Consult your employees on health and safety

You have to consult with all your employees on health and safety. This does not need to be complicated. You can do this by simply listening and talking to them about:

• health and safety and the work that they do
• how risks are controlled
• the best ways of providing information and training

Consultation is a two-way process, allowing staff to raise concerns and influence decisions on the management of health and safety. Your employees are often the best people to understand the risks in the workplace and involving them in making decisions shows them that you take their health and safety seriously.

In a very small business, you may choose to consult employees directly. Alternatively, you might consult your employees through a health and safety representative. This can be someone who has been chosen by their colleagues or selected by a trade union. As an employer, you cannot decide who will be the representative.

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The benefits of involving employees in health and safety

Your employees influence health and safety through their own actions. They are often the best people to understand the risks in their workplace.

Talking, listening and co-operating can help to achieve benefits. Health and safety representatives can help you with workforce consultation arrangements.

Benefit from better worker involvement

Workplaces where employees play an active part in health and safety have lower accident rates. Collaboration with your employees helps you to manage health and safety in a practical way by:

• helping you spot workplace risks
• making sure health and safety controls are practical
• increasing the level of commitment to working in a safe and healthy way

In many cases this also leads to increased productivity, efficiency and quality.

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What the law says about consulting your staff

There are two principal sets of regulations concerning your duty to consult your workforce on health and safety:

• the Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations 1996
• the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977

These regulations will apply to most workplaces.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has developed easy-to-use guidance that shows the relationship between the two sets of regulations and how they may affect yourself and your workforce.

Read about how the Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations 1996 affect your business on the HSE website- Opens in a new window.

Read how the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977 affect your business on the HSE website- Opens in a new window.

You may only have to consult under one set of regulations, or it may be both depending on circumstances.

Take a look at the flow chart on the HSE website- Opens in a new window, that shows how these two regulations relate to each other and how they may affect yourself and your workforce.

A workplace employee who can represent the views of their colleagues is a great way of involving your entire workforce in matters concerning their health and safety.

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How to consult with your workers

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has produced a step-by-step guide primarily aimed at small to medium-sized enterprises, offering practical hints and tips for businesses on how to improve on your existing consultation and worker involvement arrangements.

How you approach consultation with your employees may depend on the individual circumstances of your business or workplace. For example:

• If your workplace has conditions that don’t change on a regular basis – eg a factory or workshop – then it is defined as ‘stable’. Find step-by-step guidance for employee consultation in stable environments on the HSE website- Opens in a new window.
• If your workplace has conditions that do change on a regular basis – eg a construction site or delivering goods to different addresses – then it may be defined as ‘dynamic’. Find step-by-step guidance for employee consultation in dynamic environments on the HSE website- Opens in a new window.

You can also download the leaflet ‘Consulting employees on health and safety: A brief guide to the law’ from the HSE website (PDF, 137K)- Opens in a new window. This leaflet also contains information on how to consult with safety representatives.

If you are a large organisation, you can find health and safety consultation guidance, advice and case studies on the HSE’s worker involvement website- Opens in a new window.