Health And Safety Tricks To Keep Your Business Lawsuit-Proof

safety-training

We all want to protect the well-being of others. In business however, health and safety can have extra motivations. Injuring a client or employee could persuade them to file a lawsuit, which could damage your business’s reputation and have you forking out a lot of money to pay for reparations. On top of this, there’s a recent unfortunate culture of people feigning injury in order to make a claim. Protecting against all possible eventualities, no matter how obvious the danger may appear, can ensure that you don’t get sued, rightly or wrongly. Here are just a few tricks to ensure your health and safety measures are the best they can be.

Be excessive with signage

Having a sign up safeguards you against most accidents and lawsuits. There’s never a time when you can’t be too obvious – peanut packaging still has to state that it contains nuts just in case. Wet floor signs whilst mopping, ‘hot water’ signs in bathrooms, ‘mind your head’ signs above low doorframes and ‘caution hot’ signs on potentially hot food/drink are all examples of everyday signage.

Train up your staff in first aid

Law requires that there is always someone on shift with first aid training. Overcompensate by training everyone up. This way, you can pick and choose who is on shift and not have to worry about no-one being around to help if someone gets hurt. This is particularly useful in higher risk jobs such as construction or kitchen work.

simple ways small business owners can save money - safety sign

Oversupply safety equipment

An employee may sue for getting hurt on the job if there is no safety equipment available. Make sure you always have more than enough safety equipment. Employees don’t have to be legally obliged to wear it, but having it there always gives them the option – and eliminates the effectiveness of any claim they might make.

Think of the children

Every parent is very protective over their kids. If a child falls over in your premises or damages themselves using a piece of equipment that wasn’t safely stored away, they could sue you over it. Not every business is likely to deal with kids, however for those that do allow children, considering their health and safety is paramount. Consider playground surfacing options and the height of certain items that could pose a danger to a child. Securely store away any item that could pose a threat and create no-child zones where this is unavoidable.

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Hire a risk assessor

It’s possible to hire someone to assess your business for risks. This could identify dangers that you hadn’t even considered and ensure that there is no weakness in your business that someone could exploit.

Get Insured

Insurance schemes won’t prevent a lawsuit from happening, but could help pay for reparations if one occurs. It’s often impossible to safeguard against every possible threat, so having insurance can be a good backup. Employer’s liability insurance is compulsory and protects you against any claims from employees that may get injured or sick due to work. However, you can also take out schemes such as professional indemnity if any employee injures someone or product liability if a product is faulty and harms someone as an addition to employers liability insurance.

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About Dequiana Jackson

Dequiana Jackson, Founder of Inspired Marketing, Inc., helps overachieving women entrepreneurs conquer limiting beliefs and create marketing plans that grow their businesses. This includes one-on-one marketing plan development, digital product creation, web design and content marketing. Dequiana is the author of Know Your Business: How to Attract Ideal Clients & Sell More and runs the award-winning blog, Entrepreneur-Resources.net.

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