Safety and Health Training in Engineering Industry - Term Paper Example

? Safety and Health Training in Engineering Industry College: Safety and Health Training in Engineering Industry Safety and health are critical matters that any business organization must take into consideration while designing their operations. Compared to other organizations, the engineering organizations take part in operations that are much riskier, putting them at the risk of accidents, diseases and even death. The industrial management team has a vital role to ensure that the health and safety of their employees are maintained at an optimal level. The government regulations on organizational safety and health (OSHA) demand that organizations maintain health and safety standards to ensure that their employees work in a minimum risk working environment. Failing to comply with these regulations attracts legal penalties that often are consequential to the organization. One of the superior ways of maintaining health and safety within an organization is educating the employees on the need for safety in a working environment and the minimum safety level requirements demanded in the organization. The management should thus be aware of how to induce effective training programs and how to align the employees towards the managerial objectives as far as health and safety is concerned within the work place. In reality, employee training is a key strategy to minimization of accidents, illnesses and death in work environments. Safety and health are two closely related terms yet very distinct in an industrial setting, hence the need to separate them. Goetsch (2008), an industrial and safety professional, define safety in an organization as the ability to keep the employees away from the accident-causing situations that might cause damage, injury or even kill the employee. For instance, in an engineering firm, engineers have to operate electrically driven machines such as conveyor belts and grinders. When such machines come into contact with human beings, they are likely to cause accidents, some of which may be fatal. As such, it is crucial to safeguard the life of an employee from such machines to avoid unnecessary accidents in an organization. On the other hand, health maintenance refers to the ability to protect employees from disease causing environments. In industrial organizations, say a manufacturing plant, employees are exposed to smoke that may cause lung diseases. In this light, organizations have a core responsibility to avoid accidents and industrial related diseases within the employee population. In the United States the Organizational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) provides the standards that industrial organizations should comply with. The OSH Act provides that each business organization has a general duty to ensure that their employees are safe and free work environment hazards. Each year, the federal government, through their safety supervisors, conduct random safety inspections to observe whether organization have applied safety programs that comply with the OSHA standards. Over 50, 000 organizations are scrutinized and failure of compliance attracts fines, penalties and even temporary or permanent closure of organizations. One requirement of the OSH Act is that the employees have the “right-to-know” the health risks and conditions of the organization before they are assigned to their duties (United States Department of Labor, 2013). Resultantly, the act recommends that every organization implement an employee training program to ensure that employees are aware of the dangers that they risk in their working conditions. In essence, the implementing a health and safety training program is a compulsory requirement for every organization. Putting the legal side of organizational health and safety aside, a healthy working environment has many economic benefits to the organization. Burton (2008) points out to the high financial cost that organizations pay for failing to implement standard work environment conditions. First, unhealthy employees are likely to absent from their work, which often leads to has great impact on the organizational performance. Research shows that in the US, 19% of the absenteeism cases are caused by stress in the work place, and that it contributes to financial losses amounting to about $5.48 billion per year. Secondly, unhealthy employees cannot perform to their expectation leading to lower employee productivity in business organizations. Thirdly, unhealthy organization will incur high costs on employee insurance policies, law suits and medical costs. For instance, in a law suit Sulz versus the RCMP, the organization paid $1 million after Nancy underwent a mental damage after receiving treatment from the organization supervisor. The only way to avoid such financial costs is to develop an efficient safety and health program that would include employee training to ensure that cases of accidents and illnesses are reduced in an organization. Another way to look at the consequences of an ineffective health program is evaluating the employee commitment. Burton (2008) points out that employees remain committed to organizations that provide them with healthy environment rather than those that neglect the employee’s welfare. In the 21st century, the business organizations have shifted to behavioral strategies that include knowing the employee tastes and striving to satisfy them. Satisfied employees have a long term association with the organization and will be easy to align with the management objectives. The bottom line of satisfied employees is a management team that cares about the health and safety of their employees. In addition, an organization that does not care about their employees will have a bad reputation and will not attract skilled employees from the employment sector. If the word of Burton is something to go by, every organization should aim at the highest achievable safety and health standards in an organization to ensure employees are aligned to the management goals and objectives required to propel an organization to a competitive position. Engineering firms pose a lot more risks than any other business organization in the employment industry. In a typical industrial organization, electricity, crude oil compounds, chemicals, electro-mechanical machines are all potential sources of accidents and illnesses in these