Herein lies the real problem with health and safety – the inspectorate. The grown-up business owner – 99% of the total – recognises that laws which require everybody to operate to the same high standard are a good thing. They also want a healthy, safe working environment for their staff and – let’s not forget – for themselves. Essentially everybody thinks that they themselves are perfect – health and safety legislation is for other people. Meanwhile there are those inspectors who can and do call without prior notice. What’s more, if you’re doing something seriously wrong, they can close you down until it’s put right.

It appears people are somewhere between wary and scared of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). There is also a perceived conflict of interest. On the one hand they promise to help a business put right its faults. On the other, there’s a very strong impression that if you call the HSE and ask, “Is it okay to do x?” and they say, “No”, you have openly admitted that you have a flawed health and safety policy. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to imagine an inspector thinking: “I’d better go and see what else they’re doing wrong.” Finally, there is a stack of anecdotal evidence that the legislation, which covers all of Europe, is implemented with far more rigour in the UK than elsewhere. That’s not the fault of the HSE, but it doesn’t create a level playing field for crossborder competition.

So it’s just a load of bureaucratic nonsense, making pointless work and expense for businesses and well paid jobs for civil servants, then? Actually, no – and it’s business managers who are telling me no. Consider the opinion of Alun Morgan, warehouse manager at PenCarrie. He describes the legislation as “a brilliant framework as long as you apply common sense”. You may be thinking, “that’s all very well, but PenCarrie is a big organisation”. Yes, it is, but it started with six people and throughout it has turned the necessary evil of health and safety into a virtuous operating system.

So, on the principle of selling the benefits before the features, what do you get out of a properly implemented health and safety policy? Believe it or not it will make you more profitable. Not losing staff, especially key staff, to injuries saves you the expense of temporary replacements and/or overtime payments. And you’ll reduce general absenteeism for health reasons (classically through manual handling injuries). Make serious inroads on your health and safety record and you will reduce your insurance costs, because you’re experiencing fewer claims (hopefully no claims). Kevin Mullen, warehouse manger at Blue Max Group stresses the value of consistency: “Our health and safety policy ensures a consistent and uniform approach by all of our employees and it provides reassurance to our customers, too.” That’s a view repeated by Paul Stephenson of October Textiles. He says that a proper health and safety policy is the kind of important detail that serious customers want to see nowadays. I doubt that many businesses would see their health and safety policy as a selling point. Perhaps it should be.

There are less tangible benefits, too, which impact equally on profitability. The first is that staff appreciate an employer who takes health and safety seriously: it’s a clear demonstration that their wellbeing is paramount to the business. So your staff turnover improves as does your attractiveness to new recruits. Because a good health and safety policy is ‘sold’ to staff, rather than imposed on them, they are involved in the process, thus more involved in the success of the business overall. It creates a better attitude; a more positive working environment. Those sentiments aren’t bankable but they are valuable.

Operationally, it makes some aspects of management much easier. Employees know where the dividing line is, say, between a bit of harmless horseplay and “thou shalt not” - and most employees feel more comfortable with that. Your health and safety policy takes an excuse out of the options. What’s more, the reason is not “because I say so”, but because the H&S policy, as required by law, says so and you, sunshine, have signed up to say that you understand and will abide by said policy.

“I'm not doing that; it says in the H&S policy...” I expected to hear moans that the legislation is meat and drink to barrack-room lawyers, but I didn’t. The impression is that the formality of an agreed policy takes the wind out of their sails.

But surely it’s all a burdensome time thief? Apparently not, if you’re using H&S as an operational framework. Blue Max regards it as a daily task, requiring daily maintenance. “Health and Safety issues pervade every part of the working day and impact on just about everything we do so it needs constant attention,” says Mullen. The view at PenCarrie is similar: the time spent on it shows a good return.

The devil is in the detail and so is the profit. That one-liner applies to every aspect of P&P readers’ businesses and certainly to H&S. PenCarrie’s Alun Morgan says: "It’s the little things that cause problems, not the big risks. They’re obvious and scary to everybody.” This is echoed by the Health and Safety Executive. It’s the slips and trips which cause the bulk of workplace injuries. Morgan also quotes two examples of how to improve the record. Since PenCarrie started using safety knives it hasn’t had a single blade injury. It has also worked with suppliers to ensure that deliveries don’t have metal crimping clips. They’re recognised as a health and safety problem so they’re banned from the building, explains Morgan.

Unlike some government bodies the HSE is ready to answer its detractors. Regarding the fear that contacting them can lead to an inspection the response was “we simply don’t do that”. To start with they have an information line (0845 3450055) where you can get response to specific questions and the contacts are not passed to the inspectorate. They also make the point that they have tiered responses to a problem and they aim to help businesses put faults right with an Improvement Notice before a Prohibition Notice or the ultimate sanction, prosecution, is needed. The most telling point made by Mark Wheeler of the HSE was simple: “The cost of getting it wrong can put you out of business much faster than any inspector.”

The HSE has finite resources so it focuses attention on those sectors with a clear health and safety problem. Hence, if everybody in the printwear sector pays due attention to the issues and the industry as a whole ups its H&S game, the less likely are individual businesses to attract its attention.

The basic rule of thumb is to get on top of a proper H&S policy. Apparently, some 80% of businesses that should have one (those employing five or more staff) don’t. Doing a risk assessment is not that difficult. Once you’ve got it in place, staying on top of the issue is not difficult, but an effort should be made to do so otherwise it can become insurmountable.

The second rule is to have all employees sign up to the policy – to say that they understand the detail, that they will abide by it and that they will expect non-compliance to be treated as a disciplinary offence. Quite simply, repeated minor transgressions will not be tolerated. Ensure that everyone knows who is ultimately responsible for H&S and stress that it’s everyone’s job: if you see something wrong, put it right, now, or alert the right person. Everyone needs to take ownership of the policy for it to work best.

This is typically a top down process, but it is very clear that it works far better when there is an element of bottom up, too. The people doing the work are the ones who know best what is and what isn’t a potential problem and the best H&S policies work most effectively because they have that input. The HSE says a classic error that businesses make is an imposed policy, which has been written by someone who transparently doesn’t know the day-to-day issues. The effect of that is predictably simple: staff treat it with due contempt and ignore it. Result – total failure and a problem in the offing.

If you need help, the key message is don't be scared to contact the HSE. Certainly have a look at their website, www.hse.gov.uk. There are thousands of health and safety consultants out there, too. Www.healthandsafety.indicator.co.uk is a useful resource from whom you can buy a working manual that is regularly updated and written in layman’s English.

Okay, the $64,000 question: will it get you any sales? If you have - or can encourage - customer visits, it will help closing. An operation of any size which is visibly shipshape, with a positive environment, communicates efficient reliability to customers. The bigger the customer, the more important that is.

Paul Clapham is a marketing consultant with over 25 years’ experience covering a broad range of business sectors and a full spread of marketing disciplines. He has run his own business since 1996, working with small, medium and large companies alike to increase their profitability through marketing

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