Many elements of workplace safety may seem like common sense, but planning, implementing, and maintaining a robust safety program usually requires specialist expertise.
Creating and embedding effective safety protocols, and ensuring legislative requirements are being met also requires significant effort and sustained focus.
This is why many businesses choose to engage an experienced workplace safety consultant to help ensure they are keeping their people, business and reputation safe.
If you haven’t worked with a safety consultant before, you may question the value they can provide. You might even be wondering if it’s possible to do most of what they do in-house. However, as we outline here, the benefits investing in expert safety advice can provide are truly invaluable.
What does a workplace safety consultant do?
Safety consultants guide you through identifying and implementing effective measures designed to keep your employees, customers, and visitors safe.
Working in collaboration with key team members, they can help coordinate risk identification and management, legal compliance, and the implementation of safety management systems. The best safety consulting businesses can also support the delivery of training and embedding of a positive safety culture.
The benefits of engaging an experienced consultant
The most obvious advantage of partnering with a workplace safety consultant is being able to leverage their specialist knowledge and experience. This can help you to significantly improve the strength and effectiveness of your safety management procedures and systems.
It also helps lead to better safety outcomes, like fewer hazards and a lower risk of injury.
Beyond the usual benefits of creating a safer and healthier workplace, a good consultant can also help you to:
Fulfil your legal obligations
The Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act 2011 sets out a range of requirements workplaces need to meet. An experienced consultant will have a deep knowledge of these and be able to ensure that you are compliant.
They will also be able to recommend practical ways to tailor these requirements to suit the structure and needs of your business.
Increase productivity
Process reviews are the cornerstone of safety consultation, with most activities designed to help identify opportunities to improve efficiency. By streamlining processes, a good consultant can not only help you improve safety but also reduce operational costs while optimising performance and output.
Boost employee morale
Ongoing engagement is required to implement and maintain robust safety systems and a positive safety culture. As a result, an increased focus on safety often leads to greater team cohesion and can even help reduce employee stress and anxiety levels.
After all, no one wants to work in an environment where they don’t feel safe!
Increase customer satisfaction
If your employees are happier and safer, and your operations are more efficient, your customers are sure to notice and respond positively. A safer workplace also means you are less likely to experience a serious incident, which can cause significant damage to your business’s reputation.
What to look for when choosing a consultant
Much like with other professional consulting services, when choosing a safety consultant, you need to make sure they are suitably qualified and accredited.
You should also look into their experience, particularly within your industry and with other businesses facing similar challenges. But what really sets the best safety consultants apart is their approach, in particular, in these four ways.
Work with your team
For safety procedures and systems to be effective, they need to be tailored to the unique requirements of your business. As such, even if you do engage a safety consultant, your team will still have an active role to play.
Understanding this, the best consultants will collaborate with key team members, engaging them in everything from safety assessments to training delivery.
Focus on implementation
While a lot of important theory goes into developing safety protocols, it’s their practice that provides the real value. As such, a safety consultant’s recommendations must be realistic, fit for purpose, and supported by a detailed implementation plan.
Ideally, their service should also include support to complete this plan and establish ongoing safety management activities (e.g. regular emergency drills, training, etc).
Demonstrate progress
Many of the benefits of improved workplace safety are intangible, so can be difficult to see, particularly in the short term.
Acknowledging this, a good consultant will include clear goals and milestones in their plan, making it easier to measure progress. They will also advise on the best metrics to monitor when assessing safety improvements and calculating return on investment.
Transition knowledge
Although you may choose to engage your safety consultant on an ongoing basis, this should not be a requirement. Instead, their service should be designed to provide your team with the skills required to manage the new safety procedures and systems in-house.
A good safety consultant will also make sure your team members are invested in the changes and understand the role they are expected to play.
The safety consultation process
Each safety consulting business will have its own way of working, tools and methodologies, and service packages. The best ones will also be able to work with you to tailor their offering to suit your specific requirements.
For example, when you work with GSD Safety, there are 3 core stages of our safety consultation process.
Assess
This involves an in-depth assessment of your current safety arrangements against industry best practices and your obligations under the WHS Act. This is completed on-site over 2 days, with the output being a detailed risk analysis and reporting dashboard presentation.
Align & Assure
This involves a holistic program of activities designed to completely overhaul your existing safety systems, and set you on a path of continuous improvement. This is completed over 90 days and provides a structured framework to get stuff done quickly and effectively.
Ongoing consultation
This involves a continuing engagement with one of our highly experienced workplace safety consultants. The structure of this partnership will be based on your requirements, helping you save on in-house safety management costs.
Each of these options can be delivered separately or you can roll them into one comprehensive safety consultation package. We can also work with you to design a bespoke service that addresses your business’s unique needs.
Get stuff done with GSD Safety
To discuss how a GSD workplace safety consultant can help you, or to arrange your free WHS assessment, call 1300 473 723 or fill out our online enquiry form.
