As an employer, you have an ethical and legal obligation to your employee’s safety and welfare, this falls under the blanket term ‘duty of care’. There are numerous responsibilities that fall under this term, ranging from health and safety considerations, through to legal and financial commitments in some instances, like liability insurance. Failure to provide...
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As an employer, you have an ethical and legal obligation to your employee’s safety and welfare, this falls under the blanket term ‘duty of care’. There are numerous responsibilities that fall under this term, ranging from health and safety considerations, through to legal and financial commitments in some instances, like liability insurance.
Failure to provide adequate duty of care to employees can be extremely costly to your business, both financially and reputationally. Legal expenses from tribunals, losing top-tier staff and (in more serious cases) having your business shut down, are just some of the consequences that companies have found themselves in when disregarding their duty of care to employees.
Ensure proper duty of care for your workforce and protect your business today. Call Employer Advice on 0800 470 3529 and talk to an advisory expert today.
By definition ‘duty of care’ is:
“A moral or legal obligation to ensure the safety or well-being of others”.
As an employer this term denotes your responsibility to take reasonable precautions to ensure the safety and welfare of your staff, although this also extends to other persons on your premises such as customers, clients and members of the public.
Duty of care is an employer’s legal responsibility, meaning it is applicable in the eyes of the law. It is important that employers ensure compliance and good business practice to avoid the risk of legal consequences.
Whilst it might sound obvious to what duty of care incorporates, the truth is that there are numerous aspects that employers need to be aware of to fulfil their obligation to their workforce.
Bear in mind that some industries have their own specific obligations that employers are legally bound to uphold, however, some of the ones that are applicable to the majority of businesses are:
The safety of staff in the workplace should be a primary consideration for a business owner. There is a legal obligation to maintain a specific minimum standard to ensure employees and anyone visiting your business premises are not exposed to unnecessary health and safety risks.
The legislation that primarily governs this is the ‘Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974’, which covers the responsibilities of both employers and employees to undertake safe working practices. Part of these practices is to carry out risk assessments where applicable to ensure the safety of the day to day working environment.
As a business owner you must ensure that your business is compliant with safeguarding laws, this includes a duty of care towards the protection of children and adults, including vulnerable adults.
Employers must deal with any safeguarding issues they observe and ensure that working practices are put into place to maintain the welfare of individuals. A good example of this would be implementing a safer recruitment process when working with vulnerable adults.
Just like physical health, employers owe a duty of care to their employees mental health. In fact, as an employer you should treat mental health with the same level of importance that they treat physical health.
Your duty of care extends to ensuring that any employee with a mental health condition is given fair opportunities at work. Employee’s are also entitled to reasonable adjustments and employers must comply with this from a legal standpoint.
In terms of well-being, employers have a duty of care to ensure your staff are comfortable and healthy whilst in the workplace. It’s important for employers to protect and maintain good staff well-being as there are legal obligations when it comes to this.
However, aside from this, promoting good staff well-being has a proven effect of increasing staff retention and productivity, benefiting your business.
As a business owner you have both an ethical and legal duty to create a working environment that gives equal opportunity to people from all backgrounds, this includes individuals without protected characteristics such as race, religion, gender and sexual orientation, as well as those with the aforementioned protected characteristics.
Ensuring that all people are involved in the day to day working environment regardless of their differences, covers inclusion as part of your duty of care in the workplace.
Duty of care is a legal obligation that employers must adhere to. This is regardless of the type of organisation, private, public or voluntary. There are several pieces of legislation that enforce these legal responsibilities that employers should be aware of.
Considered the magnum opus when it comes to the laws governing health and safety in the workplace in the UK. The HSWA contains extensive details of the legal responsibilities that both employers and employees have to uphold safe working practice, protecting the health and safety of all persons in the workplace and maintaining a healthy work environment.
These regulations generally expand upon and explicitly outline what employers are required to do to manage health and safety under the Health and Safety at Work Act. These requirements apply to all work activities.
These regulations outline the duty employers have towards reporting specific work-related accidents and occupational health. This can include reporting on instances of occupational disease as well as dangerous occurrences, and near-misses to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
This act states employer responsibilities when it comes to ensuring duty of care in the prevention of unlawful discrimination under protected characteristics. Such protected characteristics include:
COSHH deals with the legalities regarding employers’ duties to risk assess on all matters related to harmful substances in the workplace. The law also includes the responsibilities employers have when it comes to minimising harm caused by the aforementioned substances.
PUWER pertains to the maintenance of work equipment and employers’ legal obligations to maintain all equipment to the relevant legal standard. It covers such things as ensuring equipment is fit for purpose, popper equipment maintenance as well as ensuring it is inspected by a reasonable person.
When it comes to compliance with duty of care in the workplace, employers must take all reasonable precautions to uphold both their ethical and legal obligations to employees.
Employers who correctly implement their duty of care, are assured that their business, staff, clients and whomever else may be in need of protection are covered, leaving them to fully engage on business matters.
Just a few ways you can ensure your business is compliant with duty care are:
This should clearly outline your business’ responsibilities and what staff should expect. It should also, conversely outline what the business expects of employees. This can be added to staff handbooks and employee contracts if deemed necessary as well.
Policies should be easily accessible for all staff and the policy should be clearly communicated. Ensure that you adhere to the terms laid out in the policy as failure to do so could lead to poor staff retention at best and legal, financial and reputational damage at worst.
Ensure that you conduct regular risk assessment where necessary and apply any changes that improve the safety and well-being of your workforce.
As stressed repeatedly throughout, the health and safety of your workforce is one of your most important legal obligations as an employer. This obligation includes the proper training of staff members on safe work practices.
The potential risks of failing to provide adequate training are higher risk of workplace injuries to staff and potentially others around them. This could result in a personal injury case lawsuit and even negligence claims against your business.
Going to tribunal for non compliance of your legal duty of care as an employer, can be extremely costly, not just in terms of finances. By ensuring that you train staff appropriately you can help reduce the risk of accidents and legal action.
It is an employee’s legal right to raise concerns if they feel there is an issue with standards in the workplace.
Ensuring staff are made to feel comfortable about raising concerns internally and being shown the most effective ways of doing so, benefits your business in several ways. Firstly, it creates trust between the employee and you, the employer. Secondly it prevents the employee having to report issues to a higher authority such as the HSE.
Ways employers can help with reporting concerns are:
Actively showcasing that your business holds employees’ health and welfare in high regard, is not only good for obvious reasons, but it has been shown to help with staff retention and employee productivity.
Staff who feel valued and comfortable at work are more likely to stay with your business, feel less stressed and perform at a higher level. You can do this in numerous ways like offering an EAP service or creating a mental health policy.
Both the mental and physical elements of employee welfare should be treated with equal importance, and under employment law, employers must ensure their working practices don’t worsen a person’s health conditions.
Employer advice has been helping employers with everything from HR, Employment Law and Health and Safety for over 80 years. Call our advisory team today to ensure your compliance with duty of care on 0800 470 3529.