Training and Development in General Occupational Health & Safety at Your Workplace - Assignment Example

Running Head: Training and Development in General Occupational Health & Safety at Your Workplace Training and Development in GeneralOccupational Health & Safety at Your Workplace [Name of Writer] [Name of Institute] Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Executive Summary 3 Training and Development in General Occupational Health & Safety at Your Workplace 4 Introduction 4 Understanding Occupational Health and Safety 5 Adoption of Occupational Health & Safety in Different Regions 6 Commonplace Hazard Groups 7 Risk Assessment of Occupational Health & Safety 8 Training and Development in General Occupational Health and Safety 10 Benefits of Occupational Health and Safety at Workplace 11 Policies, Strategies and Principles for Adoptable Occupational Health and Safety 13 Statistics at Workplace 16 Final Justification and Conclusion 19 References 22 Executive Summary The following research report has been formatted to present information related to the training and development in general occupational health and safety at workplace. Occupational health and safety is the entire process that helps in promoting a stronger and fundamental implementation of occupational and environmental health measures through which hazards and threats involved with the working environment could be reduced as much as possible towards workers. This is very important to be followed in the company because it helps in encouraging the working conditions for the workers and enable them to show full devotion and productivity towards their work. It not only involves workers, but also involves employer company and the people related with them and the business. Just like the principle of occupational health and safety, training and development is also very important and fundamental because it provides significant details, information, research, and preventive measures to the workers and enable them to understand the basic understanding of providing education of safety while working on site. This report is all about understanding the primary and essential details regarding providing training and development to the working staff for better occupational health and safety measures within an organization. Training and Development in General Occupational Health & Safety at Your Workplace Introduction The following research report is related to the training and development in general occupational health and safety implemented at an official workplace. The report is supposed to be written and designed to be presented to the management of the company that would include all the necessary details regarding occupational health and safety environment being adopted by organizational structure where potential training and development aspects could be followed properly. This report would present the idea that would justify the need for such training and development, why they are important for the company, how they could be incorporated, and what are the strategies and policies which could be utilized in the effective delivery of such training. The research report is aimed to be made to be presented in front of the management of the company so that they could use it for the future beneficial edge of the business while keeping in mind the need for training and development in general occupational health and safety environment. In order to convince the audience, some radical and proven aspects would also be presented for the convenience of the readers, such as, accident statistics, costs of compensation claims, employee surveys, and several other facts that could help our readers to understand the ongoing coherent, logical, and convincing argument without any problem. All information is needed to be provided to the management of the company because time has proved that the health and well-being of employees is the key and most important feature in the success of any business or for any organizational structure. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the value and worth of providing training and development in a healthy working environment to make sure that the employees are provided a satisfactory, happy, healthier and content working environment. Understanding Occupational Health and Safety Occupational health and safety is basically a cross-disciplinary area that is entirely concerned towards preventing the safety, well-being, and health of the workforce and team members working in an official working environment. As an all-rounder, it might also work to protect the benefits of the family members, co-workers, suppliers, customers, employers, the surrounding communities, and every single entity or person who is related to the business or is impacted by the business somehow. Therefore, it can be said that good practices of occupational health and safety contributes to organizational business success because there should not be any compromise when the health and safety of employees is concerned. The entire area of occupational health and safety is just not a single principle, theme, or subject; it is in fact, an ideology which includes of several other subject areas, such as, occupational hygiene, occupational medicine, safety engineering, public health, health physics, chemistry, epidemiology, toxicology, ergonomics, industrial relations, public policy, environmental health, sociology, and occupational health psychology (USDL, 2006). According to the most commonly used definition, occupational health and safety basically aspires at the safeguarding and endorsement of the uppermost level of mental, physical, and social welfare of employees in all professions; the fortification amongst personnel of disappearances from health caused by their working conditions; the prevention of employees in