A round-the-clock challenge

Compliance is a round-the-clock job but someone has to do it. Jamie Tranter explains how businesses can remove the stress associated with controlling the risks

Staying on top of compliance is an ongoing challenge for businesses across all sectors. On top of the everyday challenges that feel more vital to the business such as maintaining profitability, sourcing and retaining the right talent and growing your market share, managing compliance is the inconvenient yet very necessary job that has to be taken care of. Being compliant safeguards the health and safety of both your employees and visitors to your sites.

Business leaders will pass the responsibility of compliance onto building or facility managers but being accountable for keeping up with every piece of compliance and regulation is a challenging job for one person to master. Factors such as updates to regulations, changing production processes and the push towards more sustainable means of operations are all current contributors to the challenge of keeping up with compliance.

While helpful guidelines are made available to assist businesses in keeping compliance in check, the fact is that often, factors that compromise compliance can be hard to detect. While managers of buildings and facilities are without doubt the experts in their own organisations, they can’t always be expected to demonstrate expertise in every area of compliance.

When it comes to running a compliant business, risk assessments are the key. Following official assessment guidelines, building and facility managers must undertake regular risk assessments because staying compliant is continual process. It’s easy to imagine the task of measuring compliance like a vehicle MOT or a check-up from the doctor – an annual touchpoint that ensures everything is as safely as it should.

The reality is that the managers and owners of buildings and facilities have a responsibility to protect those working around and within them. For instance, Legionella bacteria emitted from an ‘out of control’ cooling towers can travel several miles in the breeze, potentially affecting the wider neighbouring communities as well as you and your workers.

Across many industries – and especially in food and beverage – cooling towers are essential in to the production process. However, if these vital pieces of plant equipment are not regularly assessed in accordance with official Legionella regulations that ensure the safe control of Legionella risk, dangers are posed to both the facility worker and people living and working in neighbouring properties.

Hostile elements such as scale or corrosion in a poorly maintained cooling tower can result in the growth of Legionella bacteria which can quickly spread throughout the water system, creating a potentially fatal risk to anyone who breathes in the Legionella bacteria contaminated aerosol (water spray).

Contracting deadly Legionnaires’ disease can be as simple as inhaling an airborne water droplet of water that has become contaminated with Legionella bacteria. When it comes to Legionella risk assessment, different elements of the entire water system – beyond cooling towers – need to be assessed on individual cycles.

For example, cold water tanks are evident in every building but only need to be assessed on an annual basis whereas hot water heaters (calorifiers) must be monitored monthly. Then infrequently used outlets such as taps and shower heads must be flushed on a weekly basis to ensure that there is no opportunity for Legionella bacteria to breed in stagnant water that has built up between uses.

This is just a snapshot from an extensive list of requirements that must take place at different intervals and remember, these are only reference Legionella compliance. When you think about each of the different areas of compliances and regulations that your business must adhere, the importance of keeping it consistent becomes clear.

While the challenge of maintaining compliance may seem overwhelming, businesses can move beyond the challenge and find peace of mind by investing in the right expertise. This could in the form of internal personnel trained to be the experts on specific pieces of compliance or this could be in the form of external consultants who have extensive experience and expertise in assessment and remedial action.

By investing in training such as City & Guilds accredited courses that will bring your nominated internal experts up to speed with compliance, or by enlisting the right consultants and working with either to develop a set of policies and procedures your business can remove the stress of consistent compliance. In doing so, you will be safeguarding your workers, your customers, your brand reputation and your bottom line.

Jamie Tranter is business development manager at Clearwater Technology