Health & Safety

We have a track record of ensuring it is compliant with the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, as well as continuing to evolve its Health and Safety policy and procedures.  With that in mind the Options group reviews and updates its policy on an annual basis.

The performance of our Health and Safety Management System is monitored via audits carried out by Supervisors and Directors, as well as several independent external assessments by Clients and certifying bodies. The outcomes from these evaluations are included in a monthly report to the Directors and Senior Management.

We also work closely with our Clients to ensure policies and procedures are adhered to and adopted as best practice by Options where practicable. The Health and Safety Manager coordinates the business’ strategic approach to Health and Safety by defining and implementing initiatives and incorporating them into the annual company objectives.

Options is also regularly audited by Achilles as well as complying with the latest ISO standards relating to Health and Safety, recently completing the transition from safety standard OHSAS 18001:2007 to ISO 45001:2018 during 2020.  We also have a strong 5-year performance record on Health and Safety incidents as can be seen below.

The recent Achilles audit (April 2021) achieved a score of 100% for all categories and a copy of the audit certificate can be found here.

Our Health and Safety Management System sets out the core standards employees and sub-contractors must follow. The safety credentials of our suppliers and sub-contractors are scrutinised and measured before they are approved, and we maintain the skills and awareness of all staff through training tailored to individual roles.

Our 2016 specially designed behavioural safety programme, ‘Challenging Beliefs, Changing Behaviours’, equipped all employees and sub-contractors with psychology-based mechanisms and tools to create a truly safe culture.  These tools include regular safe behaviour discussions, site-based safety forums involving sub-contractors and employees, known as ‘No Accident Behaviour ‘, discussions and quarterly stand down days. Repeated use and exposure to these tools increases a natural response of safer behaviour and we believe the evidence of this can be seen in our statistics below.

The Near Miss / Don’t Walk By system for reporting potential Health and Safety incidents was introduced in December 2016 (in conjunction with our ‘Challenging Beliefs, Changing Behaviours’ programme) and gathered momentum in 2017 and 2018 as employees became more comfortable with the system. We believe the drop off in numbers in 2019 & 2020 to be a positive as employees are becoming more Health and Safety conscious and therefore making sure that what could become potential incidents / hazards are being risk assessed and managed out of the business.