How compliant is your business when it comes to workplace relations and workplace health and safety?
Are you passing with flying colours, just scraping by, or taking an adhoc approach to the whole thing because you aren’t really sure what you’re doing? At Catalyst Accountants in Temora we believe it to be yet another integral part of business management to ensure you not only look after your people but minimise risk to the operation in general. It doesn’t matter how well oiled a profit machine you may have, if you don’t mitigate this risk and look after your people, it could all come tumbling down.
Workplace relations work to ensure you do right by your employees, to avoid issues such as unfair dismissal, harassment, internal bullying and wage disputes, while work place health and safety laws are in place to create a safer workplace for all. Both workplace relations and workplace health and safety, for you as a business owner, are integral parts of keeping the machine that is your business running smoothly.
Although you may not realise it, a haphazard approach to both will not only bring about legal issues, but also slow productivity, employee morale, and potentially lead to high staff turnover.
So what happens if you aren’t an expert in either or both of these areas? There are three ways of addressing the compliancy needs within your business:
Option 1: Internal
The first option is that all the work to ensure all areas of workplace health and safety and workplace relations are being covered is done in-house.
Through a well-developed HR process, your business invests the hours and dollars to find and recruit the best staff to do the job.
While this seems the most logical way to ensure compliancy in both areas, for many small and medium sized businesses it simply isn’t feasible.
Option 2: Internal with assistance
If you aren’t recruiting a professional within your organisation to take care of the issues but wish to handle all workplace relations and workplace health and safety in house, the next option is to utilise government and non-for profit services such as the <a href="http://www.nswbusinesschamber.com useful content.au/”>NSW Business Chamber, or WorkCover which can assist with the resources you need to ensure compliancy.
From templates and procedural documents, to advisory phone calls, NSW Business Chamber can provide your business with everything it needs, as can Work Cover; however, you still need skilled members of your team who are able to dedicate the time to using the resources provided to them.
Option 3: Outsourced
The final option, if neither of the in-house options work for your business, is to outsource the work. There are numerous companies that are able to fulfill this style of work for your business with a range of engagement models available. From project style engagements (come and fix it) to ongoing subscrption style services that provide complete end to end management of your workplace compliance needs.
This option is terrific if you really don’t have the time or skill set to address your needs and allows you to put your worries at ease while you let professionals take care of everything.
Employsure and like services understand that your business is your area of expertise; not work place law. Which is why they can become your biggest asset when it comes to maintaining a happy, safe and compliant workplace.
And so we return to the question posed at the beginning of this article:
How compliant is your business when it comes to workplace relations and workplace health and safety?
If the response isn’t as good as it should be, perhaps it is time to consider implementing a new strategy to get your business up-to-date and fully compliant.
With options ranging from managing workplace relations and workplace health and safety yourself in-house, to leveraging off resources provided by government bodies, and finally to outsourcing the job end-to-end to a workplace relations specialist, speak to your accountant today about reviewing your current system and implementing the best option for your business.
