Health and Safety Legislation in Relation to Employee Protection for Accidents at Work - Essay Example

Health and safety legislation in relation to employee protection for accidents at work Name Institution name Introduction All employees working in an organisation have legal right of being protected from work related risks and accidents by the employer. Law imposes various duties to the employers and employees Employee protection from accidents at work is responsibility of every organisation. To do this organisations have to understand the health and safety regulations as well as means in which safety can be assured to employees both permanent and casual. The factors which are important and need to be taken into account include having productive workers and a productive environment in order to ensure personal health and safety. Thus organisations whether small or large need to have strategy through which health promotion policies and processes will be incorporated into the organisation (Hymel et al., 2011, p. 695). Safety environment is looked at in terms of company responsibility, attitudes of workers towards safety, supervisor of safety and safety precautions of the organisation or business. Failure of employees to assure employees safety by providing a safer and conducive environment has a lot of implications in terms of cost not only to the employer but the organisation and the society in general (Diugwu, Baba and Egila, 2012, p. 140). Organisation big or small is therefore required to have health and safety systems. By adopting and implementing health and safety management systems , organisations show that is it is ready to minimize the work related accidents and ill health among employees . The implementation or adherence to the health and safety standards and policies are highly affected by health and safety legislation which ensures that business organisation and companies not only preach safety but are really implementing it and ensuring that safety of employees from risk associated with the nature of work activities. These laws also will ensure that facilities provided by the employers are utilized properly in ways that it will not compromise the health of employees themselves or their colleagues (Diugwu, Baba and Egila, 2012, p. 140) Health and safety management It is the legal responsibility of the management to ensure health and safety of the employers. Through health and safety management, organisation ensures that the necessary management framework needed to offer protection in terms of heath and safety of employees is in place. This will make the employer or the organisation be on the right side of the law in respect to health and safety at work Health and safety policies and regulation It is required that if the number of employees are five and above the organisation need to have a written statement on health and safety, otherwise termed as policy. Larger organisation this policy may be used hand in hand with the local policies. Organisation or businesses need to have health and safety policy which all the employees are aware of. The policies need to be comprehensive and well understood. Measures that make employees aware of the policies are crucial and management is expected to be on the fore front in achieving this. One of the ways in which management can achieve this is by effectively communicating the safety standards and mention exactly what is expected of all the employees (Agbola, 2012, p. 159). The employees in and organisation need to be aware that safety regulations exist. In their research argued that employees claimed that they are aware of dangers at work such as noise and the presence of protective clothing, workers were not using the equipment such as visibility cloths, earmuffs gloves as well as nose mask. This showed two things either the facilities were not provided or the workers were unaware of their existence. With this it is evident that there is week health and safety regulation and policies (Diugwu, Baba and Egila, 2012, p. 143) Health and safety training Health and safety legislation require employer to provide not just suitable but sufficient information to the workers through training and any other necessary means possible. The employees need so much concerning the work place for instance need to know their risk of exposure and from what kind of material, any necessary measures they should take in case of exposure. Having safety and health regulation will not achieve anything if the Human resource does not implement necessary training mechanisms to train the workers. Lack of appropriate knowledge and information makes employees using wrong tools for the job, not putting on appropriate attire especially when handling chemicals and other dangerous equipment’s and machines .The Human resource therefore are responsible for dissemination of information which will ensure that the training program is best aligned with health and safety need of all employees (Agbola, 2012, p. 159-160) Provision of protective devices There are a number of protective devices that are needed by employees in order to minimize accidents. Human resources management should work harder in ensuring availability of important necessary personal protection devices. Human resource department need to ensure that protective devices are available to employees. This will minimize accidents in the work place because the employees are assured of their safety (Agbola, 2012, p. 160). The protective devices or material should meet the standards stipulated by the law. Other equipment’s that is the responsibility of the employer to provide are the work equipment’s. There are t non-disposable personal protection equipment which employer must ensure that they are kept clean and if damaged then repair should be done. The material includes aprons overall etc. Enforcement of health and safety rules It the work of the human resource and the management in general to carry out monitoring and enforcement of health and safety rules in the organisation. Through monitoring managers are able to define