Why Is It Important to Maintain Competence to Assist Safety Management - Coursework Example

Why is it Important to Maintain Competence to Assist Safety Management Introduction Competence means sufficiency, adequacy and capability (Lum 2011). According to Lum (2011), this may vary from person to person. On the contrary, incompetence is the reverse of what competence is. The term is also relative to the context in which it is applied. Legally, incompetence means a person labelled as such has no capacity in law to handle his/her affairs. This person has to have a legally appointed guardian or trustee to take care of all affairs that relate to them (Cutter and Shelp 1991). This essay seeks to look at the concepts of competence and incompetence and hoe these relate to safety management systems. Overview of an effective health and safety system It is apparent that an effective H&S must constitute core principles in order to address the intended issues. In fact, studies have documented that key attributes such as leadership, competence, and worker involvement lays a stable foundation of an effective H&S (Cutter and Shelp 1991). In addition, the strategy employed to have an effective H&S should encourage a common sense and practical approach to health and safety. There is also a need to have an approach that is based on a plan, execution of the plan, and review of its performance. The review of such plans helps in improving from experience and ensuring continual improvement. In a broader spectrum, it is also noted that an effective H&S should encompass leadership management, worker involvement, competence, risk profiling, and legal compliance. All the above elements are crucial in managing health and safety. This is supported by the fact that they are all inter-related when it comes to managing H&S. In light with this, when all the above elements have been incorporated, the organisation needs to prioritise on making health and safety an integral party of productivity (Hughes and Ferrett 2013). H&S should be considered as an input for competitiveness and profitability. Organisations should evaluate cultural factors cautiously because they impact organisations both positively and negatively. Constrains of an effective health and safety management system Even though some organisations may be having the issue of H&S on their plans, it is apparent that some organisations lack enough funds to support the initiative. Nevertheless, it should be noted that a clear picture of the importance of H&S. In addition, many organisations have been burdened by low performance by their employees/management. It is crucial that such organisations emphasise on endorsing training and development. This would help managers and other employees to improve their skills and competence to address issues such as how to have an effective H&S (Hughes and Ferrett 2013). It is important for organisations to put in place all the necessary measure of health and safety. For example, an organisation that had once experienced fire accident would find it necessary to employ event tree analysis (ETA) technique. This is an analysis procedure for spotting and assessing the series of events in a possible calamity situation. In fact, ETA is argued to have the potential of resulting in many different possible outcomes from a single initially event. The UK legislation H&S Act 1974 stipulates that it’s the duty of every employer to ensure that people who are not part of their employees are protected from risks that may emanate as result of their undertakings. Competency in Safety Management Systems Within the workplace environment, there are various risky activities that place the workers in danger. This is especially true in a number of working environments such as the case in a construction site. According to the Health and Safety Executive (2003), there are a number of factors namely the individual, the organisation and the job, which will easily affect people’s health and safety-related behaviour. This is an indication of how much most of the accidents that befall workers in their places of work are caused by the environment. A point to rise at this juncture is the pivotal role that the management will play in protecting the employees from these dangers. The competence of the safety management is extremely critical to the protection of the welfare of the employees. Work place deaths fell substantially from 2000 people a year in the year 1950 to around 250 people in 1993-4 (Dalton 1998). This indicates that the levels of competency in the safety management systems are indeed working. The European Process Safety Centre (EPSC 1994) views the leading cause of workplace related accidents is the weakness of the safety management arrangements. It has sought to alleviate this anomaly by forming the Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH). This is a successor to the defunct Seveso Directive which was unable to reduce the workplace related accidents during its existence. COMAH has sought to ensure that it pays a considerable amount of attention to safety management and safety management systems (SMS). The competence of these systems is a matter that must always be placed on a high standard. The basis of the safety management systems is to ensure that the welfare of the employees is enhanced. In the long run, the employer saves money that would have gone to taking care of the sick workers or even in litigation. The government gets a productive and healthy workforce that allows it to progress in terms of economic growth and development. This is not the only reason. The workers have both human and workers rights. If the safety of their work place is, the workers get to work in a place where their rights are upheld. There are a number of basic elements that a health and safety management system must uphold (Hughes and Ferrett 2013). These elements include the planning phase, the performing phase, the performance assessment phase and the performance improvement phase. These stages must be followed as they are to ensure that the safety management system is effective. This is what gives the system competence to handle health and safety in the work place. I. Planning Phase At this point, this essay will proceed with Looking at these stages for an in depth perspective. In the planning phase, the organisation lists its policy statement which outlines the health and safety aims, objectives and commitments of the organisation (Hughes and Ferrett 2013). In this first stage, the organisation’s management will sit down and determine what exactly the health and policy system will entail. This is where the entire system will be laid out. What needs to be done in case an accident occurs will be discussed at this point. On paper, this is the stage where the danger or high risk zones will be designated. The management of the organisation will discuss how to designate these zones and even how these places will be appropriately marked. At this point