Sage and Business Partners – working together
In 1981, Sage was established in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and over the last 27 years, has developed into the leading supplier of business management software for small to edium-sized businesses in the UK. With 4.4 million customers worldwide, mand 600,000 in the UK alone, Sage has built up a deep understanding of the needs of all sizes and types of business. Supported by close relationships with Business Partners, Sage is able to offer this expertise right on your doorstep – for both software and support.
As a Sage Business Partner, we are able to visit you on-site to discuss your needs, to recommend the most appropriate package, to install and configure any software, and to provide training and after-sales support.
We would now like to take this opportunity to introduce you to a brand new service called Sage Health & Safety Advice. This complements the services that we, as your Sage Partner, can offer you, and is a cost-effective way to ensure you fulfil your health and safety obligations.
In recent years, more and more organisations have had enforcement notices issued against them and been held liable for their failures to manage health and safety properly. It is in your interests as an employer to ensure that you manage your health and safety responsibilities effectively, that you can demonstrate you take the matter seriously and that you are up-to-date with the latest rules and regulations.
Compliance
Consider the following ten simple questions:
- Do you have a written health and safety policy and a clear set of procedures for dealing with health and safety events?
- Do you have written board and senior management commitment to proper risk assessment and management?
- Do you carry out regular health and safety assessments and take documented precautions to address the risks identified?
- Do your staff handbook and / or company rules provide employees with clear guidance as to their health and safety responsibilities?
- Are your employees briefed on your health and safety policies and procedures and how they should respond in an emergency?
- Do you have an accident book that all employees are aware of that is used to record incidents?
- Do you have an individual who has responsibility for health and safety matters in your organisation?
- Are your health and safety insurance certificates properly displayed?
- Are you aware of your, your employees’ and your organisation’s obligations and responsibilities in law for health and safety?
- Is your business registered with the right authority and do you have appropriate insurance?
If you answer ‘No’ or are uncertain of the answer to any of the above questions, Sage Health and Safety Advice could be the ideal solution for your business.
Sage Health & Safety Advice advises you of forthcoming changes to the law and gives you all the tools you need to remain compliant. The service goes much further than legal advice – it seeks to offer pragmatic, commercial guidance on how to manage your health and safety affairs.
Sage Health & Safety Advice
Sage Health & Safety Advice is a legally-reliable health and safety support service. It translates the law into plain English, explains your obligations and helps ou discharge them.
Website
A comprehensive, easy-to-use website full of guidance and advice, divided into three sections and over 35 topics. It translates the law into plain English and is continually updated with the latest developments in health and safety management and law. Document templates This complete suite of health and safety documentation comprises over 80 procedures, step-by-step guides, letters, policies, forms and risk assessments that are being added to all the time.These documents download instantly in Microsoft Word format for you to print onto company-headed paper.
FAQs
An online bank of answers to businesses’ frequently-asked health and safety questions. Sage updates this database continually with the answers to questions asked of health and safety professionals. Alerts Proactive e-mail alerts tell you what you need to know and do ahead of legally required change or key events, and give you the tools to act.
Monthly newsletters
Keep up to date with the latest developments in health and safety law and best practice, delivered straight to your inbox.
Sage Health & Safety Advice Professional
Sage Health & Safety Advice Professional allows you to speak, or correspond by e-mail, with a legally-qualified health and safety expert. It includes all the features of Sage Health & Safety Advice, plus: Professional Advice Speak with a health and safety expert to receive legally-reliable advice about your legal obligations. You can make contact by telephone, 9-5 weekdays, and receive instant, practical advice. Telephone calls are charged at local rate, and you are not restricted in the number of calls that you can make during your 12-month subscription. Alternatively, e-mail your query and receive a response within 48 hours. Compliance Trail If you need a history of advice on which you have acted, the Sage Health & Safety Advice Professional service can supply you with an appropriate report, documenting website usage, documents downloaded, e-mail traffic and telephone calls. Quality Service Qualified professionals field your queries, with an average of over 10 years’ hands-on health and safety experience. All calls are recorded and, where appropriate, a follow-up e-mail clarifies the main points of the advice given. The advice is not legalistic, but practical and tailored to your specific situation. Incidences are case number driven, so that Sage can easily refer to the history of an issue. Sage, endeavours to provide continuity, so you can build a relationship with one advisor, to save you from unnecessarily repeating information to different people.
Sage Health & Safety Advice Tailored Solutions
Once you have subscribed to Sage Health & Safety Advice Professional, you can take advantage of tailored solutions to further assist in the health and safety delivery of your business.
Pick and choose from the following services:
AUDIT
There are two levels of audit for individual companies:
- Compliance Review (1 – 2 days*) - designed to make your core documents, health and safety policy and risk assessments, compliant quickly.
- Full Audit (2 – 6 days*) - thorough review of all relevant documents, policies and procedures, including recommendations for change and improvements.
It may be possible to conduct the Compliance Review remotely via telephone and e-mail. The Full Audit is likely to require at least one visit to your place of business.
* Estimated time required, depending on complexity and number of documents to be reviewed.
DOCUMENT MAINTENANCE
Following an Audit, Sage can maintain all your documents, policies and procedures. This is a proactive maintenance service that will help you remain compliant with all legislative changes. You will be advised of changes that are necessary, be provided with redrafted documents and be guided how to communicate changes to your business.
