The Original Investigation of the Manager and Orientation on the Work Process - Assignment Example

RUNNING HEAD: OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT Occupational Health and Safety Management School Occupational Health and Safety Management Background of the Accident The accident occurred in the kitchen of a cafeteria at 8:00 pm on December 24, 2010. The 30-year old assistant chef, Mr. Ray Wong, injured three fingers of his right hand with a knife while preparing dishes. The chef (the supervisor of Wong), the cleaner and a waitress were in the kitchen when the accident occurred. The investigation of the chef revealed that while Wong was slicing some vegetables, the waitress was about to get the food to be served to the waiting customers, and the cleaner was washing dishes at sink near the door. The cleaner was working hurriedly due to the heavy workload and pressure that some water would splash on the floor. The waitress, while passing near Wong, slipped when she stepped on the slippery floor. The movements of the waitress caught the attention of Wong who abruptly glanced at her. Such sudden glance caused Wong to injure his fingers. The waitress is newly hired (reported for work on December 22nd) and was wearing heeled shoes when she slipped on the 24th of December. Just recently, the same waitress slipped in the kitchen and as she grabbed the working desk, a knife fell on the floor. The knife had been blunted, which is the same knife used by Wong. The kitchen has ventilation and sufficient lighting. The chef, assistant chef and the cleaner wore aprons and non-slippery shoes. The kitchen does not have slippery floor signage. Kitchen equipment and tools that become rusted or unusable should be properly disposed through a Disposal Form. From December 15 to 24, the café personnel were required to work for 11 hours a day. Therefore, at the time of the occurrence of the accident, all the staff were already fatigued and stressed due to extreme work demand. The degree of injury can be considered as a minor injury since the doctor advised Wong to take three days leave from work. Factors that Led to the Accident: Investigated and Not Identified by Manager A trail of occurrences had led to the happening of the accident. All the café personnel were fatigued and stressed due to overwork and pressure. The waitress was not wearing non-slippery shoes in the kitchen. The cleaner was carelessly washing the dishes that causes water splashes on the floor. She might also be negligently walking across the floor without taking notice of her surroundings. On the part of Wong, he naturally reacted to see what was happening or whether the waitress would fall toward him. While the waitress was carelessly walking across the floor, the cleaner was carelessly and negligently washing dishes; thus water that spilled on the floor made it slippery. The kitchen, although well lighted and ventilated, is not constructed properly. The sink where the dishes are washed should not be placed near the door but somewhere in the inner part of the kitchen, or the corner opposite the kitchen door. The current location of the sink really invites accidents and would be an obstruction to the movement of personnel in the kitchen. The main entrance to the kitchen should be free from any obstruction, either to the left or to the right after entering the kitchen. Although not mentioned in the incident report, the sink may be located on the left or the right side of the door. The door must be able to swing freely forward or backward. No signage was posted at conspicuous places inside the kitchen such as “Slippery Floor”, “Unauthorized Persons not Allowed”, “Always Wear Proper Kitchen Attire”, and several others. There is also inadequacy in the procedure inside the kitchen. The waitress should not be allowed to approach the working area of the chef and assistant chef to get the food. The food ready to be served must be placed by the assistant chef at a place near the entrance of the door, but far enough so as not to cause an obstruction. In this manner, the waitress would not be disrupting the attention of the assistant chef while doing his work. The fact that the waitress was not wearing non-slippery shoes can be attributed to the lapse on the part of the management, particularly the manager of the cafeteria. It is the obligation of the manager to conduct an orientation of all employees and staff, especially the newly hired. During such orientation, the new employee will be informed of the procedure being implemented in the company, the rules and policies, the proper decorum and attitude towards customers, as well as attendance, absences and salaries. The waitress should have been informed that heeled shoes should not be worn inside the cafeteria. She should not enter the working area of the assistant chef but only the area where she has to get the prepared food. The management has already committed another blunder by hiring a new waitress on the last minute when Christmas was very near. Christmas season is a recurring event year after year. And everyone knows that during this season, almost all businesses are at their peak of activities. The management should have foreseen the need for this peak season and hired additional staff during the first week of December. The new employee can be oriented and trained during the first week so that he or she will be able to adjust to the work on the second week. The cafeteria, likewise, lacks the needed personnel. For instance, it can be seen that the cleaner was the one doing the dishwashing. The cleaner should have the functions of cleaning the surroundings, disposal of the garbage and leftovers, keeping the floor dry, etc. The management should have hired another