also, the organisation will handle all the legal matters such as how to handle potential suits and also the rights of the organisation and the employees (Hughes and Ferrett 2013). The organisation will benefit highly at this point to look at already established systems of other companies and understand how they work. Lessons learnt will then be incorporated into the organisational health and safety system. II. Performing Phase After all the planning has happened, the next stage is the implementation of the plans. In this stage, the organisation will seek to put all its plans into action. In this stage, communication is key (Hughes and Ferrett 2013) to the success of the plan. Since all the people in the organisation are stakeholders, they will participate. This means that they will need to be well aware if their roles and rights within the entire policy framework. The workers will play their roles both in their capacity as employees and also on safety committees that will be to implement the health and safety system. In light with this, the participation of the employees is extremely critical. This is the reason behind forming of the safety committees. These committees will encompass all the cadres of the workers in the organisation. As a result, the workers can in a manner of speaking own the entire process thus guaranteeing success. III. Performance Assessment Phase Like any other creature of human creation, this plan is to go through some rough patches with its implementation. Some of the roles might have been accidentally duplicated. It may be that the entire process is for the comprehension of some members of the organisation. The problem may be that the entire process may make some people feel demeaned or overlooked. This is the stage where all these kinks are out. The organisation will evaluate the entire process on periodic intervals. In these assessments, the safety committee will make its findings that will be an evaluation of the organisation’s performance this process is as active assessment (Hughes and Ferrett 2013). Alternatively, the committee can opt to use the reactive assessment technique. This technique involves looking at the accidents that have taken place in the organisation. It also looks at those that could have happened but were averted. Finally, it will look at the actions that the organisation has taken to remedy these faults. In both of these methods, the main objective of the committee is evaluation. This is to gauge the rate of preparedness of the organisation to dangers that come from the hazards of the work it handles. The organisation has to ensure that these issues as have been raised are handled. This way, the organisation will be making sure that the safety management systems that it employs in the workplace have been well thought out. One matter of importance at this point is to highlight the value of evaluations. They are not a onetime thing, which the organisation does then it forgets (Hughes and Ferrett 2013). They are a continuous process which must be done to the organisation. This will ensure that the organisation does not rest on its laurels and end up being caught un-aware. IV. Performance Improvement Phase This is the final stage. Here, the organisation’s management will look into the performance of the safety management systems (Hughes and Ferrett 2013). The management will seek to find the weak links of the system with the aim of improving them. According to Hughes and Ferrett (2013), this is not an end in itself, but is rather acting as a means to a much improved end. This means that even this stage is constantly under review. The lessons learnt here will then be implemented in the health management system. There are several ways in which the health and safety management systems are. Workplace Health, Safety and Welfare Regulations 1992 UK demand that the equipment must be maintained in an efficient state, working order and in good repair (Davies 2011). This implies that the law binds employer to ensure a safe workplace. If the working environment involves a high amount of hazardous equipment, it has to be well maintained. This will avoid a case where drilling bits or other dangerous equipments fly around and hit people injuring them. In the case where there is a safety committee, these are some of the laws that will be as a way of protecting the workers. The entire four stage procedure stated above serves to boost the credibility or competence of the health management system. The matter that is pertinent to note here is that there are four stages: plan-do-check-act. This simple mantra if and when followed to the letter will lead to a safe working environment. This has by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the United Kingdom Health and Safety Executive among others (HSE) (Hughes and Ferrett 2013). According to CCH Australia (2009), the health and safety management systems are a tremendously vital part of the organisation. They must at all times be treated as such and not treated as an additional matter that is not essential. If the health and safety management systems are relegated to the back burner, the result is that they will be. This brings up the issue of incompetence of the health and safety management systems. The incompetence of the systems that manage the health and safety of the employees will mean that they are no longer safe from the hazards of the work place. Importance of Competency in Safety Management Systems So far, this essay has looked at what it means to run a competent health and Safety Management System in an organisation. In this section of the essay, this essay will focus on the value of maintaining a competent health and safety management system. This essay will explore the health and safety management literature with the aim of establishing the value of competency in safety management systems. One outstanding matter is the fact that it is not a choice of the employer whether or not to implement this system. There are a number of bodies that have been noted above. Their role is to ensure that the employers play their role in safeguarding the welfare of their employees. This means that whether the employers like it or not, they have to implement the safety of the workplace for their employees. Failing to do so will land them in litigation which could bleed them a lot of their money. It could also cost the organisation its reputation. Health and safety management systems provide the organisation with risk assessments. These are vital in the decision making process to prevent accidents from happening. They also help in dealing with the accidents once they have happened since they draw from past similar experiences. This statement means that when it comes to health and safety of the employees, prevention is much better than cure. If the organisation can learn from past events, it can be able to handle the future eventualities in a much more efficient manner (Bedford and van Gelder 2003). The safety