their service from hazards occurring from aspects unpleasant to health; the insertion and preservation of the member of staff in an occupational environment personalized to the psychological and physiological competences; and, to recapitulate the adjustment of work to man and each man to his working and working environment. The original format of occupational health and safety let the management of the company to adopt a beneficial, cost effective, and productive way to prosper while making way for the workers to provide them a much health, happier, prosperous and secure working environment, where they could be prevented from hazards, accidents, and other safety exposures (Repa, 2007). Adoption of Occupational Health & Safety in Different Regions (Boyd, 2003) The importance and need for the general occupational health and safety has been identified in different stages by different nations and unions at different times. In the European Union, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work was formed in the year 1996, according to which authorities would make sure that the basic legal structure regarding the occupational safety and health of workers are followed properly on international level. It was needed to be done by the European Union because there are many strong economy oriented countries that require ensuring the worker sustainability in respect of maintenance of health, and strong organizational structure in respect to productivity and quality was needed. In the region of the united kingdom, the regulatory for occupational health and safety was followed by under the Health and Safety Work etc Act of 1974, according to which major changes were made in almost every organizational structure to ensure better and secure risk assessment planning and providing healthier environment for workers was formed. In the united states, the occupational health and safety act was founded somewhere in the year 1970, where the organizations and regulatory are mutually responsible to provide better training, development aspects, information, education, resources, and research in the occupational health and safety grounds. As far as Canada is concerned, the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety was created in the year 1978, where it was decided that mutual decisions and steps would be taken by the federal legislation and organizations so that they could safeguard and prevent the rights and safety of workers by providing them a healthy working environment. Commonplace Hazard Groups There are several reasons that could become the main factor of a fatal or non-fatal accident for the workers of the company. This is why it is very important for the management of the company to identify these hazards and to list them down for the safety and prevention of the workers from any unwanted accident occurrence. These hazards can be categorized into several groups, such as, environmental hazards, physical hazards, biological hazards, chemical hazards, environment agents, psychosocial hazards, and several others. The sub-divisions of these groups can be more illustrated as under for the convenience of the management of the company to understand (Follin, 2004): Physical hazards - includes of: confined space, collisions, falls from height, stuck by objects, slips and trips, electricity, release of contained energy, standing in line of fire, and falling on a pointed object Physical Agents - includes of: lighting, vibration, ionizing radiation, noise, and barotraumas Environmental hazards - includes of: dehydration and asphyxiation Environment Agents - includes of: heat stress, cold stress, hyperthermia, and particulate inhalation Biological hazards - includes of: virus, bacteria, fungi, mold, tuberculosis, and blood-borne pathogens Chemical Agents - includes of: solvents, lead, heavy metals, bases, acids, particulates, silica, asbestos, highly-reactive chemicals, fire, explosion material, and fumes Psychosocial hazards - includes of: mobbing, bullying, work-related stress, and any kind of violence Mechanical Hazards - includes of: drawing in, crushing, cutting, compressed air, high pressure fluids, equipment related injury, entanglement, abrasion, friction, impact, moving parts, stabbing, puncture, shearing, and workplace transport Risk Assessment of Occupational Health & Safety The modern process of occupational health and safety has intervene with a new tradition, according to which proper risk assessment should be carried out before implemented the entire cycle of occupational health and safety within a professional working environment. This risk assessment process helps the company in identifying the risks that could be occurred in prior to any project implementation; therefore, the process of risk assessment in a general occupational health and safety environment should be able to (Wonderlich et al, 2007): Identification of hazards Identification of all hazards and how they occurred Assessment of risks involved Identification and prioritization of required action plan Identifying risks and taking out the probability of the consequences help in calculating the severity and scale of hazards that could cause harm to the business as a whole. this can be carried out also by calculating mathematically the overall impact as quantitative analysis of the risks involved which could be done by rating the risks as low, medium or high severity. The entire risk assessment should be documented, recorded, stored and reviewed periodically so that it could be easily accessed whenever there is a need, or whenever any change is being implemented within the working environment. This risk assessment should also be able to provide future recommendations for the business so that the management of the company should not assign a committee the task to carry out risk assessment and make