Law And Management: Reason For Having A Health And Safety Policy

HEALTH AND SAFETY POLICY
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Health and Safety Policy
Part A
A policy statement is a written statement that consist of three key elements:
* A statement part, which details the management of the safety as well as the commitment of the organization to health and safety rules and regulations.
* Organization part, which details how the allocation of responsibilities and the position of employees within the organization. In large firms, this part may include other documents such as safety work systems.
* Arrangements part, which details the management of certain functions and activities. This section may include various matters such as hazardous substances, fire safety, electrical safety, manual handling, accident reporting, first aid and other issues related to the work environment (Hughes and Ferrett, 2011).
Reason for having a health and safety policy
The law requires that organizations that employ five or more employees to have a written Health and safety policy statement that covers all of its aspects and be relevant to its labor force. The policy and safety policy statement demonstrates the commitment of a firm to its health and safety obligations. A proper health and safety policy demonstrates how those who are likely to be affected by the activities of an organization are protected from any harm or injury. The length of the policy should be appropriate and be relevant to the size and activities of the organization.
The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 states that every organization must prepare its own statement and present it to all employees and it should be reviewed and revised often when the need arises. On legal grounds, the policy requires that the organization addresses the health and safety issues that are related to its employees only, but it is important to consider the safety of those who are likely to be affected by the activities of the company such as contractors, volunteers as well as the general public. However, whether an organization has a written or oral policy, they have an obligation to protect their employees and general public from any harm or injuries that may result from its work activities.
Developing a health and safety policy
The health and safety policy is supposed to be prepared by people within the organization because they have a better understanding of the organization and how it operates. However, if the internal stakeholders of the organization lack the skills of preparing it, it is advisable to seek external advice and assistance, but it should be written in accordance with the needs of the firm. In preparation of the health and safety policy, the employees of the organization should be involved to provide their day-to-day experiences to get their commitment to the goals of the policy.
Setting out the policy
The management of the organization is responsible for deciding how the policy should be set out. The set out should be in a manner that is clear to every stakeholder of the organization of what is expected of in complying with the policy requirements. However, in small companies, it is advisable to have a simple statement and have few names since they will be responsible for most activities.
Aims
There are no rules that govern how long the policy is supposed to be. The most important thing is to ensure that the aims of the policy are linked to the level of risks available within the organization. Doing a risk assessment determines how detailed the arrangement section should be.
Reach
Organizations that have multiple activities especially large organizations, there should be a corporate policy that addresses all the general issues and detailed policies regarding to the activities. This is important for organizations that have multiple sites with distinct activities since it allows the organization to customize the organization section to accommodate individual managers in each site.
Informing the Employees
There is a variety of ways which can be used to bring the policy to the attention of all stakeholders. However, if the policy is short, it is advisable to have each employee have copy of the policy. In case of large organizations or the policy is long enough, it is advisable to post it on notice boards or appropriate positions or places within the organizations. Whatever the chosen method, the organization must ensure that the policy is brought to the attention of all employees as well as other stakeholders.
Monitoring and Review
Monitoring the effectiveness of the policy is important for an organization. This can be done through various ways such as running spot checks or safety inspections with the help of customized checklists. The monitoring and reviewing of the policy can be done in a formal manner through audits and management report reviews as well as investigating cases of accidents.
Key Features of a Health and Safety Policy
Intention of the Policy
This section contains the organization’s health and safety goals (measurable) and objectives (also measurable). Since the policy is subject to reviews and changes, the goals should remain unchanged but the objectives can be reviewed yearly. The language used should be clear and simple to ensure that all employees understands the policy.
The dates the policy was developed should be indicated and be signed by the senior most person in the organization usually the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or Managing Director. HSW Act states that it is the responsibility of the senior most person in an organization to ensure that the policy is prepared and brought to the attention of all employees. However, although the policy should be prepared by members of the organization because they understand the health and safety issues in the organization, it is advisable to seek for external consultations if the organization lacks the ability of developing it. The following issues should be considered when drafting a health and safety policy:
* Goals and objectives.
* Senior person who is concerned with health and safety issues.
* Names of the health and safety advisers.
* Commitment to the HSW Act requirements.
* Commitment to additional requirements such as those of the Management of Health and Safety at Work regulations.
* Obligations to the general public.
* Primary organizational hazards.
* Major functions of the health and safety management.
* Available resources for effective management of health and safety issues.
Setting Health and Safety objectives
It is important to set out the objectives of a health and safety program because it guides an organizations in setting its overall goals for a certain period. There are two methods that can be used to set the objectives of the organization: from the top or from the bottom. Moreover, it is vital to have the targets to ensure that the agreed performances standards are achieved. Since there is a variety of standards, it is important to prioritise the most important ones through the benchmarking process.
Organization of health and safety
This section outlines the names, positions and obligations of those who are responsible for health and safety within an organization. Therefore, it outlines the reporting structure in the organization. The following groups are also involved in this section as well as their responsibilities:
* External agencies
* Management and employee safety committees. These groups are concerned with the day-to-day monitoring of problems and other concerns.
Health and safety advisers are responsible for providing the managers with specialist information and monitoring the effectiveness of health and safety procedures and not for the implementation or for health and safety. Line managers are the ones who are responsible for health and safety as well as its implementation.
Most importantly, the job descriptions defining the obligations of each individual in the health and safety concerns of the organization must not contain any responsibility overlaps. Each individual must have a clear understanding of his/her obligations and their limits.
Arrangements for health and safety
This section provides details on the procedures and systems that are used in the implementation of the policy. It consist of the health and safety regulations and provision of various facilities such washrooms and first-aid kits and rooms. It is vital to include risk assessments (manual handling as well as protective equipment) in this section of the policy.
