Health and Safety Management - Essay Example

Health & Safety Management Health & Safety Management Every organization works towards satisfaction since they see it asthe ultimate road to their success. Successful organizations consider their employees as their internal customers, an asset for the firm. Hence working to improve upon the safety and quality of workplace is of utmost importance to many organizations today. The company is a high-hazard chemical manufacturing firm in which employee safety and health management issue has been put into focus.

The CEOs has put forth the proposal of implementing Zero Accidents policy for the next year. However, such implementation is a far goal that needs to be built upon by first applying other small quality and safety management techniques and policy to achieve a level where one can say that we can do without accidents. Being the Safety Manager it would be difficult to set an unrealistic goal that requires more time and expertise to achieve. Hence I disagree with such an ostentatious goal for a high hazard chemical firm.

However, it is not impossible but it needs to be worked upon slowly at first through various other policies. If a high goal is set it would first affect the workers they would be put under extreme pressure that might hinder their work efficiency as well as effectiveness. They need to be properly trained and equipped with the knowledge of undergoing and implementing Zero Accident policy which cannot be achieved in a year’s time let alone derive the desired result of no accidents in a year. This would also require full collaboration and cooperation of all departments of the firms and their time to first identify and lay down their activity maps and flows and then identify the hazardous situations then look for alternatives and safe ways in doing them and finally implementing the change.

All of this is a tedious task that requires various phases and is not likely to be done in a year’s time. I would like to suggest a safety plan that would eventually lead to Zero Accidents. This would include first introducing each department to the concept of safety and health management by conducting in-house workshop. After which ‘Quality Circles’ would be formed within each department reporting to the head of the department to come up with alternatives and ways to improve upon and make their processes safe.

Accidents can occur due to employee error, equipment’s insufficiency and procedure insufficiency. The ‘Quality circles will automatically motivate and involve employees to own up to the goal of improving their processes and would eventually lead them to following ‘KAIZEN’ – Continuous Improvements; Improvements that not only improve the quality of the work processes and the work itself but adheres to all safety and health policies. Teams can be further motivated by giving incentives and recognition awards as well as monetary incentives that identifies their efforts towards a healthy and safe work environment.

The performance and progress can be monitored through outsourced Quality / Safety Audits which can give a review over the performance of each department and suggest further improvements. Motivation to continuously improve upon processes and environment would ultimately lead to the goal of achieving a safe and healthy work environment with Zero Accidents Policy. However, the same requires willingness of the employees to improve continuously and their adaptability to changes. The employees need to feel they are an important asset to the firm and their interests are well guarded.

Further they would also be getting insurance and health policies to further stress on company’s commitment towards them. Then the implementation process matters which include planning, informing, practicing and then implementation. One can also conduct surprise inspections and proper investigations into any accident that occur which helps in keeping compliance. All of the mentioned strategies shall work in a speedy manner if the organization uses personality tests to screen out people who have tendency / self-consciousness towards safety in the very beginning (Werther & Davis, 2000).

Implementing a new policy or goal for improvement of an organization requires time and flexibility / adaption to change. Further all goals set should be realistic and proper planning should be done before implementing a policy that could alter the mere operations of the company. Slowly climbing each step of the ladder to organizational success by implementing similar concepts shall reap influencing and long lived successful policies. References Werther, William B, & Davis, Keith (2000). Security, Safety and Health.

In Warner, Laura, & Richardson, Lynn (Ed.), Human Resources and Personnel Management (pp. 479 – 490). USA: McGraw-Hill Inc. Whittingham, R. B. (April 2008). Preventing Corporate Accidents. Butterwort Heinemann. (2010, May 05). Environment Health and Safety (PS08.35) web. 2011, July 12: http://appl003.ocs.lsu.edu/ups.nsf/4d8b193f0753c7e48625714000672ba4/0025DE3F23193A1686256C250062AE4C/$File/PS19+FINAL.pdf