Health and Safety: Help Build the Right Foundations
Construction work requires some of the most stringent safety and health regulations because it is very easy to be injured while on the job. In order to understand the critical nature of proper safety practices, consider the following analogy. Think of how a building is constructed and what could happen if the wrong foundation is laid. If one is using concrete to build a structure, this foundation has to hold up to the weight of the building, the workers, and any equipment kept in the building. A foundation made of inferior concrete could collapse.
When discussing the foundations of health and safety at work, you should use the same principle as in building construction. Managers have to provide a solid foundation about health and safety training in order to create a strong “building.” A company that offers the proper training gives their workers the foundation they need to check their health and safety measures. It also gives them the power to ensure other workers around them are utilising correct safety measures. A company that fails to provide proper training could leave them open to accidents, deaths, and injuries. It may be one person that fails in adhering to these policies, but it could be related to the foundations they were given when they started. Some of the recent court cases the HSE has prosecuted provide us with how serious this issue is. Councils and other businesses that have pleaded guilty did so in these cases because they did not offer the proper foundation to safety and health.