recommendations every time when a change is being made. This would help the business positively and would also save time and expenditure of the management. Normally, the newly implemented and analyzed risk assessment plans minimize the scale of risk occurrence to one level approximately because the evaluation is always carried out while adopting new techniques and keeping in mind the new technologies or hazards that could be vulnerable for the business environment (Clarke & Cooper; 2004). Training and Development in General Occupational Health and Safety Training and development is very significant feature in a general occupational health and safety working environment because it represents the fundamentals through which the entire environment and structure of the business could be improved. Training and development is basically for the betterment of the management that keeps in minds the beneficial edge of the employees, the employer, the management, and the people affiliated with the business. The main objective of providing training and development aspects to the employees helps the company by setting up certain procedures through which training, education, protection measures, outreach, partnerships, and continuous improvement could be endured. By providing training and development program, the company emphasize on employee exposure to all kinds of hazards that could be vulnerable to the health and safety of the workers; and therefore, assists them in preventing themselves from becoming the victim of those hazards by following certain standards and regulations (Taylor et al, 2004). The company and its management is always responsible for developing and enforcing workplace occupational health and safety regulations, and ensuring such healthy and safety working conditions for its workers (including male and female workers) by providing research, information, necessary education, training, and development aspects. The general occupational health and safety training and development is absolutely committed to a workplace where all individuals and workers are respected and valued for their contributions and working towards attaining the future goals targeted by the company. The vision of providing training and development in general occupational health and safety at a workplace is to improve the organization's capability to magnetize, conscript, appoint, employ, guide, mentor, develop, retain, and serve a diverse populace by nurturing a comprehensive working environment where all the working individuals are embrace, valued, and respected wholeheartedly with remarkable professionalism. (Dicker, 2003) The development and delivery of occupational health and safety training ensures that delegates leave with a highly developed understanding and assurance proficiency in their subject matter, that is, occupational health and safety. This would help them to learn new skills, development programs and would train them how to react in what kind of emergency and how to deal with their co-workers or how to take care of other people if anything worse happens around them. This ultimately benefits the employer in return because in this way, occurrence of risks and accidents minimize to large extents and workers tends to work with more efficiency, loyalty, and knowledge than an average person. It is also one of the main objectives of the occupational health and safety training and development program to educate people, workers, individuals, team leaders, supervisors, managers, and health care providers so that they could make remarkable, knowledgeable, and coherent decisions on the health risks or exposures to perilous and risky substances in workplaces. Benefits of Occupational Health and Safety at Workplace There are several and numerous benefits attached to implementing occupational heath and safety within a professional working environment. This is because, ensuring health and safety at workplace not only creates sense of security among the employees, but also motivates them to work harder with enthusiasm with the management of the company and to show full dedication towards their work to attain the future goals set forward by the company. Occupational health and safety measures ensure stimulus, motivation, efficiency, productivity, security, prevention, enthusiasm, and zest among workers of the company and overcomes accidents or safety hazards rate to remarkable degree. This process also helps in reducing the rate of poverty among employees, rate of hazards, illness, environment hazards, and also rate of pollution because the workers and the management of the company works together to minimize all these affected areas (Sayers & Monin; 2005). Apart from that, employees also tend to get other benefits out of occupational health and safety measures, such as, reduction in stress level, reduction in accidents and illness level, improved working conditions, healthy environment, improved self-esteemed, sense of security, improved morale, increase in the job satisfaction rate, enhanced skills for health protection, improved sense of welfare, and above all, good health. As for the other side of the picture, the management of the company also enjoys a radiant change and a number of benefits by incorporating proper occupational health and safety within their working environment, such as, remarkable reduction in staff turnover, positive and caring image in front in the marketplace, a well-organized health and safety program, enhanced staff morale, notable productivity in business, reduction in insurance costs, minimization in health care, reduction in several costs affiliated with hazards occurrences, increased return on investment, reduction in absenteeism, and reduction in the risk of litigation and fines (Cranford & Fudge; 2005). Policies, Strategies and Principles for Adoptable