organizations. Goetsch (2008) points out that new technology has brought about new sources of risk in work environments, requiring more active participation in the development of safety and health programs that are relevant and dynamic in a modern work environment. The fact that these technologies are new and that most employees may be experiencing them for the first time, it calls for an education driven safety program to provide proper orientation to employees on how to avoid accidents while working with such new technologies. Otherwise, the employees are likely to learn the hard way which will be expensive for the organization in the long run. The only way to offset the risks associated with emerging technologies is by providing intensive employee training to equip employees with prior experiences of the equipment that they are expected to handle in the industry. Increasing organizational risks in industrial organizations have triggered many organizations to embark on employee training as a proactive measure to satisfy the safety standards of a modest organization. Goetsch (2008) describes the “three E” model of health and safety within a contemporary industrial organization. This model emphasizes on the value of engineering, Education and Enforcement of safety programs. To implement total quality management, organization managers need to develop and effective training program, educate their employees on this program and then enforce the program to ensure that employees comply with the designed program. The effectiveness of the training program is central to the implementation of a safety program. During the training stage, the program is transferred to the operational level, which includes employees who come in direct contact with the risky conditions. If a training program is successful, the enforcement stage becomes easy as the employees have already learnt the need for safety and the way to achieve it. High illiteracy level within the work environment demands that employees be subjected to a rigorous training session before induction of new employees. Wilkins (2011) is one the researchers who have conducted delved into the matters that escalate the problem of safety in the industrial sector. The findings of his research indicate that most employees lack the technical knowledge that is expected in the industrial sector to prevent accidents reason being that most new employees have no prior experience on the topic. In addition, most managers will see training as an additional cost rather than a strategy to minimize organizational cost. Every organization is unique and has its own unique environmental risks that pose potential risks for new employees. As such, employee training should come immediately after a successful selection and recruitment process before employees are assigned their effective duties. This will ensure as the employees report to their work positions, they are aware of the safety rules and regulations that govern the new work environment. In a typical industrial organization, the safety team comprises of the senior level management, health officers, quality assurance engineers and the industrial safety engineers. The top level management engaged in the development of a safety and health program with the help of all other members of the safety team. The rest of the team are actively involved during the training session to ensure that the program is transferred to the trainees effectively. The industrial engineer is endowed with the responsibility of monitoring with their area of operation that safety and health practices are observed during all the working hours. The quality manager conducts a review of the program and its efficiency and provides corrective measures that are discussed by the top level management team (Wilkins, 2011). An effective training period will ensure that industrial engineers have a smooth time while working with the employees in the allocated projects. As such, the training role should be regarded with more weight more than any other stage. In a health and safety training program, vital information is communicated to employees by the safety training team. To begin with, the safety officers seize this opportunity to relay information regarding the dressing code of all employees. In an industrial organization, the dressing code contributes to the safety of an employee in a great way. For instance, helmets, safety boots, gloves and overalls play a key role in protecting employees against mechanical damage that often demand medical attention or absenteeism. This information must be provided as a regulation and not as an optional matter. The training team should relay the requirements as well as the consequences of failing to comply with them. Secondly, this is a period of disclosure that aims at making the employees more aware of the risks that they are likely to encounter during their day to day activities. Information on chemicals, equipment, gases, and weather conditions likely to predispose the employees is disclosed at this stage. This ensures that employees have a personal responsibility to be safe and avoid exposing themselves to dangerous activities. Finally, the employees are provided with the strategies to avoid risking their health and safety (Wilkins, 2011). For instance, all employees should be provided with knowledge on how to conduct first aid when an accident occurs. Relaying vital safety and health information during this stage ensures that employees are aware and prepared to handle the risks, while satisfying the expectations of the organization on safety. The structure of a safety and health training programs contributes to the effectiveness of the programs and the achievement of the training team. Roughton and Mercurio (2002) found value on the need for developing an effective training program structure in an industrial organization in an industry sector. An effective training program must be integrated in the sense that it garners the synergy from the entire organization. This implies that every member must be engaged in the training program to ensure that every aspect of the program is covered. While the senior management team designs a comprehensive training program, the industrial engineer and other parties are involved in the actual training process, and worker-worker training takes place after the training session. Experienced employees should be engaged in demonstrating