Health & safety at work: What are your employees’ responsibilities?

As a small business owner, you’ll know that health and safety is incredibly important.

Being complacent about these issues can be an expensive mistake. In fact, a report from the Health and Safety Executive says that the cost of injuries and ill health from current working conditions was estimated at a staggering £21.6 billion. The impact of work-related illness and injury resulted in 33.7 million lost working days.

With that in mind, it’s important to know who’s responsible for what, when it comes to upholding health and safety measures in the workplace. For this, it's helpful to turn to health and safety legislation.

According to The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 it's mostly the employer's responsibility to make sure everyone is safe. This includes anyone on-site, whether that's employees, visitors or the general public.

But it's not just employers who have responsibilities. In fact, there are a number of health and safety requirements that employees also need to be aware of. These include:

• Taking reasonable care of their own health and safety

• Co-operating with you (their employer) and following instructions

• Not putting others in danger

• Report any hazards, illnesses or injuries

Now, let's break this down into more detail and look at exactly what your employees need to be doing to protect the health and safety of themselves and those around them.

What are employees' health & safety responsibilities?

1. Taking reasonable care 

Your employees need to actively take care of their own occupational health and safety and avoid doing anything that could compromise it. There's no 'one-size-fits-all' solution for what this looks like – it heavily depends on your workplace and the everyday hazards that come with it.

Here are some examples of personal health and safety responsibilities for different job roles:

• Office administrator: Take extra care with electrical equipment and make sure the employee sits correctly at their desk to avoid back problems. 
• Construction worker: Wearing personal protective equipment and clothing to minimise the risk of injury. 
• Warehouse operative: Ensure walkways and storage areas are kept clear of obstructions to prevent trips, slips and falls. Use correct lifting techniques and equipment to avoid injuries. 

Ultimately, these details will be specific to your organisation and industry, so it's important to think carefully about how this impacts your own employees. The best way to do this is through a workplace risk assessment, in which you identify potential risks and plan a rigorous set of mitigation measures and policies to combat them.

2. Co-operating with their employer

Employees are also required to follow any health and safety arrangements and instructions you provide – and stick to them.

This involves undergoing any training that you send their way and making sure it's done properly, as well as following any rules and regulations that you put in place for the company. This particularly includes any control measures you identify in the risk assessment.

For example, if your in-house health and safety policy requires anyone with hair below shoulder length to tie it up, then it's your employees' responsibility to make sure they do so. The same goes for removing jewellery and ensuring that all protective clothing is worn.

3. Not putting others in danger

While your employees need to be looking after their own health and safety in the workplace, they also need to make sure they're not putting anyone else in danger either. This could include:

• Properly storing equipment
• Cleaning up spills and hazardous substances immediately
• Following safety procedures 
• Operating machinery safely

To fulfil this responsibility, employees need to use what they've learned during their training – and never deviate from it. Getting this wrong can have nasty consequences.

4. Speaking up if something is wrong

Employees have a responsibility to let you know of any dangers they come across in the workplace so that you can deal with them, such as:

• Seeing a loose wire in a plug socket next to their desk
• Wet floors, uneven surfaces or cluttered corridors 
• Protective equipment not being worn around machinery 

If an employee sees these issues and fails to report them, they could very easily be at fault. But for that to be the case, you need to have first given them clear guidance for what good health and safety practices at work involve.

However, employees aren't just responsible for reporting workplace-related issues. If something happens that may affect their ability to work, they also need to make you aware. This could be physical or mental illness, injury or pregnancy. Regardless, the responsibility lies with the member of staff to inform you so that you're able to make the reasonable adjustments they need or provide them with time off.

Support the wellbeing of your team

While health and safety laws generally rest on the employer, that doesn't mean workers are off the hook. For employers, it's important to set clear rules, measures and policies for your employees to follow. But as far as the government guidance is concerned, it's the employee's job to follow the rules once they've been set out.

That's why adequate training is so important. If you can demonstrate that you've done your own due diligence and given employees clear safety measures to follow, there's a good chance you'll be safe if any issue makes it to a tribunal.

At Breathe, our employee training software features a range of courses on essential topics, including health and safety at work. Check out the full module to find out more.