Occupational Health and Safety Building an effective and secure workplace is not an easy task as it requires a lot of research, study, homework, hard work, strategic planning and comprehensive strategic thinking so that a perfect, matchless, and fool proof occupational health and safety environment could be implemented at workplace that could efficiently reduce the risks affiliated for the workers. This system should be a mixture and set of all policies, strategies and principles that could help in providing mutual benefits not only for the management of the company, the employees, but also for every that person who is directly or indirectly related to the business. The occupational health and safety system should be designed with an ambition that good health practices on the part of both sides would be granted to individual fulfillment and organizational productivity. A health workplace cannot be developed unless and until it is fully supported and worked out by the employees, employers, and the people related to them for building creative and supportive social environments (Ball, 2006). There should be a particular and specific set of principles which should be followed by the management of the company. These principles help in setting up specialized policies and strategies for effective occupational health and safety environment at workplace. The normal set of principles of general occupational health and safety should be of such type that could be implemented not only on national, economic, organizational level; but could also meet international organizations and economies as well. The certain principles that should be followed by major companies are: Fortification and endorsement of the health of employees by preventing and calculating occupational diseases and accidents and by demolishing occupational aspects or reasons and conditions that are hazardous and vulnerable to health and safety at work Development, encouragement, and promotion of a health, safe and secure workplace, work environments, and working enterprises Remarkable improvement should be shown in the areas of mental, physical, and social welfare of employees and workers and shoring up for the expansion and preservation of their working competence, as well as professional and social improvement at workplace Chances should be provided to the workers so that they could lead socially and economically stable and productive lives and to contribute noticeably and positively towards their sustainable development and prosperity It has been proved that the most dynamic and effective world leading economies are those who got succeeded, most productive and sustainable in adopting effective measures of occupational health and safety by their businesses and companies. This is because of the fact that a healthy economy, good economic future conditions, high quality of products, better services, bright and flourishing future, and long term productivity are the factors that could only be gained through good, secure and fulfilling working conditions with employees who feel safe and secure at their workplace. Other adoptable strategies of occupational health and safety through which the goals and objectives of local and multinational organizations could be met are listed and explained as under (Hayes, 2007): Primary prevention from hazards and vulnerabilities Adopting safe and secure technologies Optimization of working conditions professionally Amalgamation and incorporation of properly planned occupational health and safety activities Government's role and responsibility, influence and competence in the improvement and being in command of of working conditions Primary duty and responsibility of the employer company and entrepreneur for adopting occupational health and safety at workplace Identification of employees' own interest in occupational health and safety Cooperation and association on an equal and mutually agreed basis, both from the employing company and the workers' side The right to play a part in decisions pertaining to one's own work The right to know and principle of clearness and precision Continuous and uninterrupted follow-up and development of occupational health and safety Providing prevention and promotion, adaptation and adjustment of working conditions according to the will and requirement of the workers, rehabilitation, curative services, and acute response Incorporation and implementation of these policies, strategies and principles help in appropriate legal requirements service systems, and organizational enforcement for occupational health and safety measures at effectively professional workplace. In this section, the way that work is managed, the management style, and the extent to which the worker can determine and identify or standardize the work and play a part actively in making decisions have been succeeded in making a positive image and impact on health, prevent overload at work, work against stress and promote work motivation, efficiency and productivity. Effective and productive management or controlling of such changes requires having furthermore development and improvement of the principles, strategies and policies of right to know, intelligibility, precision, openness, and participation. The adoption of occupational health and safety measures at workplace have also played vital role in overcoming management problems of crises caused by economic complications or difficulties of the organizations, insecurity of jobs, and intimidation of unemployment in enterprises that have adopted successfully new participatory and collaborative principles, policies and strategies as a part of organization's management culture (Fleming & Parker; 2001). Statistics at Workplace There are some statistics that are presented in the following for the convenience of the readers which reflects different