The three sections of the policy must be kept together in the manuals and the distributed copies to the employees.
Review of the Policy
It is vital to regularly monitor and review the health and safety policy. For a successful monitoring and evaluation of the policy, a series of key performance indicators should be established. The review is done due to the following reasons:
* The organization may have experienced significant changes.
* Changes in positions and key personnel.
* New guidelines or legislation rules.
* Introduction of new work methods.
* Alterations or changes to working processes.
Part B
Introduction
Based on the available accident causation theories and approaches, accidents are as a result of successive breaches of the available multiple defences in the organizational systems and procedures. The breaches can be as a result of various factors such as operational errors or equipment failures. As the models contend that in complex systems contain strong defensive layers, system failures are rare. It is also contended that any breaches maybe as a result of delayed decision making from the top management levels, which will not be realized until their effects are activated by certain operational circumstances. Under these circumstances, human or active failures in the operational failures breaches the inherent safety measures. Most of the models propose that accidents contain both active and hazardous conditions.
Active failures are considered to be actions and such as violations and errors that have adverse effects. In general they are considered to be unsafe acts which are associated with the lower level or front-line personnel and are likely to cause harmful outcomes.
Hazardous conditions tend to exist in a system before their damaging outcomes are experienced. Their consequences may remain unrealized for a long time before. At first, these hazardous conditions may be considered to be harmless, but they will be harmful once the defensive mechanisms get breached. Hazardous conditions are perceived to be created by people by taking too much time in the space of the event. These conditions in organizations include those that might be created due to lack of safety or having poor equipment; poor management decisions or defective systems and conflicting organizational objectives.
The reason model demonstrates how accidents occur in organizations through a building-block approach which consist of five blocks. The top block represents organizational processes which includes the activities that are under direct control of the organization. These activities include resource allocation, communication, planning, policy making, and supervision among others. In regard to health and safety concerns, there are two major resources that are involved; communication and resource allocation. Any deficiencies in these processes leads to system failures if not addressed in time and appropriately. These may result in active failures or hazardous conditions.
The hazardous conditions may include incorrect operating procedures, defective equipment designs and ineffective training. In general, these hazardous conditions can be classified into two broad categories (Maurino, Reason, Johnston and Lee, 2017). The first category consist of inadequate hazard identification and risk management where the risks of the hazards are not controlled in a proper manner but are left to exist in the system which end up being active once they are triggered. The second category is referred to as deviation where the exceptions end up being the rules. Resource allocation in this context is flawed and as a result, insufficient resources makes the front-line personnel to adopt shortcuts that involve violating the existing rules and procedures.
Hazard conditions have the potential of breaching the organizational defensive mechanisms. Generally, the defences can be clustered under: technology, training, regulations. Defences are the last safety procedures to be affected by the hazardous conditions and human failures. Mostly, the mitigation strategies against hazardous risks are based on strengthening the existing defence procedures or developing new ones.
Another pathway that is likely to result from organizational processes is the workplace conditions which have a direct influence on the efficiency of the personnel. These conditions are intuitive in that the front-line personnel experience them in varying degrees. They include, credibility of the management, morale, qualifications and experience, workforce stability and factors such as lighting, cooling and heating.
Inefficient working conditions enhance active failures by the front-line personnel. These failures are either extreme violations or errors. The motivation of the personnel is what differentiates errors from violations. An employee who is striving to accomplish a task in accordance to the set rules and regulations or training, but fails to achieve the intended objectives is considered to have committed an error. On the other hand, a front-line personnel who decides to defy the set rules and procedures or training when trying to accomplish a task is considered to be committing a violation. Therefore, the difference between the two is the intent.
Based on organizational accidents, the health and safety policy should address the organizational processes in order to identify hazardous conditions and strengthen the defence procedures. Moreover, health and safety should improve working conditions to eliminate active failures because it is through the combination of these factors that result in safety breakdowns in organizations.
Errors and Violations
Effective implementation of any system as well as its oversight is dependent on a mutual understanding of errors and violations. As explained above, the difference between the two is the intent. Errors are unintentional while violations are deliberate acts or deviations from the set procedures or norms (Begum, Begum, Solaiman and Solaiman, 2016). They may be as a result of non-compliance with the set procedures or regulations. Therefore, before deciding the appropriate action to be taken, it is important for the organization to determine whether the errors or violations are as a result of non-compliance. Also it is vital to consider whether the non-compliance is as a result of gross negligence or wilful misconduct.
Errors
An error is considered to be an action or inaction by the front-line operational personnel which result in deviations from the intentions of the person or objectives. Based on this, it is vital for organizations to understand that humans are likely to commit errors irrespective of the training level, existing procedures and processes as well as the level of technology involved. Therefore, the most important objective for the health and safety policy is to set out and maintain defence mechanisms that will reduce the chances of errors occurring and their effects in case they occur. To achieve these objectives, it is vital to identify, report and analyse the errors to enable appropriate actions to be taken. Errors are classified into two categories:
* Slips and lapses. These are failures that occur while executing an intended action. Slips are those actions that do not produce the expected results, while lapses are memory failures.
* Mistakes. These are failures which occur during the planning of an action. However, although the execution of the plan is correct, the intended outcomes will not be achieved.
Therefore, the health and safety policy should address the strategies that will be used in the control or elimination of any potential errors. These strategies leverage the defence mechanisms within an organization. These strategies include:
Reduction strategies which allow direct interventions to eliminate factors that are likely to cause errors. Examples include, improving the ergonomic factors.
Capturing strategies which assume that an error will occur. The goal is to “capture” the error before its consequences are experienced. Capturing strategies differ from reduction strategies since they employ checklists d procedural interventions over direct elimination of the error.
Tolerance strategies which is ...