Module 5 TD-MGT 411 Managing Workplace Safety - Essay Example

Business essay: Managing workplace safety Managing workplace safety As an employer, the Chesapeake Chicken plant is tasked with the responsibility of upholding a healthy and safe workplace. A safety program or health and safety management system can assist them focus their effort at making their work environment better. Chesapeake Chicken plant, thus, ought to implement the following checks and balances in their Health and Safety Division so as to avoid safety and health issues from arising again; the first check should be the establishment of a program that will ensure managers are committed in making the safety program work by including workplace health and safety in their business plan and integrating it in all the facets of the business.

The management should also write a policy which emphasizes on workplace health and safety. Secondly, the management of Chesapeake Chicken plant should involve their employees and give them a stake in the health and safety program to ensure success of the same. This is because health and safety is everybody’s responsibility. This can be achieved by establishing a vigorous workplace health and safety committee. The third check should involve identification and controlling of hazards. This can be done by recording injuries, accidents, close calls and illnesses as they occur.

Chesapeake should also review Occupational Safety and Health administration (OSHA) logs, workers’ compensation complaints, reports as well as close calls. The fourth check and balance should be complying with various regulations. Chesapeake Chicken plant ought to identify OSHA regulations that are applicable in their workplaces as well as complying with them. The fifth check involves training of employees about the potential hazards that they may possibly be exposed to while working as well as available means of protecting themselves.

Thus all personnel ought to be retrained as required by set standards together with specific training on hazards in regard to their jobs. Finally, Chesapeake Chicken plant must repeatedly review their program’s weaknesses and strengths and how accurately it reflects on their desire to manage health and safety as well as maintain a culture of safety whereby employees hold safety as one of the values of the company and should actively mind their own welfare as well as that of others by establishing 2 way communication and responding to concerns and needs of fellow workers (Hopwood & Thompson, 2006).

ReferencesHopwood, D., & Thompson,S. (2006). Workplace safety:A Guide for Small and Midsized Companies. New York: John Wiley & Sons,Inc.