Through the years, as industries have grown, developed, and expanded, the health and safety of employees has become more imperative than ever.
It is not something that can be taken lightly, and there are strict rules and regulations in place to ensure that businesses comply with every aspect as the well-being of employees, and thus the employer, is paramount.
There are numerous hazards present in work environments today, and the employer is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that their employees are kept safe from these hazards.
It is so imperative that there are Occupational Safety Standards and regulations that have been set by the Occupational Health and Safety Act, otherwise more commonly known as the OHS Act.
When considering the safety and health of employees, these standards and regulations are important for a wide variety of reasons, some of which include, but is not limited to:
- Prevent illness and injury
- The reduction of health and safety Hazards
- The avoidance of serious consequences, and more.
SafetyWallet and Employers’ commitment towards health and safety, and the implementation of health and safety programmes
SafetyWallet caters for employers not only in providing the perfect, user-friendly platform for the establishing a health and safety programme to effectively implement and maintain such, but it also offers adequate support from start to finish in the pursuit of such.
SafetyWallet, along with its partners, OHS Online and MAKROSAFE, provide extensive and comprehensive solutions not only to ensure the compliance of health and safety regulations, but also a platform for the improvement of such.
The support and rewards provided by SafetyWallet consists of four components of health and safety in Industry and Commerce, namely:
- Health and safety training
- Health and safety programme
- Health and safety compliance grading audit, and
- Member advertising
SafetyWallet currently already has thousands of members within South Africa, and that number is growing, as a result of the comprehensive and extensive support, services, solutions, and the rewards provided by SafetyWallet.
The process involved with obtaining and ensuring health and safety compliance can be a labour-intensive and tedious mission to embark on and long-term commitment towards this is not always guaranteed as the upholding of compliance can be just as tedious.
To combat this, and to make the process significantly easier for employers, SafetyWallet focuses on the support and assisting of employers in their health and safety compliance in an array of industries.
Members are supported every step of the way with the purpose of helping both industry and commerce create and maintain safer and healthier working environments so employers who become members are covered in the continuous umbrella framework of SafetyWallet.
Working conditions and situations change and these changes have an impact on the environments provided by employers, with SafetyWallet and its professional staff, employers can be assured that they have health and safety support despite changes.
By joining SafetyWallet, employers can play a crucial role in improving the future of occupational health and safety in South Africa and they can gain access to a variety of rewards while working towards full compliance.
Health and safety programme
The health and safety programme provided by SafetyWallet serves the purpose of:
- Protecting employers and employees in the event of criminal and civil liability and minimising the likelihood thereof.
- Reducing incidents in the workplace to ensure employees return home safely.
- Providing adequate support by appointing a dedicated SafetyWallet support manager.
- Providing options for self-help where members can take ownership of their own health and safety programme.
- Outsourcing health and safety services.
- Providing a cost effective way to ensure health and safety compliance.
- Providing members with rewards determined by their level of compliance and their efforts towards improving such.
When an employer becomes a member of SafetyWallet, they are provided with a dedicated support manager in providing support on aspects that includes, but is not limited to:
- Health and safety matters which are addressed by a dedicated OHS Professional.
- Monthly newsletters.
- Weekly updates pertaining to legislation.
- Covid-19 assistance, guidance, and support.
- OHS Online Health and Management System.
- Department of Employment and Labour, or DoEL, enquiries.
- DoEL Incident Investigation in accordance with the OHS Act. Section 24 – Investigation.
- Injuries On Duty, or IOD, management, and more.
Self help
When considering the provision of self-help options by SafetyWallet it is clear that the purpose of this is to encourage employers, and members, to take ownership of their own health and safety programme, but members are not stranded regardless of this.
SafetyWallet has an existing partnership with OHS Online in providing a platform for the implementation and maintenance of the member’s health and safety programme.
This allows the member to ensure that they are compliant with the requirements as imposed according to the OHS Act along with regulations and all other legislation, standards, and bylaws in ensuring the maintenance of a safe and healthy working environment.
When using the OHS Online platform, which is a cloud-based health and safety management system available to all members, members, and their dedicated support manager, have access to the following:
- Health and safety organisation and communication – consisting of templates for policies, legal appointments, safe operating procedures, health and safety representatives, or SHE Reps, health and safety committees, and more.
- Covid-19 information and guidance.
- Risk assessment templates which contains more than 1300 outlined tasks along with their hazards, risks, and suggested control measures.
- Training.
- Emergency evacuation.
- Health and safety administration which includes Incident management and investigations, IODs, workplace incidents, incident reporting, and more.
- Contractor management and control
- Personal Protective Equipment, or PPE.
- Working at heights, hazardous chemical substances, machinery, and equipment, and more.
These are but a few aspects covered in SafetyWallet’s offering and in addition, to ensure all-encompassing cover of all hazards and risks in the workplace, SafetyWallet makes adequate provision for a health and safety compliance audit.
Outsourcing health and safety services
It can prove to be a very daunting experience when employers have made a commitment towards ensuring and improving their health and safety compliance, often due to financial restrictions in sourcing experts to assist in the process.
However, SafetyWallet, in partnership with MAKROSAFE, provides employers with assistance in accordance with the health and safety needs and objectives that the employer has, and as an added benefit, SafetyWallet offers generous rewards for compliance.
The employer is provided, not only with assistance from MAKROSAFE, but an adequate rewards discount programme which allows employers to benefit greatly depending on their behaviour towards health and safety compliance.
Support that employers can expect from SafetyWallet’s partner, MAKROSAFE, include, but are not limited to some of the following:
- Implementation and the maintenance of the employer, or member’s, health and safety programme which covers all of the basis in accordance with OHS Act and any other regulations, national standards, and local bylaws.
- Incident management.
- Health and safety legal registers.
- Monthly health and safety compliance certificates, and more.
Despite this extensive offering in addition to services and support offered, employers need to be subjected to a health and safety compliance audit which is conducted by a SafetyWallet auditor.
The purpose of the audit is to establish the employer’s current compliance and to pave the way forward with recommendations on how to improve the employer’s compliance to the highest standard achievable.
In using SafetyWallet to conduct a health and safety compliance audit, the employer’s audit is subsidies with 80% and they are therefore only liable to cover 20% of the cost thereof.
Furthermore, the employer is covered up to 100% of the cost pertaining to the audit based on their existing commitment shown from the last compliance audit that was conducted.
Final thoughts
SafetyWallet not only makes it easy to commit to improving health and safety compliance, but also makes provision for the necessary platform, support, services, and rewards to encourage more employers to do so through making use of SafetyWallet’s services.
With everything compiled into one platform, employers can commit more easily, and they can rest assured that all aspects of the process towards becoming fully compliant and ensuring safe working environments for employees will be covered adequately.
