in the workplace. Some of these plans will still work as we approach winter, some won’t. Have you done as much as you can to cross-train people to carry out multiple roles? Test this cross training by rotating people now, rather than waiting for a crisis. Because you’ll find wrinkles in the process that need sorting out and this way you’ve got time. Are your IT systems up to the job? Can people easily access the information they need to do their job and the work […]
The Working Time Regulations set out how much people are allowed to work on average. According to the government website, gov.uk: ‘You can’t work more than 48 hours a week on average – normally averaged over 17 weeks.’ However, there are some exceptions to this, and employees can opt-out. In this article, we will look at what those exceptions are, what activities count towards working time, and how your employees can opt-out. Working Time Regulations This is sometimes called the Working Time Directive. They set out the maximum number of hours anyone can work. They also cover rest breaks and holiday accrual. Under 18s cannot work longer than 40 hours each week, or 8 hours in a day. Have a look at our article here on employing children for more information. Adult employees should not usually work more than 48 hours per week on average. Sometimes, staff will need to work more than 48 hours in a week, which is ok as long as it averages out to no more than 48. The weekly average should be calculated over 17 weeks. If your staff are working more than 48 hours a week on average, you will either need to ask […]
Metis HR specialises in HR matters but we are sometimes asked how to prepare for a Health and Safety Workplace Inspection. We believe that the best preparation is advanced planning, don’t wait until you get notification that the HSE are on their way. We’ve put together some step by step tips to get in place now so that you are better prepared. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail Ideally, your preparations should start long before the threat of an announced or unannounced inspection. Have you documented all the relevant risk assessments, and implemented the control measures, or at very least started the process of implementing? Do you have a named person in the organisation who has taken responsibility for health and safety matters? Have you told people? Are all of your health and safety policies and procedures properly documented and reviewed? Do you have records of when your employees were last trained? Do they need refresher training? Have you previously had an inspection that left you with things to do? Have you done them? Is machinery or equipment all in good working order with any safety guards fully operational? How do you escalate health and safety matters that are not […]
