Management Essentials for Health and Safety - Coursework Example

Management Essentials for Health and Safety Introduction In 1970 a committee was established under the guidance of Lord Robens by the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity for suggesting any kind of improvement that could be incorporated in the health and safety legislation. The Robens Committee’s report was finally published in 1972 after two years of research and searching for inquiries. It was also the first form of comprehensive review for occupational health and safety that was carried out in UK and it continues even today to be the form of standard reference work that could be related with modern workplace health as well as employees safety. An important finding of the Robens report was that in case of the occupational performances apathy was the most prominent reason for causing accidents at work (DANS, 1983, p.9). The 21st century had seen many new changes in the health reforms. The paper will attempt at critically examining the impacts of the Robens recommendations on the present day and their relevance to the regulation and management of health and safety in the 21st century. The research question can be constructed as: “Are the recommendations of the Robens report sufficient to address the health and safety of workers in the 21st century?” The Robens report-in brief The Robens report that was focused on “Safety and Health at Work” and was published in the year June 1972 formed the foundation ground for much of the knowledge about Health and Safety legislation. Robens (1972) had prescribed a risk- based assessment system in the recommendations for maintaining health and safety. Regulations were made after evaluating the size or stature of the risk for the society after which the subsequent enforcement was meant to be clear and justifiable. It was also to ensure that all available form of resources was being targeted in those areas where the fear for risk was highest. It also aimed at creating a particular framework that was expected to be flexible as well as focused and controlled going by the industries where these forms of risks were created. Lord Robens was given the charge to review the provision that were made keeping in mind the safety as well as the health of the persons during the time of their employment. This did not include the transport workers as long as they were directly engaged with transport operations and were entitled to or covered with other facilities. The report was made to evaluate if any modifications were required in the nature of some vital relevant enactments, the nature and the extent of the voluntary action that might be concerned with the vital matters and to consider if any other step would be required in order to safeguard the members from any kind of hazards apart from the general environmental pollutions that can arise out the activities seen in the industrial and the commercial premises or the construction sites and suggesting a few recommendations for these situations (Smith, n.d, p.4). The main recommendations of the Robens Committee were: 1. Safety and the health objectives of the employees should be clearly established within the firms. 2. Workers should be more informed about their safety and health while working. 3. A legal duty must be made compulsory for all employers to consult with their employees about safety and health matters. 4. A National Authority regarding the safety and the health should be formed. 5. Provisions under a new enabling Act should replace the existing statutory provisions. 6. Voluntary codes of practice should be introduced. 7. The scope of the legislation should be extended to include all employees (with minor exceptions) and the self-employed. 8. The local authority work must co-ordinate with the new authority 9. The interests and views of the public must be taken into consideration for the new legislation. 10. General fire precautions and instructions must be established under a Fire Precautions Act. 11. The Employment Medical Advisory Service must function as a component of the new authority (Health & Safety Legislation, 2003). Organizational behavior at work places Organizations are an important part of the present day society and any decision taken by the management would directly affect its employees in one way or the other (Mullins, 2005, p.3). A close relationship can be drawn between management theories and organizational behavior. Of the several important features, one of the important aspects in organizational behavior is that of content theories. Content theories try to explain the factors that affect the motivation of employees at work (Mullins, 2005, p.503). Another aspect is that of stress. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) had established many factors such as culture, demands from the job, change, roles along with the participation of the management (Mullins, 2005, p.710). Communication between the top hierarchies with the worker body is thought to be an important measure to lessen the stress levels such as mental stress levels in work places (Mullins, 2005, p.710). OHS Risk Management To build a successful safety culture senior managers play an important role (The Principles of Effective OHS Risk Management, n.d, p.4). “Senior management leadership and commitment means that senior management is actively involved in, and committed to, improving OHS performance within their workplace” (The Principles of Effective OHS Risk Management, n.d, p.5). One of the main objectives behind the OHS Act is “to foster a co-operative consultative relationship between employers and employees on the health, safety and welfare of such employees at work”.