A comprehensive health and safety policy is a must for every organization, large or small, as it affirms the organization’s legal responsibilities when it comes to ensuring the safety of everyone in your workplace.
Health and safety policies are comprehensive documents, covering plenty of topics, including what risks are present in the workplace, how to work safely in respect of these risks, training needs, and who’s responsible for what.
This article will guide you through writing a health and safety policy that’s fully fit for purpose. It covers why a health and safety policy is important, what should it include, and how to put one together.
What is a health and safety policy?
Health and safety policies are formal documents outlining an organization’s commitments to safe working practices. They act as guidelines and procedures, thus being an effective way to minimize accidents at work, creating a culture of safety and security, and ensuring legal compliance.
Health and safety policies cover many things but essentially define safe working in a particular organization, confirm who is responsible for what, and the procedures and processes that must be followed. They can also be used as a training document for all employees to use, and link to other supporting information such as risk assessment templates or accident reporting forms.
Why do you need one?
Having a health and safety policy is an essential operational standard that benefits the organization, its employees, the managers, and other stakeholders such as customers and suppliers. Here are three of the main benefits it brings:
It drives employee morale
A health and safety policy is an important part of a healthy organizational culture. It affirms an organization’s care for its people.
The safe work practices it drives creates motivation, trust, retention, high engagement and employee satisfaction. Productivity and efficiency measures are also increased through a reduction in time off work due to injury or illness.
It fosters compliance
Health and safety policies ensure a consistent approach to all risks in the workplace, thus minimizing injuries and illnesses through this standardized approach. The policy also ensures that the organization remains compliant with all legal and regulatory health and safety obligations.
It reduces risk
Health and safety policies are focused on workplace risks specific to your organization, identifying what they are and how they can be managed. The policy acts as a proactive document aimed at avoiding and minimizing accidents and illnesses occurring because of these risks.
What should it include?
Health and safety policies should be created to reflect the needs of your business; with this said, they should include various categories of information. Here are the most important inclusions in any health and safety policy:
1. Occupational health and safety
Every health and safety policy must outline the organization’s commitment to fostering a legal and safe working environment. This is called occupational health and safety (or OHS, for short) and refers to programs that can include risk assessments and a commitment to comply with all legal and regulatory requirements.
Confirming these obligations and what steps the company takes to honor them is a vital aspect of every health and safety policy.
2. PPE use
Health and safety policies must outline employees’ and the organization’s obligations regarding personal protective equipment.
Employers have to provide it to protect employees against contaminants, chemicals and physical injuries, and replace it when it’s damaged or missing. Employees are legally obligated to use it when it’s provided. Training on PPE will also be covered in the policy.
3. First aid
Ensuring the immediate care of an injured or ill person at work is a fundamental aspect of workplace health and safety. First aid ensures emergency preparedness and stops small accidents or situations from becoming larger ones.
In a health and safety policy, information will be given about the location of first aid kits, who the first aiders are, and how to respond in the event of a situation requiring first aid.
4. Chemical handling
Chemical handling is essential in all roles, not just ones where using chemicals is frequent.
Health and safety policies will communicate to employees the organization’s chemical handling procedures, such as the correct PPE to use, using safety data sheets, labeling, storage, and training. It will also cover the risks of improper chemical handling, including injuries and legal non-compliance.
5. Hygiene
Health and safety policies will outline the organization’s commitment to good hygiene, vital for reducing the risk of illnesses and improving health and productivity.
The policy will include standards regarding cleaning and disinfection, waste disposal, and promoting personal hygiene among employees. It will also offer guidance on how to maintain personal hygiene at work.
6. Personal safety
Health and safety policies will outline how personal safety is the responsibility of every employee, as well as the employer. It will cover employees’ obligations to attend health and safety training, use PPE, and encourage a proactive and careful attitude towards risks at work.
The policy will also share how to report risks and unsafe practices for the benefit of those around you.
7. Responsibilities
Every health and safety policy must outline who is responsible for what when it comes to health and safety practices. This will include who conducts risk assessments, how incidents are reported, and how training is run.
This is essential to demonstrate accountability and for establishing a proactive culture of health and safety at work.
8. Emergency procedures
This section outlines plans and actions to be taken if there is an emergency at work, sometimes referred to as a crisis management plan. Topics will include evacuation drills, emergency contact information, roles and responsibilities, media handling, and the training needed.
The purpose of this is to ensure well-ordered evacuations and to minimize panic and confusion.
9. Hazard identification
Hazard identification is the process of recognizing potential sources of harm at work. This section of the health and safety policy will include how to spot hazards, how to respond to them, associated risk assessments, and how to control them.
Identifying hazards ensures a proactive approach to health and safety, and communicates to everyone the different types of hazards to look out for at work.
10. Investigation of incidents
Incident investigation processes need to be added to health and safety policies, as this contributes to legal safeguarding, learning from past situations, and ensuring continuous improvement in workplace safety. The policy will include how incident data is collected and used, how to appropriately report incidents, and how to correctly categorize them.