personnel as a dishwasher. Overworked or stressed worker might lose concentration, miss certain details, or not be able to produce quality work. According to Kawakami and Khai (2010), fatigue tends to lessen the quality of work, thus, a good resting place should be provided for employees to recover from fatigue. Accident Theories Accidents may happen anytime at any place. Different models of accident causation were formulated by scholars that would facilitate analysis of accidents and the factors that lead to their occurrence. They serve as guides in investigating an accident and describe the breadth of the investigation (Theories of accident, n.d.). An accident can be analyzed by breaking down the parts or events that could have lead to its occurrence. Theories then can serve as a framework to guide such analysis. One theory that may be used in the current scenario is the Multiple Factor/Cause Theory wherein randomly related or unrelated events act to cause the accident. The factors or events that lead to the injury of Wong are the: walking hurriedly by the waitress inside the kitchen, the negligent splashing of water on the floor by the cleaner, not wearing of non-slippery shoes, not putting signage in the kitchen, and not properly training and orienting the new waitress. These factors contributed to the finger injury of Wong. If the waitress did not walk over the wet floor, she would not slip and distract the attention of Wong. In the same manner, if the cleaner was not splashing water on the floor, the waitress would not slip. The presence of a signage would remind the waitress to be cautious and walk carefully inside the kitchen, or if there were training, the waitress would also take caution. As presented, a number of random events interacted that resulted to the injury, therefore, Multiple Factor/Cause Theory is a strong approach to analyze causation. The domino effect model requires five stages: the social environment, undesirable human trait or fault, unsafe acts or mechanical hazards, accident and injury. According to Herbert Heinrich, removing the middle domino would prevent the occurrence of the injury (the sustained damage). Thus, managers should pay close attention to the unsafe acts so that the injury would not happen. All the dominoes are present in the case of Wong. The kitchen is a place full of hazards, but the employees accept the risk because they are working in it (social environment). The waitress was careless, tired and lacked understanding of the risk when she stepped on the wet floor (undesirable human trait or fault). The unsafe act referred to the lack of attention of Wong when he allowed himself to be distracted when he was working with a knife, a lethal tool. The accident had occurred due to the occurrence of the events, and an injury resulted. Removing one of the domino elements would not result to the injury, thus, this model can effectively analyze accident causation. The Human Factors Theory presents three factors that could lead to human error, which are overload, inappropriate response, and inappropriate activities (Goetsch, 2010; Theories of accident, n.d.; Gutierrez, n.d.). This model requires the interaction of people, workplace and management. People include the knowledge of the waitress about her work, the environment, the hazards and the risks. The inappropriate worker response is ignoring safety and precautionary measure (Gutierrez, n.d.) by not wearing non-slippery shoes and walking hurriedly on a wet floor. It might be deduced that she overlooked the wet floor as a result of fatigue and stress. The careless splashing of water on the floor by the cleaner is also a contributing factor categorized under people. In the workplace aspect, as mentioned earlier, the sink should not have been placed near the entrance of the kitchen. The food ready to be served should be placed near the door for easy access by the waitress. The waitress should not be allowed to proceed to the cooking area where hazards are present. On the management aspect, the waitress was overloaded with work beyond her capacity (Theories of accident, n.d.) taking into consideration that she had just started working but required to render service for 11 hours for straight days. There is lack in information transfer on the appropriate behavior inside the kitchen. Allowing the waitress to perform tasks without the needed training is not appropriate (Gutierrez, n.d.). The management can produce a written safety manual or workplace procedure for the newly hired to read during the first day of work, or during the orientation process. It should contain the dos and don’ts while in the workplace, as well as the areas where only particular persons can access. The manual must also contain the different hazards present in the kitchen. The kitchen is a dangerous area since boiling water or hot oil can cause skin injuries. It is also a breeding ground for microorganisms and bacteria due to the presence of meat and vegetables that can causes illness. The Human Factors Theory is a sufficient framework to determine the cause of the accident. The single factor/cause theory cannot be applied in the current scenario. This theory includes the Energy Theories that identifies the sources of energies (e.g. mechanical, thermal, chemical, nuclear). This approach cannot be utilized since the present accident has several triggering factors that resulted to the injury. The Energy Theories cannot be applied in the analysis of causes since not one energy source had caused the accident. The Multi-Hierarchy Multiple Factor Theory refers to two or three main factors that simultaneously acted to cause the accident. Each of these main factors is likewise triggered by one or more factors. The weakness of this