Employer & Employee Legal Obligations

Employer Responsibilities

By law, employers have specific responsibilities towards the safety of their employees, as do the employees themselves.  This leaflet  offers some basic advice on the legal responsibilities regarding Personal Safety in the workplace safety.

The Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 requires employers, including unpaid volunteers or self-employed, “to prepare… a written statement of his general policy with respect to the health and safety at work of his employees”. They must also put in place “systems of work that are, so far as is reasonably practicable, safe and without risks to health”.

The Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1992 (Updated 1999)requires every organisation in the UK to undergo a proactive process of risk management. Organisations must assess risk, create safe systems of working, communicate these to their employees and monitor and review their systems on a regular basis.

 The law does not state that people may not work alone. What it does say is that an employer must assess any significant risks associated with working alone

Employee Responsibilities

 Employees also have responsibilities. The law states that they should:

• Take reasonable care of their own safety and that of others
• Follow any Personal Safety procedures set out by employer
• Report any shortcomings of failings in safety practice
• Report any incidents of violence or aggression and near misses

Speak out if you think you are at risk! For risk reducing measures to be effective, they should be devised, implemented and managed jointly between management and employees.

Risk Assessments

• Risk assessments should be carried out by members of staff who are qualified to  assess risk and have an in-depth knowledge of the job or task in question.
• This competent person can be either one person or a team of people and the members of staff who do the job or task also need to be involved.
• Written evidence of the process and all the actions or decisions made should be recorded.
• Risk assessments should look at all the ‘reasonably foreseeable’ risks. When assessing ways to reduce the risks, the assessor should consider what is workable.
• They are allowed to make judgements based on cost v. benefit, but should be prepared to show that all that is ‘reasonably practicable’, in the circumstances, to reduce or eliminate the risks has been done.
• Once this process is complete, policies and procedures need to be          developed and implemented.

Please feel free to download the Employer & Employee Legal Obligations  and print off copies for your use.