For many businesses DSE comes a long way down the to do list; this tends to be because the risks are seen as very low. But in reality, for many office type businesses, DSE risks are probably one of the highest health & safety risks that they will face if not managed well.

If DSE is ignored then it won’t be well managed and therefore will put employees at risk of developing long term health problems. We see many businesses that are scared of addressing DSE; because they think it will cost them in the short term by having to replace chairs etc. However, the truth is that DSE is often just about making small adjustments and educating staff about the risks.

Through being open and transparent about DSE risks and controls we can help employees to understand how they can avoid causing long-term harm to themselves. Surely this will be far more cost effective over the long term?!

We work with a number of large businesses that are aware of this and go the step further to ensure that when circumstances change they have the DSE assessments updated. This may be down to a change in the office but more often will be because of a change in the health or fitness of the individual. As DSE assessments are about the individual, then this is vitally important if we want to provide a place of work where our staff can work comfortably and effectively.

Ignoring DSE risks will, in our experience, end up costing far more in the long term than it will to undertake assessments and training now.