( The Principles of Effective OHS Risk Management, n,d, p.9). This is compliance with the Robens objectives for managing safety at work places. Risky behavior of employees at workplace There can be many types of risks associated with the life of an employee. In UK the estimated loss for absenteeism of the employees was about £13 billion in 2007 (Burke & Cooper, 2010, p.265). Risks can be avoided in workplaces when there is active leadership from the senior management regarding its compliance with the workplace health and safety policies, measuring as well as evaluating safety performance and examining the process to identify risks (The Principles of Effective OHS Risk Management, n,d, p.7). Perceptions of workers on workplace safety and their job satisfaction While considering the amount of risks that is related with the health and performance of the employee it will be necessary to understand what they expect from the workplace environments or organizational climate. Safety climate is a subset of organizational climate (Gyekye, 2005, p. 1). Safety climate is defined as an exhaustive set of perceptions as well as expectations that the workers have about safety in their organization. Researchers have found that the workers who develop a negative perception about the safety climate such as a high workload, job insecurity etc often tend to engage themselves in unsafe acts, that in turn increases their chances for an accident (Gyekye, 2005, p.2). Safety Legislations in work places before and today – the HSE in UK Operational and Health Safety Legislations (OHS) have taken an important turn in the twentieth century. This aspects talks about the pre Robens and post Robens proposals. The UK had adopted a new legislation for governing the health and the safety issues of the people in the workplaces in 1974. Until the middle of 1970s, the management governing the safety and the welfare of the people in the workplaces were controlled by several prescriptive rules or regulations. These were adopted basically as industry knowledge and the experiences that were developed from the incidents since the beginning of the industrial revolution (Inge, 2007, p.1). Towards 1960s these rules and regulations were altered by the UK government thus leading to the formation of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (HSWA) (Inge, 2007, p.1). The new legislation explicitly addressed the issues occurring outside the workplace which could be affected by the work activities. The Act accepted the concept which stated that any situation which could lead to harmful situations should to be recognized and all measures must be put in place for eliminating or reducing the chances for the harm. It had established two new organizations in order to oversee this implementation: the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The HSE was declared as the executive organization which would enforce the provisions stated in the HSWA (Inge, 2007, p.1), while the HSC was enabled to protect the health and the safety at work within the United Kingdom by either conducting or sponsoring its research, promoting any sort of training as well as providing related advice and information (Inge, 2007, p.1). The HSE was elected as the national independent watchdog in order to examine all work-related health issues, the safety measures and related illness. The HSE was and is still an independent regulator which works for the public interest in order to lessen work-related deaths and other serious forms of injury across Britain’s workplaces (Health and Safety Executive, n.d, p.1). The HSE has been committed to implement a continuous improvement in their environmental performance along with the management and the subsequent prevention of pollution (Health and Safety Executive, n.d, p.1). The HSE's work includes a wide range of activities that ranges from shaping as well as reviewing the regulations, producing relevant research statistics along with enforcing the law. Some of the industries where HSE works are constructions, off shore, biocides etc (HSE website sitemap, n.d). The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is also contributes in helping the business and its other stakeholders while adapting to the changes in their occupational health and other safety law and practice. In February 2005, HSE had decided to bring in changes that would be implemented in UK only on two specific dates each year. The two 'Common Commencement Dates' were: 6 April (the start of each tax year) and 1 October. By harmonizing these commencement dates, the HSE had expected that those who were affected such as businesses, the employee representatives and the individuals would know of the forthcoming changes which would help them to plan or regulate or implement the new measures effectively (Health and Safety Executive Forthcoming regulations, n.d). As seen from the performance reports of 2007, it will help to understand how the HSE and Local Authorities were reacting to the constantly changing workplace. The report shows their efforts on reducing fatal injuries, reducing ill health. The report also presented some of the initiatives that were taken as a result of the partnerships between the HSE and the local authority. It included a joint working with an extended involvement of the local government in the policies as well as in developing programs. The planning processes were aligned in a better