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"As a caterer, do I also need to draw up a GPP? "

As a caterer, real estate agent or fitness shop owner, do I need a GPP or global prevention plan?
(Yes, as soon as you take on staff.)

As a small business owner, do I really need a prevention advisor? Who should I hire and what should this person do in my business? And: how many hours must I provide for his/her assignment? Where can I find the right information? What is the best place to start?

When we hear this, we hear people who are good at good food, real estate or healthy sports but who now have a lot of administrative questions on their plate. These kinds of questions are not only asked by the smaller, but also by the slightly bigger entrepreneur.

This article will help you, as a young entrepreneur, find your way around the Welfare Act faster.

Where can I go for answers as a small business owner?

Your social secretariat informs you of your legal obligations as an employer, but how to handle these in a smart way is something else for a starter or someone hiring his first employee. At that moment you already have enough plates to keep spinning. Knowing who can help you in those busy times makes a difference in the length of your to-do list in the short term and in your wallet in the long term.

For this, we need to take you through the story of the extra obligations you have to fulfil as an employer.

How do I make the best choices for prevention services right away?

As an entrepreneur, you càn plough through the Welfare Act yourself. Then you are a courageous and patient person. 😉
You also have to be able to do this.

Expect to read 10 books in tough legalese about the 7 welfare domains that are all important for your employee. Whether this is someone with a permanent employment contract, an apprenticeship contract, a temporary worker or a trainee makes no difference in essence, of course.

However, this can be useful information for new employers:

1. The EDPBW or external service for prevention and protection at work

In this Codex you will read the same as what your social secretary normally told you: you are obliged to join an external service for prevention and safety at work (EDPBW). Depending on the nature and size of your case, you pay a fixed fee for this. With this service - you choose which one - you enter into an agreement that binds you for a certain period of time.

What you will not find in the Codex, is which external prevention service best suits your company...

"Don't they all do the same thing? Well, yes and no.

Every external service is transparent about the tasks it will take on for you and what it will cost you. However, if you are a layman in the field, you just don't know what these tasks entail and what you can and may ask from your external service. How that EDPBW actually provides its extra support can also vary from one service to another.

A little tip: you can choose another service at any time, but read their conditions carefully. It could be that if you only cancel after the end of June, you are contractually bound until the end of the following calendar year.

2. The IDPBW or internal service for prevention and protection at work

From the day you become an employer, you are legally obliged to set up an Internal Prevention and Protection at Work Department (IDPWB).
As a business manager, you can include the task of internal prevention advisor in your own package or have it carried out by an employee. This is almost always a major administrative burden for an entrepreneur, for which you do not (yet) have the knowledge.

To know how much time this task will cost your employee or you as manager, you must also know what it entails. What is the status of your training in prevention and occupational safety? For the required risk analyses, do you start as an inexperienced person with no more than generic templates in your hands or can you rely on someone who will pass you workable documents, teach you how to use them and store them in a tailor-made document management system? These are all questions for which you can safely turn to a third party.

3. The external consultant takes you by the hand

Did the previous question make you feel a little warm? That is something we see every week in SMEs: there is a lot on the minds of managers, certainly in the field of prevention and occupational safety. In that complexity, try to make the most efficient and affordable choices for your SME...

Entrepreneurs know perfectly well where their strengths lie and therefore also where they need support. For an external consultant in Health and Safety (HSE) like Seekurico, these are the ideal clients, because they make safety a priority from the very beginning. Without even realising it, they choose for more profit in the long run.

In companies where safe working is a priority, little or no money leaks away as a result of accidents at work. How much profit this can bring to a company is quite impressive.

Did you know that you can use such an external consultant in occupational safety very flexibly? Are you just looking for a private tutor who will guide you through your initial tasks in a coaching process? Do you need a neutral but involved supporter who makes the most suitable choices with you when you fill in the identification document for your agreement with the EDPBW?

Who can explain to you in human language what you have to comply with by law and who can pass you a cheat sheet with the steps to take and all the accompanying documents?

Or can you use someone who starts up your internal prevention service, provides training and creates a usable DRBS (Dynamic Risk Management System)? A partner who enriches your company with knowledge, making you less dependent on external services.

The questions you don't know you want to ask yet

When you first started stirring pots or selling fitness subscriptions to your first clients, you didn't know what you would ever have to offer as an employer. The only thing that mattered to you was making someone happy with what you had to offer. The complex administration was not yet one of your concerns.

Meanwhile, you know a good accountant, a financial adviser and maybe even a business coach. With every question you put to them, your own expertise as an entrepreneur grew.

Our passion is to be able to unburden companies at truly all levels of the 7 well-being domains. External consultants offer solutions for all concerns about the well-being of employees in organisations. That makes us, safety consultants, happy.

We even have a plan ready for the questions that do not yet occur to you.

That first, exploratory talk is therefore without a doubt one of the most valuable end-of-year gifts you can order for yourself as a young employer. Free and without obligations.

You will find us in the area "interesting!" between "if only I had known sooner..." and "good thing I did this". 😉

Seekurico Ltd

Rode Kruisstraat 49
3540 Herk-de-Stad (B)

info@seekurico.be
Phone +32 (0)474 37 94 63

VAT BE 0683.484.566