Now that the whole world has been battling the dangerous COVID-19 respiratory virus for months, providing a safe and healthy work environment has become the top priority. Numerous businesses struggling due to the adverse consequences of the Coronavirus lockdown were forced to let go of entire health and safety teams to cut costs. As a result, most of these companies turned to third-party occupational health and safety companies to help them devise and implement effective safety policies.
Occupational health and safety businesses have boomed recently, with hundreds of different compliance and consulting health and safety companies appearing on the market. For those in need of professional workplace health and safety guidance, the crucial question is how to recognize and choose a top-quality health and safety company. Bear in mind that occupational safety specialists will be in charge of creating and implementing safety measures and policies, as well as providing frequent staff training and assessing potential safety risks. Also, the safety and protection of your employees will depend on the advice and guidelines this health and safety company offers, so you need to choose carefully and wisely.
This article will help you make this crucial decision and hire the best health and safety consulting company to improve employee health and wellness and potentially save lives. First of all, we will show you what to expect from a high-quality safety consultant. Secondly, we will point out what important factors to focus on while choosing a reliable partner in ensuring a safe and healthy work environment.
1. Choose a Safety Company That Offers a Wide Range of Services
We live in a fast-paced business world where companies look for solution-oriented safety consultants. These health and safety professionals are expected to provide a wide range of different services and act as their health and safety team. Every reputable safety consulting company should offer the following services.
- Accident Prevention
These consultants need to offer practical solutions for preventing workplace accidents. This service includes teaching management on how to successfully communicate safety policies and expectations and providing adequate safety training.
- Hazard Detection
This is an essential service of implementing a hazard detection program that includes work practices monitoring and frequent inspection and assessments of potential safety risks.
- Health and Safety Training
Providing safety training that involves all employees plays a crucial role in introducing new safety policies and effectively enforcing a safety program. In this way, employees will see what desirable behavior models are first-hand, and why it is important to accept them.
- Safety Leadership Promotion
Safety leadership is based on motivating employees to embrace specific safety policies by being role models and practicing desired safety behaviors daily. The promotion of safety leadership is a significant step towards creating a sustainable and long-lasting safety culture.
- Risk Management
This safety consultant service offers identification, assessment, and prioritization of the existing safety risks.
2. The Best Safety Company Should Provide Safety Compliance Assistance
You need to create a safety policy that is in compliance with set Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards. Only by providing standardized safety measures, you can expect workers to perform better and be more productive. OSHA is a compliance organization in charge of setting safety standards for various industries and monitoring whether businesses apply compliant safety policies.
Some of the general OSHA safety standards include:
- Fall protection standards
- Confined Spaces standards
- Stairs and Ladders standards
- Fire Protection standards
- Personal Protective Equipment standards
Reputable health and safety companies will provide you with useful advice and guidance to create a safety policy that will be in compliance with these set standards. In this way, you will ensure that your employees work in a safe and protected environment.
3. Top Safety Consultants Implement Safety Policies to Reduce Sick Leave
These safety companies will provide you with useful advice and measures to reduce work-related injuries and illnesses. These measures will directly reduce sick and disability leave rates, leading to increased productivity. By conducting risk assessments and management measures, safety consultants will eliminate potentially harmful safety hazards that can cause dangerous incidents. This will save your company from paying increased insurance premiums due to injured employees and covering other expenses caused by the devastating safety incidents.
4. They Will Build Up Company’s Reputation
Successful health and safety companies care about their clients’ reputation because this also affects their reputation. Therefore, they will do their best to provide you with invaluable professional guidance to create a hazard-free working environment.
They can help you create a successful Voluntary Protective Program that will set you apart from the competition. VPP is the OSHA initiative that allows companies to devise a safety culture based on workplace risk assessment, safety and health training, and efficient collaboration between the company’s management and workers.
The safety consultants you hire will help you create a compelling and sustainable Voluntary Protective Program that will protect workers from safety hazards and ensure you a star certificate. This will contribute to your business’s reputation and attract numerous clients because people love working with companies that put workers’ safety first.
These are some of the essential features of the best health and safety companies. Besides this, you need to focus on some vital factors that determine safety consultants’ quality. Here is a shortlist of the main things you need to check before hiring health and safety company:
- Choose accredited and certified safety companies with years of “real life” experience
Many organizations and programs offer credentials and certificates to numerous safety consultants that appear on the market. However, various certificates need to be backed up with experience in tackling serious safety issues. Try to find a health and safety company that combines professional education on various safety topics with years of “real life” working experience.
- Credentials provided by Professional Organizations
You should always check the validity of various credentials and memberships the safety consultant offers as evidence of their credibility and professionalism. There are reputable organizations, like the Board of Certified Safety Professionals, that provide relevant credentials to health and safety consultants. On the other hand, an array of organizations will issue various health and safety certificates to all who are willing to pay. For this reason, feel free to question someone’s credentials and professional organization memberships.
- Check out their work history
If you need to hire a health and safety company to tackle a single workplace issue, make sure they have experience in handling similar matters. You can conduct an extensive check without focusing only on similar safety problems in your industry. Experienced safety consultants are able to transfer their knowledge and skills to various lines of business to devise practical solutions to specific safety hazards.
Also, make sure that safety consultants approach their projects professionally. They should be able to provide a reasonable assessment of a safety problem and offer feasible and logical solutions.
- Research previous clients’ references
When hiring a safety consultant to provide a protected and healthy work environment, conduct thorough research of their previous clients. Check whether they have been working with well-established businesses. Do not hesitate to ask for other clients’ contacts to hear their impressions first-hand. Top-quality safety consultants create long-lasting relationships with their clients and have nothing to hide.
- The best health and safety companies are problem solvers
An array of safety consultants will “guarantee” a successful resolution of your workplace safety situation. However, never take this for granted. Try to find out whether the health and safety company you intend to hire understands your problem.
Communication between a business owner and a safety service provider can be key in finding a sustainable solution for a safety problem. Therefore, choose consultants who are ready to listen and explain their working plan in plain and understandable language. Only this way, you can be sure that the safety consultant will treat your safety problem as a specific case that requires special attention and commitment.
Final Words
This article highlights the desirable features to using health and safety companies. Furthermore, it focuses on essential factors that determine the level of quality they provide. You can apply these useful tips on implementing a safety and health program and choose the best consultant to tackle your safety issues. For more information on health and safety compliance, leadership, risk management, staffing, and training laws and regulations, let’s talk. Contact us by emailing larry@safety4employers.com, or call Larry at 775-843-8318.