Management systems give a picture of clarity as to where an organisation stands on matters of health (Perezgonzalez 2005). This clarity is extremely beneficial in terms of the company maintaining a reputation of being concerned with the welfare of its workers. It also is a road map of what the organisation must do in the event that the accident in the work place occurs. This is something that could be life saving because the time for acting is quite fast. This will be by the organisation ensuring regular exercised to keep all people on their toes and aware of their roles. The availability of a safety management system that is will galvanise the workers. It will give them the confidence to go about their work with the full knowledge that they are secure at all times. It also means that the workers will be more productive since they have the knowledge that their safety has a high priority (Perezgonzalez 2005). The same workers are well aware of their rights. This will ensure that they stay vigilant and demand these rights whenever they feel that they have been abused. In the mining industry, these safety management systems have played an exceedingly vital role in protection of the miners. In the United States, the mining industry is to be the safest in the world for a number of reasons. One of this is the reduced interaction between the miners and the minerals (Karmis 2001). This reduced interaction between the miners and the minerals means that the miners are safeguarded from the dangers that the mines pose to them. Some of these threats include cave-ins or disasters like poisonous gasses leaking and affecting the miners. The better understanding and application of health and safety management systems and techniques in the mines are another benefit (Karmis 2001). This is because it has armed the miners and their supervisors with enough information on how to handle a problem. This competence ensures that the mines in America are remarkably safe. It has also meant that a vast majority of disasters has been averted, and whenever disaster has struck, the miners have been well treated. On the individual level, the safety management system has protected the affairs of the workers through three ways. It has ensured that it promoted a healthy environment which ensures that the organisation learns, maintains and improves health (Houdmont and Leka 2010). This means that the organisation has been able to create a highly conducive environment that allows employees to work in an environment that looks after their welfare. The organisation does this through the evaluation of potential dangers and the actual accidents. It then applies the lessons learnt from this evaluation to ensure that the environment is safe. Secondly, the safety management systems at an individual level involve development of models that are towards the practice of promoting organisational health (Houdmont and Leka 2010). These models are aimed at ensuring that the workers and management are for the risks that can come their way. Such activities also help to sensitize the employees of the risks that they work with on a daily basis and how to stay clear of the dangers that they are. The third method of safeguarding the welfare of the employees is through the development and promotion of a comprehensive or multi-factorial health. It also encompasses the development of disease management programs (Houdmont and Leka 2010). The essence of doing this is to ensure that the worker’s plight is. At the same time, there are workers who may have an illness that are communicable or terminal. Such workers need to be protected, and their colleagues need to be protected from falling ill. The safety management system will play the role of ensuring that all the parties in the workplace have a safe and free working environment to earn their livelihoods. Responsibility In The Event Of an Accident in the Workplace This essay has thus far looked at the competence of the health and safety management system and its importance. Take a situation where an accident has happened at the workplace and a number of the employees are. The question then that arises is that of culpability and its limits. The legal point of view in the number of decided cases has a split opinion on this matter. On the one hand, there have been rulings that contend that the employer is responsible for the harm that befalls his/her employees. In others, the employee is to be responsible. In a third category, both the employer and the employee are guilty and the damages are according to the level of culpability of the parties in the suit. The management does not always get satisfactory training to the effect that the workers under them are more aware of their rights than they are (Dalton 1998). In the case of an accident in the workplace, the manager will take responsibility for injury. Being the supervising authority, he/she must be aware that ignorance has never been a good defence. The management is not well trained since their training is. They cannot in turn be expected to implement a competent health and safety system. There are different environments in the work place. Some of these are relatively safe places in which to work. The health and safety management system in such a workplace is not particularly comprehensive. On the other hand, there are working environments that are not mere user friendly such as mines. In the second instance, the management must have a competent health and safety management system. The absence of this system is a matter of grave consequences. In this case, the management will bear the greatest responsibility since it has to protect employees. Dalton (1998) is of the opinion that most of the management tend to place more emphasis on service delivery and customer satisfaction to welfare of the workers. This trend sees them push the employees to extremes in order to please the clients and make sales. This must not be the case. Though the satisfaction of the customer is primary, ensuring that the employees are also properly cared for is a prerogative of the management. In the eventual accident happening, the manager has to pay the price for their abrogation of duty to their employees. Conclusion The human being has a number of inherent rights that must be upheld at all times. These rights include the rights to a safe working environment. The Health and Safety Executive in the United Kingdom and the global International Labour Organisation have tried to ensure that they promote safety in the workplace. Through the employing of the plan-do-check-act procedure, competent health and safety management systems are. These have the benefit of protecting the workers from harm and ensuring that the workers continue to be highly productive. Though in most instances, it is expensive to implement a health and safety management system, it is none-the-less essential to have it in the organisation. Bibliography: Bedford, T. and van Gelder, P. H. A. J. M., 2003. Safety & