The Business electronic Safety Management And Risk assessment Tool or BeSMART.ie is a great initiative by the Health & Safety Authority to help small business owners/managers to prepare risk assessments and a safety statement for their workplace. There really should be no barrier to adoption as this service is 100% free.
BeSMART.ie has two key objectives:
- to reduce the chances of an accident in the workplace
- to save time and money
The really clever aspect of BeSMART.ie is that it makes it really easy for employers to:
- Generate their own safety statement and risk assess hazards
- Interact and consult with their employees to improve health & safety
- Comply with the law
BeSMART.ie is laid out in six easy-to-follow steps::
- Register / Login
- Search for your business type – hundreds to choose from
- Follow the step by step instructions
- Identify hazards associated with your workplace – 16 to choose from
- Consult with your employees
- Print off & sign your safety statement
BeSMART.ie is itself part of a wider initiative, Taking Care of Business, which is being run by the Health & Safety Authority to Support & Assist Small Business to deal with health and safety in their workplaces. All businesses that register for BeSMART.ie will receive a free 4Gb ‘Key to Safety’ USB key.
Register and activate your BeSMART.ie account
According to the Health & Safety Authority itself the primary aim of Taking Care of Business is:
“To make safety and health contribute in a manner that is tailored specifically for small business so enabling it to reduce the incidence of accidents and ill health; to motivate workers and maintain their involvement and to assist the overall success of the business.”
Any initiative that is going to help reduce accidents in the workplace has to be warmly welcomed. That the service is free is a great addition. Small businesses can avail of an easy-to-use online tool that is so intuitive that producing your own risk assessments and a safety statement is as easy as 1-2-3.
Human Resources is also another area that tends to trip up small businesses when an issue arises. There is no doubt that it can be a complex subject for employers. For whatever reasons, as we wrote in our blog back in January, HR is often ignored or relegated to a minor role within a business. For any business that hires full-time of part-time employees HR is an area that you should really pay attention to.
Check out our HR Guide, it outlines exactly what your responsibilities are and provides a handy checklist so that you can keep on top of them.