extend through which the employees stick or adhere to safety measures (Agbola, 2012, p. 161). Diugwu, Baba and Egila, 2012, p. 143) in their research found out that construction worker did not know who was responsible for regulating health and safety or even enforcing compliance. The management as well as the human resource should be responsible for enforcing the regulations and furthermore the employees should be aware of this. Health and safety legislation which employers must adhere is to provide a general duty of care to employees. Employers are responsible for health and safety as well as welfare of their employees. The non-employees also have to be protected from risk that arises from work. Health surveillance When employees are exposed to major health risk, the employer should have surveillance mechanisms to monitor the state of the employee such as early signs of health problems. This is necessary if the kind of work is known beyond doubt that it has health effects to employees in any way the condition or effects as a result of harm from work can be detected using valid ways. Employers do not always have all the information needed pertaining health and safety regulations thus the need of competent adviser. Appointing of competent persons who will assist the management with legal issues and implement arrangement in case of emergencies, these personnel needed to be provided with necessary information and equipment. Co-operation and coordination between various employers who are bound by a contract including those who are self employed and are sharing some of the work places regarding their responsibilities in fulfilling legislative requirement needs to be ensured Risk assessment Employer is required to carry out necessary and sufficient risk analysis. Assessment of potential risks in work places is important in health and safety legislation fulfilment. Risk assessment involves five major steps, there is identification of the hazards, then looking at who could be the possible victim of the hazard then doing risk evaluation and making decisions of the precautions that need to be taken into consideration. Recording of the finding then follows and then implementation of the findings follows. This cannot be successful with a critical review of the risk assessment. Risk control is normally done after the assessment has been completed, this is done through risk elimination by safer ways or using physical engineering control measures as well as the use of personal protective equipment. Risk in many organisation are normally minimised by employers having systems of work which is are the standard operating procedures Through this the employer will be able to identify those things that are likely to cause accidents in the work place in other word hazards. Thereafter it is importance to know the damages it can cause and if possible identify the possible control measures to be used. Employees should not be exposed to hazardous materials and chemicals such as noise, vibration. Fire fighting also should be considered. The management need to ensure that their work place is well protected against fire and that there are fire extinguishers as well as fire exist in case of fire break out. Offering insurance the employees is the major consideration and a requirement that all employers should do. All employees should be insured against risks associated with job. In case an employee is injured the insurance or compensation should be paid to him. Most employees form unions to air their grievances in times of need. The employer has the responsibility of listening to the union on matter assigned to them such as on health and safety of the employees they represent Ways of ensuring a safety culture is adopted in the organisation. Wolany and Spilka, (2011, p. 509) argues that having a safety culture in an organisation will enable employees have a positive attitude towards safety and health protection of themselves and their colleagues. Management should be committed by expressing their interests and concerns on the safety of their workers and by establishing procedures and standards on security, hygiene and demonstrating the never ending efforts in eliminating of risks, diseases and any other potential that is likely to cause risk. Employees too need to participate by development and adherence of internal standards and health and safety procedures. The management need to encourage employees on matters pertaining risk, health and safety. Appropriate training mechanism need to be incorporated into the program. Through this, necessary skills will be adapted by workers. Analysis of the accidents that have occurred needs to be reported and then analysed. . The causes identified and possible prevention action proposed in case of the same emergence. Proper monitoring is expected from the management and all the employees. A good model of health and safety management program involve a continuous improvement of the main parts which are, the involvement of the management health and safety policy, proper planning, implementation of operations, checking corrective and preventive actions, and over view of management (Wolany and Spilka, 2011, p. 508) References Agbola, R. (2012). Impact of Health and Safety Management on Employee Safety at the Ghana Ports and Harbour Authority. Developing Country Studies, 2(9), pp.156--166. Diugwu, I., Baba, D. and Egila, A. (2012). Effective Regulation and Level of Awareness: An Expos'e of the Nigeria’s Construction Industry. Open Journal of Safety Science and Technology, 2, p.140. Hymel, P., Loeppke, R., Baase, C., Burton, W., Hartenbaum, N., Hudson, T., McLellan, R., Mueller, K., Roberts, M., Yarborough, C. and others, (2011). Workplace health protection and promotion: a new pathway for a healthier—and safer—workforce. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine, 53(6), pp.695--702. Wolany, W. and Spilka, M. (2011). Influence of safety culture on the safety level in chosen enterprise. Journal of Achievements in Materials and Manufacturing Engineering, 49(2), pp.507--513. Read More