REVIEW MEETINGS
You can arrange for one of Sage’s professional advisers to visit you to assist you and your team with all your health and safety matters. Visits may be arranged for a frequency of your choice. The adviser will be dedicated to your account and will, where possible, take any calls you make to the advice line between visits.
TRAINING
Training can be delivered to your professionals, managers and/or staff. Depending on the audience, the training can be technical, practical or both. Each training course is tailored to the customer’s specific needs.
INTRANET
To complement the Audit, Document Maintenance, Review Meetings and Training services, Sage can also build your own-branded secure website to host all your relevant documents, policies and procedures.
Topics and Documents
Topics
The online Sage Health & Safety Advice service contains over 40 topics.
These include:
Responsibilities
- Director
- Employer
- Owner / Proprietor
- Employees
- Competent person
- The Health & Safety
- Executive
- Environmental Health
- Department
- Police
All Employers
- Explaining simply the
- acts and regulations
- Business benefits
- Consultation
- Display screen
- equipment
- Drugs and alcohol
- Fire
- First aid
- Health and safety policy
- Liability and insurance
- Management of health
- and safety
- Reporting accidents
- Risk assessment
- Risk management
- Slips and trips
- Smoking
- Stress
- Welfare
- Whistle blowing
- Working time
Activities
Documents
Sage Health & Safety Advice includes over 100 document templates. Listed below is just a selection of those included in the service:
Risk assessment forms: Including asbestos, driving, machinery, manual handling, noise and office working forms.
Step-by-step guides: Including step-by-step guides to dealing with fire prevention, smoking in the workplace, food safety, keeping your premises safe and reporting accidents.
Inventories: Including inventories for electrical equipment, chemicals, office equipment, vehicles and warehouses.
Policies: Including policies for alcohol / drug abuse, no smoking, dealing with the police, slipping and tripping, and stress.
Other: Including accident book, employer’s statement, getting started with health and safety, hand-washing, first aid personnel and workplace stress. Please note that the topics and documents contained in Sage Health & Safety Advice are subject to continual review and update, and therefore Sage reserves
Frequently-Asked Questions
Question: How is Sage Health & Safety Advice different to its competitors?
There are a number of ways in which the service stands out from the competition:
- Proactive: Sage doesn’t react to change, but instead tells you about forthcoming events in advance and provides you with all the tools you need to remain compliant.
- Commercial: Sage doesn’t just advise on legal issues, but also offers practical guidance on managing your health and safety obligations effectively, and adopting best practice.
- Plain English: The service translates the law into plain English, so that everyone can understand it.
Question: Can I rely on the advice?
Yes. Sage stands behind the accuracy of the advice given. If you provide all of the details of an issue and follow Sage’s advice to the letter, if the advice proves inaccurate and you suffer a loss as a result, Sage will compensate you for the advice provided up to the value of £20,000 per incident. Please note that whilst Sage is happy to support you on issues that arose prior to buying the service, Sage’s legal reliability only applies to those matters that arose after purchase.
Question: Does Sage provide legal representation in court?
No. There are a number of reasons for this:
- Research shows that businesses would rather use their own lawyers than an unknown quantity.
- Most businesses have legal representation covered by their general business insurance, so to pay Sage would mean paying for it twice.
- You would in effect be paying an ‘insurance policy’ for something you may never need – Sage’s prices are so competitive because you are being charged only for what you need to use on a day-to-day basis. Sage can, however, recommend appropriate legal counsel, and no matter who your lawyer is Sage would be happy to provide you with a comprehensive report containing a detailed history of every piece of advice you have acted upon from Sage Health & Safety Advice.
Question: If I subscribe to the service, for how long am I tied in?
The minimum period of subscription is a 12-month contract. At the end of 12 months, you are under absolutely no obligation to renew, and unlike some other providers of similar services, Sage does not tie you into long contracts that you cannot break.
Question: Are there any offers available?
- If you have SageCover on another Sage product at the time you purchase Sage Health & Safety Advice or Sage Health & Safety Advice Professional, you are entitled to a 10% discount.
- If you purchase the Health & Safety service and are already subscribing to Sage HR Advice, you may benefit from an additional 10% saving.
Additional Sage Services
Sage HR Advice
Sage HR Advice is a legally reliable human resource service. It translates employment law into plain English, as well as advising you how to manage your employees.
The service contains the complete suite of HR documentation - over 100 procedures, step-by-step guides, letters, policies and forms – everything from a contract of employment to how to conduct an appraisal. It also gives you access to over 40 topics in a comprehensive website, ranging from conducting a job interview to disciplining an employee.
This is all backed by a bank of FAQs, proactive alerts and monthly newsletters. As with Sage Health & Safety Advice, the Professional service allows you speak to, or e-mail, qualified HR professionals and receive legally reliable advice.
Did you know?
Are you aware of your responsibilities in respect of your employees?
- Did you know that if an employer dismisses an employee for justifiable reasons, the employee can still succeed in a claim against the employer for not following the correct procedure?
- Did you know that in 2003/04, the number of employment tribunal cases rose by more than 16% to over 115,000?
- Did you know that in 2003/04, 37,644 cases were taken to Industrial Tribunal in respect of unfair dismissal alone?
- Are all your employees’ contracts of employment up to date?
- Does your business adopt clear probationary and performance review processes?
- Do your employees’ hours of work take into account the Working Time Directive?
- Are your policies for dismissal, discipline and grievance up to date with the new legislation of October 2008?