My responsibility as employer

Occupational safety and health is a matter of the highest priority. To maintain your workers' health and so as not to endanger third parties, you as employer are obliged to assess the working conditions in your company with respect to occupational safety aspects and to take the requisite protective measures. The most important instrument for implementing this obligation is the risk assessment.

You may conduct the risk assessment yourself or delegate it to reliable and skilled individuals. Such delegation must describe precisely what tasks are being assigned. It must be done in writing and must define in concrete terms the areas of responsibility and the powers within the context of the company organisation.

But regardless of who performs the risk assessment, the legal responsibility for the assessment lies invariably with you, the employer. You are obliged to monitor its performance. Satisfy yourself at regular intervals as to whether and how the persons delegated are fulfilling their responsibility.

Occupational safety and health certainly involves additional work in the first place. You will be able to give many reasons why you should not conduct a risk assessment in your company or why you should put it off. The prime reason will definitely be the expense it involves.

But the effort is worth it!

On the subsequent pages you will find a number of arguments intended to help you rethink your position and not to regard occupational safety and health as merely a "burdensome secondary matter" or a "bureaucratic imperative", but as a useful instrument for minimising risk in your company.

Protection of workers against health risks

With workplaces which are safely and ergonomically equipped, it is possible to avoid or reduce risks to your workers. In this way you will meet the most important occupational safety and health goals, namely preservation of life, health and well-being of your workers at the workplace. You will prevent personal suffering and major social burdens.

The business benefit for your company

A work accident or occupational illness can have serious financial consequences – especially for small and medium-sized enterprises.

The resulting expenditure for maintaining smooth operations will normally cost your company more than appropriate precautions in terms of occupational safety and health would have cost. On the one hand the expenses involved at the wage costs for injured workers (wages plus statutory, collectively agreed and voluntary extra benefits). Other costs may be incurred for, among other things, material expenditures, machine downtimes and production outages or insurance costs.

By identifying hazards and loads/exposures at an early stage, you will be able to counteract any disturbances caused by times of worker absence which are due to work-related illness, work accidents or work incapacity.

Measures taken to ensure occupational safety and health do not necessarily have to involve additional costs. Precautions, such as the correct erection of machines, the use of existing protective equipment or the wearing of protective clothing or hearing protectors, are normally cost-neutral.

They "only" have to be implemented!

Greater competitiveness thanks to motivated workers

Occupational safety and health should not merely be practised in your company as a token gesture. You should ensure that your workers know how important this topic is to you yourself. After all workers who feel safe at their workplace will also work more efficiently and be more highly motivated. They will not be hindered or endangered in their work by an unsafe working environment. They can then avoid mistakes, concentrate on what is essential and work better and more efficiently.

What helps here is if the working sequences in your company are kept stable on a permanent basis and you thus remain competitive.

Legal security

Risk assessment and documentation are prescribed as legally binding. With the implementation of the risk assessment you are able to take the necessary measures for occupational safety and health and to reliably document them. With the documentation of the risk assessment you satisfy the statutory requirement under the Occupational Safety and Health Act and can at any time present the results of the measures you lay down for inspections by the competent authorities. In cases of damage you can demonstrate what occupational safety and health measures have been laid down for your workers.

Note: Violations of obligations will not be without consequence. If there is a suspicion of grossly negligent behaviour on the part of the employer, for example, he may incur consequential costs for a lawyer, court proceedings, compensation and an administrative fine.

But the conduct of the risk assessment is not only important for the employer. Workers can also profit from its mandatory implementation. Where there are disputes in particular the risk assessment can be used as evidence of hazards at their workplace. In the final analysis such evidence may be crucial when it comes to insurance claims relating to restoration of the workers' health and efficiency or to compensation for surviving dependents. This aspect should motivate each worker to actively participate in the conduct of the risk assessment and to comply with the measures arising from the assessment. He should be aware that what is involved primarily is his safety, his health and his rights.