kind of information. Serious and Fatal Accidents at Workplace, 2004 (Eurofound Website, 2008) Another pie chart represents the distribution of personal injury accidents by cause of accidents in the following order: Distribution of Personal Injury Accidents by Cause of Accident -2003 (UWE Website, 2008) Another graph is presented as under which illustrates the total health and safety expenditure in GDP percentage in Canada from 1975 till 2005. Expense on Health and Safety in Canada from 1975 till 2005 (Treasury Board of Canada Website, 2008) Final Justification and Conclusion As explained above, workplace can be regarded as a hazardous environment or location which is always vulnerable to threats or accidents. This condition is very dangerous for the people who are working in that organization structure; therefore, it is the basic duty and responsibility of the management of the company to take care of their workers and to carry out such precautions or measures through which the rate of accidents or vulnerabilities against workers could be minimized as much as possible. Occupational health and safety measures within a working environment play a vital role; so does the training and development of occupational health and safety. The health and safety system allows the company to take preventive steps and to provide appropriate measures to control and prevent, to contribute to the development of occupational heath and safety, and to follow-up and take the mandatory actions for the health and betterment of the working staff. Same is the case with providing training and development to the employees, which helps the workers to understand the need and importance of occupational health and safety measures, their working, the needful information, the details and other related in sequence that is needed to be shared among employees through training. Training and development programs help the employees and workers to know and learn what are the things or actions that could react as hazards, what should be done in case of emergency, and what could minimize the affect of an emergency. Occupational health and safety trainings and development programs help in educating the workers and arm them with effective actions and measures. It is the strategic and planned movement through which the company creates a mutual and coordinated bond between its working staff and the management. This is very important for the company because many occupational hazards can be effectively reduced, controlled and even eliminated through the adoption of proper working practices by working staff; but this could only be done if and only if the worker is provided the necessary details and information that could be effective on time in case of any emergency or need. Occupational health and safety training and development program is loaded with several disciplines and theories from the major subjects of psychology, chemistry, physics, safety technology and techniques, physiology, toxicology, and medicine as well. All these disciplines provide a well organized form of education for the workers, the employer and the people affiliated with the business around. This creates awareness and fundamental knowledge and a sense of responsibility among all the workers. However, the training, development programs, research, education, and communication in occupational health and safety environment is dependent on how the information is transferred to the workers; and once delivered, it plays its role at the very best level by avoiding and controlling the hazards and vulnerabilities of safety exposures as much as possible. References Carol Boyd, 2003, Human resource management and occupational health and safety, Published by Routledge, p5. Laurie Dicker, 2003, Employee Relations: How to Build Strong Relationships with Your Employees, Published by Allen & Unwin, p80. Mary Louise O'Connor-Fleming, Elizabeth Parker; 2001, Health Promotion: Principles and Practice in the Australian Context, Published by Allen & Unwin, p247. EuroFound Website, 2008, Annual review of working conditions in the EU 2006-2007, Available online at: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/ewco/studies/tn0702028s/tn0702028s_5.htm UWE Website, 2009, Annual Accidents Statistics, Available online at: http://www.uwe.ac.uk/healthandsafety/info/stats.shtmlprinter=1 Treasury Board of Canada Website, 2009, Social Affairs, Available online at: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/report/govrev/06/ann302-eng.asp The United States Department of Labor (USDL), 2006, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2006-2007 Edition; Published by McGraw-Hill Professional, p332. Barbara Kate Repa, 2007, Your Rights in the Workplace, Published by Nolo, p228. Stacey A. Follin, 2004, Nurse's legal handbook, Published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, p354. Stephen Wonderlich, Robert Jones, Fiona Jenkins, James Mitchell, Martina De Zwann, Howard Steiger; 2007, Key Topics in Healthcare Management: Understanding the Big Picture, Published by Radcliffe Publishing, p184. Sharon Clarke, Cary L. Cooper; 2004, Managing the risk of workplace stress: health and safety hazards, Published by Routledge, p108. Geoff Taylor, Kellie Easter, Roy Hegney; 2004, Enhancing occupational safety and health, Published by Butterworth-Heinemann, p106. Janet Sayers, Nanette Monin; 2005, The Global Garage: Home-Based Business in New Zealand; Published by Thomson Learning Nelson, p115. Cynthia Cranford, Judy Fudge; 2005, Self-employed workers organize: law, policy, and unions; Published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, p119. David Ball, 2006, Environmental Health Policy, Published by McGraw-Hill International, p20. Andrew Wallace Hayes, 2007, Principles and methods of toxicology, Published by CRC Press, p702. Read More