way to incorporate the local authorities. The partnership also included in providing the local authorities an access to all sorts of guidance, technical help and support. It included a wide range of developments for enforcing and aiming in order to ensure that there was sufficient adherence to the ‘better regulation’ principles (Way Ahead, 2007, p.6). These include the formation of a common framework for ensuring competency for all the health and the safety inspectors as well as a national system of ‘flexible warrants’ for these local authority and the HSE inspectors (Way Ahead, 2007, p.6). HSE’s objective was to reduce the chances of catastrophic incidents occurring in most of the hazardous industries (Way Ahead, 2007, p.9). Acting on the reports of the Hampton report, reducing the administrative burdens in the form of an effective inspection along with its enforcement, and Better Regulation Action Plan of the government , HSE undertook the responsibility to introduce some additional areas for regulation during 2007 (Way Ahead, 2007, p.18). The HSWA had sets its goal as to ensure activities in work place to be safe and risk free, but had not specified how this goal might be achieved. Although industries have laid down a variety of safety case regimes, the underlying basic principles remained the same. A safety case could be defined as ‘A structured argument, supported by a body of evidence that provides a compelling, comprehensible and valid case that a system is safe for a given application in a given operating environment’ (Inge, 2007, p. 2). Safety Cases had been included in high risk industries in UK where there are requirements for demonstrating before the regulators as well as the public that the concerned activity was safe before it was given to take place. Prime examples of industries where these safety cases were implemented were the nuclear industry, chemical industry, offshore areas, and railway industries (Inge , 2007, p.2). Recommendations of Robens finally getting accepted in UK in 2006 On 1 April 2006 the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) were merged into a composite single national regulatory body to regulate occupational health and safety. The merged body was created to align its governance with the current best practice, provide a clearer and transparent, publicly accountable body. After the news of the merger was declared, the then health and safety minister of UK Lord McKenzie said: "The Health and Safety Commission and Health and Safety Executive have done an excellent job over the last 30 years in bringing about significant improvements to health and safety at work. However, to face the challenges and demands of the changing world of work, now is the right time to merge the organizations into one which can provide a platform for further improvements to health and safety at work across Great Britain" (Robens proposal finally implemented, 2008, p.31).The merger thus created the recommended single form of authority that was suggested in the1972 proposals by Lord Robens in his report “Safety and Health at Work” (Robens proposal finally implemented, 2008, p.31). Apart from the merger, an influential committee consisting of MPs, The House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee was set to check the works of the merged body if they were doing enough to handle ill health and absenteeism and if they were encouraging vocational rehabilitation. The committee was to look in different key areas that included if they had sufficient resources and if their inspection enforcement as well as prosecution regime was doing enough for improving the standards of the occupational health and safety (Paton, 2008). A critical analysis of the Robens recommendations The Robens recommendations had suggested measures for the health and safety at workplaces. As has been explained before, the behavior of the employee gets influenced by several factors. One such factor was the safety of the workers. This can be done by maintaining OHS management system in the workplace that would manage the risks and initiate interaction between the senior managers and the employers. Merger of the HSE and the HSC into a single body was another approach. This move was also an initiative for the commendation where a national legislative body was suggested to ensure safety of the employees. Instances like section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 mandates every employer to look after the health and safety of their employees (Workplace health, safety and welfare: A short guide for managers, n.d, p.1). Features like proper ventilation, controlling temperature, maintaining the working conditions (Workplace health, safety and welfare: A short guide for managers, n.d, p.2) are some of the requirements. In terms of safety there must be supervision on the maintenance of the devices, traffic control, work station maintenance etc (Workplace health, safety and welfare: A short guide for managers, n.d, p.4). There were many features in the HSE where the existing, old regulations were modified as per the latest requirements. There were incorporations of the local body too in framing safety policies and programs. The Robens recommendation provided the guiding principle where better remedies could be formed by looking at the past results. This can be explained by the latest statistics provided by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The number of workers killed in Britain in 2010 had increased (Paton, 2011). These reports provided by the HSE helped the inspectors