Starting a new business is never easy. No matter what field or industry you enter, you will inevitably find yourself competing with a number of other, better-established businesses. But one thing you can do to even the playing field a little is ensure that your business excels at providing a safe and supportive environment for your workers. Here are 5 ways that any start-up can help their employees to stay safe, happy and healthy.
Employees vs Independent Contractors
There is a difference between full employees and independent contractors both in terms of the work they do and the obligations you have towards them as an employer. You obviously have more obligations towards your full employees than you do towards the independent contractors who don’t technically work for you but who work alongside you.
Provide Healthy Eating Options
Lots of employers in the UK leave their workers to fend for themselves in terms of providing lunch and snacks. However, there are several advantages to providing food to them yourself. This will enable you to ensure that they have access to a healthy diet and a good range of healthy food options.
Provide Access to Counsellors
Counsellors can help your employees manage their mental health and also provide them with useful careers advice. This is just as important as protecting their physical health. In fact, there is an intimate link between emotional and physical health. Unhappy and stressed employees are more likely to need time off work due to a physical illness, so there are benefits to both them and you if you can help them to maintain the former as well as the latter.
Make Sure They Know Their Rights
Depending on the sector that you work in, your employees may spend their whole day in one building interacting with the same people. Alternatively, they might live on the road and work in different places every day. In either case, it is important that they know what their rights are as well as their own obligations towards other people.
Construction is a good example here – no matter what the specifics of the job that they are working on at any given time are, they still need to adhere to the same health and safety principles for both their protection and to ensure the safety of others on the site.
Offer Them Healthcare
We mentioned rights above, it’s a good idea to teach your employees about their rights when receiving medical treatment. This is especially important in industries like construction, where it is conceivable that a worker could suffer an injury at work that requires hospital treatment. Medical negligence does happen, and when it does, victims have a right to compensation. Services like the-medical-negligence-experts.co.uk can help your workers to pursue compensation claims if they feel that they have been the victims of medical negligence.
The way you treat your employees will speak volumes about your business as well as you as a manager. Anything you can do to improve your reputation will make hiring easier in the future and will help you improve employee retention, both of which will help your business grow.
