When you think of the factors that determine the success of a business, you probably consider things like marketing, productivity and good leadership. However, have you ever stopped to consider the fundamental role that safety and hygiene play?

At the end of the day, a workplace needs to be safe and hygienic in order to create a comfortable and productive space in which people can perform their jobs to the best of their ability. While this is important in any industry, it’s especially important in the agricultural industrial, mining and agricultural sectors.

But how do you ensure that your workplace is up-to-standard when it comes to your safety and hygiene levels? Having a professionally designed Health and Hygiene Management Plan (HHMP) in place is an ideal solution.

Not only will it cover your company from a legal perspective, but it can also help to deliver a host of other benefits as well. If you’re keen to learn more about making your business as productive and profitable as possible, make sure you read the rest of this article about the 5 reasons you need a Health and Hygiene Management Plan.

Regardless of whether you work in a mite site or an office, your workplace environment has a huge impact on your employees’ satisfaction and productivity levels. If your workplace is unhygienic and/or unsafe, it’s highly unlikely that your staff are going to be highly motivated and performing at their best.

An HHMP prevents this from occurring by identifying all the health and hygiene hazards present in your workplace and detailing the measures needed to control them. While investing in an HHMP might represent an additional up-front cost, it’ll more than repay itself in the long run by boosting your productivity levels and reducing the costs associated with a high staff turnover rate.

It’s not just your employees that are impacted by poor workplace safety and hygiene levels. When potential clients, suppliers and investors visit your workplace, it’s vitally important that they get a good impression. The last thing you want is for them to be put off by an unsafe and unhygienic working environment.

Your company’s reputation is important too. People talk, and if your company gets known for not taking care of its safety and hygiene levels, it can stop people from wanting to work with you and for you.

This can prevent you from attracting the kind of skilled and talented people that your business needs to thrive. Having an effective HHMP in place will ensure that your workplace environment is not an impediment to bringing in the right clients and employees.

Absenteeism costs businesses thousands and thousands of dollars every year in lost productivity. Remember when we talked about an HHMP helping your employees to be happier and more productive? Well, a safe and hygienic workplace also results in employees that are more motivated too.

If you have an HHMP in place, it means that your stall will be much less likely to call in sick and are more likely to show up to work with their “game face” on and demonstrate a desire to do their job well.

Poor workplace hygiene levels allow the spread of bacteria and viruses that can run rampant in shared spaces such as office kitchens and toilets. 

Once an illness or infection spreads throughout your workplace, it has the potential to seriously reduce your productivity and increase the costs associated with employee sick leave. Having an HHMP in place drastically reduces the chance of this happening.

It’s almost impossible to overstate the importance of workplace safety. Not only will your employees be happier and more productive when they’re able to work in a safe and secure environment, but an HHMP will ensure that injuries and accidents are kept to an absolute minimum. 

This means that your productivity isn’t affected and that worker’s compensation claims are kept to a minimum. It can also help to shield you from costly and damaging lawsuits.