Dear Reader

You deal with health and safety problems every day, but what about all of the other work problems you have to manage.

I’m sure a lot of you manage staff or have to interact with those ‘difficult employees’. Even though your primary job function isn’t managing or dealing with staff problems, you still have to find solutions.

You all know how it is. A question pops into your mind and you feel like you know the answer, but you just need to confirm it. Worse still, someone asks, and there’s nothing but a deadly silence as you desperately search for the answer. Sound familiar? Here’s your solution!

We’ve gathered 384 top tips, warnings and checklists to help answer your questions relating to 67 different labour and HR subjects. Questions like:

•    how much sick leave are employees entitled to in their first six months of employment?
•    when can you ask for a sick leave certificate?
•    when are employees entitled to family responsibility leave?
•    what is the maximum amount of overtime an employee can work?
•    do you have to pay all employees for overtime?

Do you have a health and safety management system?

Take all necessary measures to ensure the requirements of the OHSA are complied with in your business by your employees and on the premises under your control. This means you must know all the requirements of both the law and its associated regulations.

Identify what is applicable to your business and ensure a health and safety management system has been implemented to ensure legal compliance.

The health and safety management system must include:

•    Health and Safety Policy (see section H03 in your Health and Safety Advisor for more information).
•    Hazard identification and risk assessment. (see sections R01-R05 in your Health and Safety Advisor for more information).
•    Development and implementation of risk controls.
•    Monitoring of workplace stressors, e.g. air quality, noise, extreme temperatures, manual handling.
•    Inspections to check that the risk control measures are effective and that the hazards don’t changed. (see section R02 in your Health and Safety Advisor for more information).
•    Health and Safety committee meetings. (see section H02 in your Health and Safety Advisor for more information).
•    Incident management programme – reporting and investigation of incidents. (see section I01 and I02 in your Health and Safety Advisor for more information).
•    Auditing your management system to make sure it’s still appropriate and effective.
•    Action plans to rectify problems identified during audits, inspections or investigations.
•    Management review of the health and safety system to identify shortfalls, set objectives to guide your efforts at risk reduction and continuous improvement.

Tip:
If you have a tenant on your premises, make sure they’re aware of the requirements of OHSA and that they make every effort to comply. You could be held responsible for their non-compliance! It’s advisable to have a clause in any contract you have with a third party that states they’ll comply with all health and safety legislation (OHSA Section 37).

Exciting new plans for 2011

I have some grand plans up my sleeve for 2011... Starting with a new website, tailored to YOUR needs.

It’s like the mini-Magnum ice cream, or the Kit Kat single: Smaller, but no less fulfilling than the original

Fleet Street Publications’ new Business Portal will be launched soon. Very soon.

What is it? A whole website that’s completely focused on business solutions, with a section completely dedicated to work safety. It’ll feature our top tips, checklists and articles, as well as our Health & Safety Advisor downloads site.

The online team that’s developing it has sworn me to silence on the exact details of the site, since they’re planning a big reveal… But I knew that you’d want to be the first to know about it!

***Quote of the Week***

"The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them." - Robert Frost

Stay safe, 

Rachel Paterson
Publisher

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More Health & Safety topics and recent updates...

Take a look at some of the most popular past articles:

    * 5 benefits of doing risk assessments
    * Say "you're fired!" and make it stick!
    * How to extend the life of your PPE
    * Who has time to decipher health and safety laws?

 
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