Investing in Occupational Health and Safety Programs, Hazard Identification and Risk Control - Business Plan Example

Health and safety xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Name xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Course xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Lecturer xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Date Abstract Employee plays a very vital role in the performance of an organization. Their health and safety therefore is of great importance. Work injuries and ill health costs the company in many ways and therefore organizations opt to invest in workers’ health and safety if at all they want to achieve the desired goals and objectives. The extent of accidents in organizations and work related health issues and even environmental damage is a burden to the society, companies and even individuals. The resources and production lost during these instances are even more harmful to the economy which incapacitates the competitiveness of the entire company. Investing in occupational health and safety programs do have tangible results such as the reduction of costs which arise from being absent, staff reduction, great, and satisfaction of the customers, motivation enhancement, quality implementation and company image improvement. Integrating health and safety n the company’s strategy and policy is very vital to business excellence and success and is a prerequisite in the running of any business. Introduction Employers have an obligation to ensure that the health issues and their safety in work places are observed. The above in the work place must be addressed in any working place. Work injuries and ill health has much blames on the economic costs on employers, individuals and the government. It is worth noting that, many of these costs are financial costs which can be calculated by an estimation of the payments made and the income lost because of work injury or ill health (Fitzgerald 2005). There has been estimated of aggregate costs of health and safety failures for a long time. In a research commissioned by HSE in 2009 which involved the external contractors/risk solutions working with a number of leading academics in the field, showed that, there are diverse costs which are associated with the lack of safety and health amongst the employees. The fatalities, injuries and ill health issues are estimated to vary as follows £14.7 billion and £18.3 billion in 2006 prices. This is according to the exclusion of road accidents for they cannot be reported for they are outside the remit of HSE. This therefore entails that, there are financial implications which are associated with these fatalities in the work place. In an oil company, if these precautions are not observed, then there is a probability that the company as well as the workers will have financial implications which are connected to the injuries they incur in the workplace. For example, when the workforce is sick, there are high chances that they will be absent, the company will have to pay them for services they never offered. In the same case, regarding the skills they offer, this may be detrimental to the production which may on the other hand affect the clients (Miller 2000) Costs The expense of accidents in work places and work related health issues and even damage to environment is a burden to the society, companies and even individuals. These costs are not evenly shared amongst these entities but are shifted from the companies to individuals and companies. However, it is worth noting that, the resources and production lost during these instances are even more harmful to the economy which incapacitates the competitiveness of the entire company (Behm, Veltri & Kleinsorge 2004). Poor and hazardous working conditions affect quite a large number of entities. This therefore means that, when the working conditions improve and when the health of the employees improves, the productivity of the employees are realized. The safety and the health status in the workplace affect the following groups: Company – OHS services, management, shareholders, customer and other companies Individuals – workers, families and friends Society – healthcare systems, insurance companies and public/collective funds All these groups also bear consequences in case the safety and the health in workplaces is compromised. Table 1 gives just an overview of these implications. The nature of the implication is such that it is rare all the costs are combined to provide an overall picture of the magnitude and the complexity of the results Table 1 – implications of accidents at work and related ill health of the groups involved. Non tangible More/less tangible Company Workers present Company image Social climate and working relations Poor production. Damage to materials, equipments Quality losses Increased production costs Increase premium or reduction of the discount Legal sanctions Administrations costs Victim Pain and suffering Moral and psychological suffering incase of permanent injuries Strains in relations Lifestyle changes Loss of salary and premiums Reduction of professional capacity Medical costs Loss of time in medical treatments Family/Friends Medical burden Strain relationships Moral and psychological suffering Financial loss Extra costs Society Reduction of human labor potential Reduction of quality of life Loss of production Increase of social security costs Early retirement Decrease in living standard .source: De Greef and Van den Broek, 2004 Work-related health issues and accidents: costs and consequences Some measurable consequences are the expense of accidents and work related health issues. However, these are not the only implications. This can be elaborated through the use of a stone thrown into a pond. A stone thrown into a pond causes ripples in the water surface. This also happens when an accident occurs or when works fall sick in work places. The impacts may not be notices since they might occur in another time or place. Effects can be found long time after the event occurred or at a long distance from where the actual effect occurred. This being the case, it has been found that, smaller companies can experience more effects than the bigger ones. I a pond the impacts of water causes more and bigger ripples in a small pond than a big one. Accidents and health issues and the company’s revenue The expense on accidents at job places and work related health issues effects on the cost and the revenue of an organization that would not have been the case if the accidents of the illness would not have taken place (De Greef & Van den Broek 2009). This cost should be avoided at all cost for they have negative effects on the corporate value creation. This occurrences increase the costs of a company while at the same time diminishes its revenue. The effects on the costs of the company are immediate while the revenues are affected in the long run. For example, lowered staff morale for instances can be considered as an effect in the long run. Increases costs are due to non productive time. This due to the time lost due to accidents of ill health. It is however worth noting that, it is