11. Protection of employees
Protection of employees is essential to sustainable business operations and, therefore, a critical objective of any health and safety policy.
This section will cover many aspects touched upon in other sections, such as using PPE, reporting hazards and ensuring safe working conditions. It might also cover wellbeing programs and mental health or stress management techniques.
12. Machinery safety
This section of the health and safety policy will describe the different types of machinery used in the organization, and how to correctly use them, as well as what training and PPE is needed to do so.
Ensuring the correct use of machinery is critical to ensure people look after themselves and others, and is also a fundamental part of minimizing legal liability in the event of an accident.
13. Training procedures
This section of the health and safety policy equips employees with the knowledge and skills needed to be safe at work. It will cover emergency procedures, hazard spotting, correct use of tools and machinery, and how to use PPE.
Employees will be required to sign off all training they receive and will be prohibited from undertaking work until this training has been carried out by a designated manager or e-learning program.
14. Risk assessments
Risk assessments are structured documents that focus on one specific risk each, covering how to identify, evaluate and mitigate each one. These are vital for inclusion in a health and safety policy, as they are central to occupational health and safety standards and, therefore, important for providing a legal and safe working environment.
15. Reporting procedures
Health and safety policies must communicate reporting procedures, as this supports good health and safety practice, helps to identify trends, and allows employers to understand what needs to be focused on in terms of risk areas.
In this section, reporting channels will be communicated, and the process on how to report health and safety incidents will be outlined by a step-by-step method.
How to write a health and safety policy
Health and safety policies are one of the most important procedures you will write for your organization. When doing so, it’s important to make it comprehensive and easy to follow for all employees. The following structure and content are, therefore, recommended:
Step 1: Start with a statement of intent
This opening section “sets the scene” by telling your employees the purpose of the policy, and sharing with them the organization’s commitment to their safety and the high importance of health and safety in the workplace.
It will be signed off by someone senior in the organization to add gravitas and credibility. This section might also briefly introduce the structure of the policy and what it includes.
Step 2: Outline responsibilities
Throughout the health and safety policy, each section or point will need to have an “owner”: the person or people responsible for that aspect of the health and safety policy.
Often, this will be the employer in general or, in some cases, the nominated person responsible for health and safety, such as the health and safety officer. Sometimes though, employees are responsible for aspects of health and safety compliance, and this needs to be made clear.
Step 3: Detail practical arrangements
This is the chunkiest part of the policy. Practical arrangements need to be established for every area of health and safety, from how to respond to emergencies to how to handle risk assessments and manage chemicals.
These areas are critical and must be comprehensively laid out in such a way that every employee can easily follow the processes and understand what needs to be done, and by whom.
Step 4: Share training and documentation standards
The health and safety policy must outline to employees what training is needed, how to access the training, and the frequency with which it needs to be done. The policy should also set out how health and safety matters are communicated, documentation templates, and who is responsible for handling the communication.
Essentially, this outlines how the health and safety policy is sustained in the organization.
Step 5: Confirm monitoring and review processes
The policy will also detail the process regarding health and safety audits, and how these are shared with employees. The policy should also confirm to employees how and when it is reviewed and updated, and by whom.
Finally, there should be contact details so employees can raise questions about the policy or flag areas of it that need to be updated.
FAQs about health and safety policies
Health and safety policies are a vital aspect of your compliance culture and, therefore, include a lot of information. If you’re understandably not sure where to start in creating one, here are three FAQs to give you some extra guidance.
Q: Who should create the health and safety policy?
Whereas a health and safety officer might coordinate the creation of the policy, it’s a collaborative effort to complete it, involving contributions from legal teams, managers and employee representatives such as unions.
Q: How often should the policy be reviewed?
An annual review of the policy is good practice, but it should also be reviewed after any accident or illness occurs, when legislation changes, whenever there has been a health and safety audit or feedback, or when there have been operational changes like new management or a new workspace opened.
Q: What does the law say?
Health and safety policies are controlled by the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, enforced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The OSH Act requires employers to provide a workplace free from recognized hazards that are likely to cause death or serious physical harm, and includes written standards and record-keeping.
Key takeaways
Health and safety policies ensure that everyone in your organization knows how to work safely and how to keep other people safe. They’re legal documents and need to be created with care. Here are the key points to keep in mind when writing one:
- Health and safety policies bring many benefits to the workplace, including ensuring compliance, improving employee retention and reducing risk.
- They include many topics and also cover responsibilities, documentation and training needed for each risk area covered.
- Creating a health and safety policy is a shared responsibility and must be done in line with OSHA guidelines.
- Evaluate and update your policy whenever a change happens at work that is related to health and safety.
Taking the time to write a comprehensive health and safety policy will not only ensure you’re legally compliant, but it also demonstrates that you’re a responsible employer who cares for their people.
This article is a complete update of an earlier version originally published on April 22, 2019.