to the employees the right way to handle the machines, something that cannot be communicated orally. Another characteristic of a training program is that it must be comprehensive and regular. All the necessary skills, regulations, legal requirements, organizational expectations and consequences of negligence must be covered during the training stage. To look at it differently, it must be comprehensive in the manner that all the employees must be covered by the program (Roughton and Mercurio, 2002). Apart from training the casual workers, the safety team should attend seminars and conferences and on organizational health and safety to ensure that they acquire new skills. On the hand, experienced employees should be trained every time new equipment comes up to ensure that changes in the organizational environment are adequately covered. The comprehensiveness of the program ensures that all information and every member in the work environment are covered by the program. Roughton and Mercurio (2002) point out to the need for an evaluative and reinforced program. In the perspective of evaluation, the program should have a regular periodicity when refresher training is conducted to update and to remind the employees on the need for safety. If the training takes place once during the induction stage, the employees will forget the safety expectations as time goes by reducing the effectiveness of the program. As such, an industrial organization should develop a refreshing program, say after every six months, to remind the employees on the need for safety and to provide information that may have emerged. Since the work environment is subject to change, it is important to adopt dynamic health and safety training programs to conform to these changes. Reinforcement of a training program is an important part of ensuring health and safety are matters of daily concern for employees. For instance, providing written rules and regulations for the employees will help them to read any time and understand the organization's expectations. In addition, an industrial engineer should organize regular fire-drills to keep the employees prepared to respond to emergency situations in an organization. A wide range of case studies reveal that safety and training programs contribute to the development of a healthy work environment. Nelson Pine Industries (NPIL) is one of the organizations that have capitalized on employee training to develop a healthy culture in their industry. Being an engineering firm that produces Lumber and Fibreboard, the organization is exposed to many health and safety issues. On training, the organization has developed a systematic and comprehensive worker induction program. The program requires that all supervisors and managers are included in the effective training of employees immediately after recruitment. An induction checklist is used to ensure that all employees have acquired the right training for their posting and each employee is required to sign the commitment sheets. All accidents in NPIL are reported to the supervisors and misconducts are punished as per the rules provided during the training session. Job competency training is provided to by the training team before employees are regarded as fully pledged employees. In addition, every employee is provided with employee handbook with organization safety behavior and standards. The training managers are graduates of health and safety training schools and over 37 managers possess a certificate in Occupational health and safety level 3 (Heathrose Research, 2013). The organization has reported minimal cases of accidents and is regarded as one of the modest industrial organizations in terms of health and safety. The superiority of the training program in NPIL can be associated with the competency of the training team. The training team has attended organizational health and safety and training schools and hence is able to provide viable training programs in the organization. Providing the employees with a manual book after an induction process ensures that they can continue learning even long after the induction process. Roughton and Mercurio (2002) points out that job competency is a necessity to reduce organizational risk as competent employees know how to avoid accidents. The ability of NPIL to invest in the program ensures that all employees are competent enough and that reckless accidents are completely eliminated. From a critical point of view, NPIL has benefited from implementing a comprehensive training program that is driven by competent training managers. By extrapolation, adoption of an effective training program will be productive in any industrial organization that values safety and health of their employees. In conclusion, health and safety training programs are crucial in industrial organizations to avoid accidents and illnesses. In engineering based organizations, there is a high risk of accidents and illnesses due to the machines, chemicals and dangerous wastes that are produced. As such, the employees should be induced in their work environment through a rigorous training process. In addition, the competency training should be provided to ensure that employees know how to handle their tools well and machines that they may be experiencing for the first time. A well-structured training program will minimize the instances of accidents and ensure that financial spending on accidents and diseases is minimal. Through an effective training program, it is possible to provide a zero-accident culture work environment in the engineering industry. References sBurton, J., (2002). The Business Case for a Health Work Place. Retrieved from: < http://www.iapa.ca/pdf/fd_business_case_healthy_workplace.pdf> Goetsch, D. L. (2008). Occupational safety and health for technologists, engineers and managers. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall. Heathrose Research, (2013). Report: health and safety Work Place Case Studies. Retrieved from: Roughton, J. E., & Mercurio, J. J. (2002). Developing an effective safety culture: A Leadership approach. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann. United States Department of Labour, (2013). Organizational Safety and Health Act. Retrieved from :< https://www.osha.gov/> Wilkins, J. R. (2011). Construction workers’ perceptions of health and safety training programmes. Construction Management & Economics, 29(10), 1017-1026. Read More