Comment: Are sub-contractors costing retailers more than their reputation?
Retail business today is under ever greater pressure to demonstrate social responsibility and minimising health and safety breaches has become a primary objective.
Bruce Richards, Director, Hicom, outlines how retailers can improve processes and adopt best practice across their organisations.
With retail organisations able to employ almost as many indirect employees as they do direct employees, businesses have invested heavily in safeguarding their own employees, but many still remain unaware of the extent of the legal obligations regarding sub-contractors.
Today’s business climate is, in areas of risk and risk mitigation, very different to that experienced just a decade ago. Despite the current government’s pledges to reduce red tape and improve the climate for business activity, many organisations continue to fall foul of current health and safety legislation. One of the main areas of risk that organisations are still struggling to manage is that associated with the role of third-party contractors.
Never Miss a Retail Update!The use of contractors is, in the words of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) a ‘joint responsibility’. The implications of this legal position are significant. A recent report from HSE highlighted a number of cases that have suggested retailers are failing to either understand the extent of their obligations or put in place the processes to ensure contractor compliance and on-going employee well-being.
Retailers cannot simply sit back and assume sub-contractors will comply with health and safety legislation, the business risk is too high. Organisations need to take a far more proactive approach and impose control over the process by improving information and ensuring assessors have the right experience, expertise and resources to effectively check and monitor sub-contractor activity.
Simply arming assessors with paper-based tools to record third-party contractor activity is not enough. Assessors need mobile technology with a system that prompts them to ensure they are asking sub-contractors the right series of questions to ensure they are fully qualified. The retailer also needs a full audit trail of activity in order to demonstrate, if required, that adequate steps were taken to comply with health and safety legislation. This process reflects the obligation of each sub-contractor and transforms the timeliness, quality and accuracy of health and safety information. Information is recorded just once, improving productivity and minimising the risk of error.
Relying on sub-contractors to report any incidents can mean that management are often not informed of the incident. Courts will typically be lenient for a first offence, however the penalties escalate fast for any repeat occurrence.
Reducing risk has become one of the key requirements for any business. Staff training has improved; and internal audit processes are ever more rigorous. But retailers must look beyond just the individuals they directly employ or those who shop in their stores.
With the pressure on businesses to improve social responsibility, retailers need to be more proactive and encourage their contractors to adopt best practice to health & safety reporting, training and on-site practice. By embracing mobile tools and real-time assessment to ensure health and safety requirements are being met at all times by employees and contractors alike, organisations can not only ensure the right steps are being taken when incidents occur but, critically, significantly reduce the risk of these incidents happening at all.