theory can be seen from the assumption that multiple elements simultaneously triggered the injury, which were also triggered by another level of multiple factors. In the present case, the triggers or events happened in succession, one after the other, thus, ruling out the applicability of the theory. The Epidemiological Approach considers the interplay of three groups of factors: the host factors (demographic, personality, physical status), agent factors (causes the injury such as water, fire, ventilation, fire exit) and environmental factors (e.g. smog, noise, distraction). The host factor identified in the case is the personality of the waitress who seems to be oblivious of safety inside the kitchen by hurriedly walking and not observing the surroundings to see if she can walk through the floor safely. Such negligent attitude is also manifested in wearing heeled shoes. There are also many materials and equipment present in the kitchen to comprise the agent factors such as boiling water, sharp knives and other pointed utensils, hot cooling oil, dishwashing soap that can make the floor slippery, hot pan and stove, etc. On the environmental factors, smoke and noise are present in the kitchen. When heat and water interacts, steam can be produced inside the kitchen. The Epidemiological Approach can be applied in the kitchen setting in analyzing an accident. This theory assumes that the three factors would account for the happening of the accident. However, while the accident in this case occurred with the other two factors, the environmental factor is absent. The distraction on the part of Wong was not caused by physical or environmental conditions (e.g. smoke) inside the kitchen but the action of the waitress who slipped on the floor. This model is weak in determining the cause of the accident. Conclusion and Recommendation In order to anticipate the happening of accidents, the management must establish a risk management process with the following processes: a) hazard identification, b) risk assessment, c) control and d) review of the outcome. Through hazard identification, the potential causes of accidents can be identified by the risk assessment team. Through risk assessment, the probability of exposure to the identified hazards is evaluated (Noson, n.d.). From the original investigation of the manager, some facts were gained and clarified as to why the accident occurred. However, certain issues were not identified by the manager. First, some factors that led to the accident occurred days earlier such as the hiring of a new staff without sufficient training and orientation on the work process. The waitress was not informed of wearing non-slippery shoes in the workplace. Rush in the work could not have happened only during Decembers, especially on the 24th. During the other peak seasons, the manager should have observed the manner in which the cleaner has been doing the dishwashing, and saw the careless and negligent way the latter had been splashing water on the floor (undesirable human trait or fault). The manager then could have informed the cleaner to work carefully so that water would not spill unto the floor. The manager then has displayed inefficiency in the management of the business. The management may also change the floor tiles into something which are not slippery even when wet. The management, likewise, does not know how to deal with minor injuries (reversible injury that requires a few days off from work). It has over-reacted by calling the police (when there is no crime scene) and ambulance (when no one is to be brought to the hospital). The injury can be treated in the workplace clinic or in the administration office first, and then send Wong to the doctor for injury assessment and treatment. The exposure to the hazard is rare since such injury happened a few times in a year. Since there was no report of the same injury the previous months, it can be assumed that knife injury occurred only in December, when the new waitress started to work. In the physical design of the kitchen, the sink should be transferred from its current location near the entrance door to another area. Maintaining safety in the workplace is expensive, but unintentional injuries are more expensive and costing over $146.6 billion a year (e.g. lost wages, medical expenses, insurance, survivor benefits, production losses, etc.) (Safety, 2011). In sum, the accident happened due to the lapses on the part of the management. Lapse on the part of management is one of the major causes of workplace accidents (Goetsch, 2010). References Goetsch, D.L. (2010). Occupational safety and health. Retrieved 2 October 2011, from http://wps.prenhall.com/chet_goetsch_occupation_6/68/17649/4518356.cw/-/4518381/index.html Gutierrez, A.M. (n.d.). Theories of Accident Causation. Occupational Safety and Health, 5th ed. Retrieved 3 October 2011, from www.slideshare.net/yorkypab/theories-of-accident-causation Kawakami, T. & Khai, T.T. (2010). WARM: Work Adjustment for Recycling and Managing Waste. International Labour Organization. Retrieved 2 October 2011, from http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/---sro-bangkok/documents/publication/wcms_126981.pdf Noson, L. (n.d.). Hazard mapping and risk assessment. Regional Workshop on Best Practices in Disaster Mitigation. Retrieved 4 October 2011, from www.adpc.net/audmp/rllw/PDF/hazard mapping.pdf Safety in the workplace. (2011). Reference for Business. Encyclopedia of Business. Retrieved 3 October 2011, from http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Pr-Sa/Safety-in-the-Workplace.html Theories of accident causation. (n.d.). Cleveland State University. Retrieved 4 October 2011, from http://academic.csuohio.edu/duffy_s/Section_03.pdf Read More