to frame better regulations in the form of features in the Section 2 of the Safety Act of 1974 and over rule their previous laws. Robens recommendations for the health and safety laws were also implemented in places like educational institutions (Health and safety legislation, 2012). The next point where the Robens recommendation made its impact was the problem of apathy. The Robens report had stated that it was essential to uproot the causes that led to risks in the occupational places (Gilroy, 2008, p.2). This was implemented by the newly merged body of HSE and HSC. However there were certain criticisms with the recommendations of the Robens report. This was particular in matters of prosecutions. As was quoted at the Minesafe International Conference which was held in Perth in 2000 “Occupational safety and health enforcement had lagged behind the introduction of safety management systems” (Gilroy, 2008, p.6). The contradictions amongst the experts as to whether follow the Robens type method of compliance by using an advisory and a persuasive process or enforcing the statutory regulations by formal sanctions was resolved by incorporating the best of both the methodologies (Gilroy, 2008, p.6). The agencies were expected to encourage, to facilitate and to negotiate compliances with OHS standards by remaining within the purview of potentially large penalties as well as the stigma attached with criminal sanctions. In other words, the new panel of experts was unanimous on the regulation that prosecutions would improve the performance of the Operational and Health Safety Legislations (OHS). But still if we analyze the literature available in different countries such as in Australia, it will be found that most of Robens recommendations were found to be accurate and adaptable for their occupational health and safety rules. Robens recommendations had suggested an integrated form of self effective system to incorporate all measures of safety regulation. The Robens recommendations had also suggested for more co-working between the health and safety inspectorates and the employee representatives that found easy acceptance in different places such as in Australia (Overview of work health and safety regulation in Australia, 2012). Thus we can conclude from the above mentioned facts and the critical analysis section, that the research problem “Are the recommendations of the Robens report sufficient to address the health and safety of workers in the 21st century?” will be answered in the affirmative. Robens recommendations provide the skeletal framework on which the safety regulations of different countries outside UK have been modified. These recommendations help the experts to compare between their existing regulations and the new advanced forms when required to do so. Conclusion The Robens report was created to build the principles for health and safety regulations. The report that was created in 1972 contained some recommendations that have become the basis for modern day health and safety trends in work places. These recommendations helped to unite several components such as work related stress of the employees with the safety at their work places. It was found that performances were hindered where the safety issues were not addressed adequately. There were suggestions where the previously left out local authorities were included in the decision making process for framing safety policies. The inspectorates were sanctioned more authorized power. The importance for the management to incorporate the opinions of the workers about the safety rules was also implemented. These were shown by the different activities of the HSE or Health and Safety Executive that was based mostly on the recommendations of the Robens report. One aspect of the Robens recommendations that has been debated over by the experts in present times was the introducing more prosecutions in Operational and Health Safety Legislations (OHS). It was argued that the model suggested by Robens would not be sufficient in present day times where the number of casualties in work places was increasing. It was suggested that an increased form of prosecution would help to improve the performance of Operational and Health Safety Legislations (OHS). This was supported in many countries such as in Australia. The recommendations helped the employers to understand that the increase in casualties and death rates in workplace was the result of apathy shown towards the health and safety of the workers. The management needs to employ the opinions of the workers too in their decision making. They need to address all issues pertaining with their ill health. The recommendations suggested at creating a more efficient form of self maintaining system for health and safety. It recommended for a better system for safety organization, a better management driven initiative and a greater involvement of the work people themselves. These were to become the guidelines for the health and safety regulations of the 21st century that aimed at improving the organizational climate and the subsequent forms of heath as well as safety rules in the work places. References Burke, R., J. & Cooper, C., L. (2010), Risky Business: Psychological, Physical and Financial Costs of High Risk. Emerald Publishing Dans, D., K. (1983), OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH, SAFETY AND WELFARE LEGISLATION DANS, retrieved on October 17, 2012, from: http://www.safetyline.wa.gov.au/PDF/The_Law/DANS_report.pdf Gilroy, P., B. 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