not just because of the days of absence of the victim whose salary is compensated by the insurance, but also the time spent responding to the issue (Lahiri, Gold &Levenstein 2005). This non productive time affects the company in a negative way. This is exonerated in the table below. Table 2 Effects on costs Effects on revenue Absence of the victim + Interruption of productions + First aid + Recruitment and additional pay for temporary workers + Training new workers + Repairs + Replacements of equipments + Fines, increased premiums + Production loss - Customer dissatisfaction - Company image - Job satisfaction - Source: De Greef and Van den Broek, 2009 Developing a HSE framework Since the human resource are the most important element in the performance of the organization, there is a need to the company to have in place a system that will ensure that the employees, the employer and the environment are considered as far as their welfare is concerned (Lahiri, Markkanen & Levenstein 2005). Borrowing from an initiative by BP, accountability is important where by the management concentrate on the HSE needs, resources allocation, set the HSE activities and most importantly improve HSE performance. The company therefore needs to come up with a system designed around the Plan-Perform-Measures Improve cycle. The level of business performance needs to be set and controlled by the business unit. If the thirteen elements are satisfied then the performance of the company will not be compromised. This will ensure that the health, safety and the environment performance are not compromised. This is through training and making sure that all employees are informed, connected and fully tally to the HSE improvement process and also appreciate that proper operations depends not only with the competency of the equipments but also on competent people and active HSE culture (De Greef & Van den Broek 2004). This in the long run ensures that the level of company’s performance never compromised. Signs and Labels To ensure that the health, safety and the environment are not compromised, and then there is need to have labels and signs in the entire company. This is attributed to the fact that, they instruct, warn , inform and promote safety in workplace. This is where by there has to be signs in all 4 categories. Prohibition This is like the NO SMOKING prohibition which prohibits employees or individuals in the working environ not to smoke in the premise due to high level of flammable products. Mandatory These indicate what the employees must do when in the work place. Like wearing goggles Their background has to be blue while the symbol and letters are white Warning These indicate causation, risk of danger or even hazard ahead. Safe condition Indicates where to go in case of an emergency and the safe ways; it caters for all information regarding the routes to use in case there is an emergency or those to use to avoid accidents. Hazard identification and risk control Most of the injuries and illnesses in the workplaces can be avoided or even prevented. This can be effected through; Modifying work process or equipments Developing and having in place safe working procedures Ensuring that employees have personal, protective equipments and follow safe working procedures to avoid any accidents At any one given time, every individual in the company must ensure that they are not partisans of any accidents and therefore all procedures must be followed to ensure that there are no accidents which occur due to recklessness. This is due to the fact that, the cost of this accidents and injuries can be detrimental to the performance of the entire company. Management leadership and organization The management must put in place policies which are aimed at ensuring that the health and safety of the workers is observed. This in the long run will translate to improved production, and workers/customer satisfaction. When developing the policies, the employees must be involved so that they can be fully aware of the policy contents since they are the ones involved in the hands on activities in the company (Marson 2001). The management must therefore be committed in leadership training, health and safety meeting, inspection tours and incident investigation. This in the long run ensures that the health and safety of workers is addressed and thus ensure continued performance and production. Why it pays to prevent Investing in occupational health and safety programs do have tangible results such as the reduction of costs which arise from staff being absent, reduction , great satisfaction of customers, increased motivation, quality improvement and company image enhancement. Integrating health and safety n the company’s strategy and policy is very vital to business excellence and success (Matetic & Ingram 2001). This is also attributed to the fact that it leads to substantial health awareness and improved motivation and commitment. This is elaborated in the figure below. Source: De Greef and Van den Broek, 2004 Measures and program in connection to company performance and company goals Conclusion It is clear that, occupational safety and health is an important business catalyst that can result to better performing businesses. This therefore means that, business should not much concentrate on investing in safety and health but rather much concentration should be on to what extent these two contribute to the achievement of the company objective. When safety and health issues are not compromised in companies, then the cost of operation are lowered while revenue increases. This is due to the fact that, absenteeism is curbed while skilled workers are maintained. This therefore calls for this company to ensure that all health and safety measures and policies are put in place. Bibliography Behm, M., Veltri, A., Kleinsorge, I. K, 2004. ‘The cost of safety: cost analysis model helps build business case for safety. Professional Safety, 49(4), pp. 22-29.. De Greef, M., Van den Broek, K., 2004. Making the Case for Workplace Health Promotion. Analysis of the effects of WHP, Brussels,. European Network for Workplace Health Promotion, pp. 120-200. Fitzgerald, M. K., 2005. Safety performance improvement through culture change’, Process Safety andEnvironmental Protection:. Transactions of the Institute of Chemical Engineers Part B, 83(4), pp. 324-330.. Lahiri, S., Gold, J., Levenstein, C., 2005. Net-cost model for workplace interventions. Journal of Safety Research - ECON proceedings, Volume 36, pp. 241-255.. Lahiri, S., Markkanen, P., Levenstein, C, 2005. Cost effectiveness of occupational health interventions:preventing occupational back pain’,. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 48(6), pp. 515-529.. Marson, G. K., 2001. The ‘value case’ for investment in occupational health. Occupational Medicine, 51(8), pp. 496-500. Matetic, R. J., Ingram, D. K., 2001. Preventing high insurance premiums and on-the-job injuries. What are poor health and safety habits costing you?’,. Water Well Journal, pp. 10-13.. Miller, P. W. D. R. A., 2000. An economic evaluation of occupational health’,. Occupational Medicine, 50(3), pp. 159-163. Read More