Your legal responsibility to consult employees
Contents
You have a legal responsibility to consult your workforce on health and safety matters. It's important to motivate them and make them aware of health and safety issues. Your employees are often the best people to understand risks in the workplace, so consulting with them can help you to reduce the number of workplace accidents and work-related illnesses more efficiently.
What should the consultation be about?
You should consult your employees about their health and safety at work, including:
- The likely risks and dangers arising from their work, what measures you can take to reduce or remove these risks, and what they should do if they are exposed to a risk
- Any change that may substantially affect their health and safety at work, e.g. in procedures, equipment or ways of working
- The role and responsibilities of the competent people
- Any appropriate health and safety training they may need
- The health and safety consequences of introducing new technology
You must give employees or their health and safety representatives the relevant information, and they must have enough time to consider or express their views. You must take time to listen and consider their views before you make any decision.
If your business recognises a trade union
If the trade union has chosen, or is about to choose, safety representatives, then you must consult those safety representatives on matters affecting the employees they represent.
You would also need to consult directly with employees who aren't members of the trade union.
Which laws apply?
- The Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977
- The Safety Representatives and Safety Committee Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1979
If your business doesn't recognise a trade union
You must consult employees either directly or through elected representatives. If you decide to consult your employees through an elected representative, then employees have to elect one or more employees to represent them.
Which laws apply?
- The Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations 1996
- The Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1996
What is the law guide
The Desktop Lawyer law guide aims to present the law to you in a comprehensive yet jargon-free and easy-to-read format. Our law guide is constantly kept up to date with changes in business and family law by our team of in house solicitors, and includes information across all the legal jurisdictions in the UK.
Our law guide is free to use. Where we provide documents related to this area of law, or where they may help you with any legal issue in this area, they will be listed to the right of this message.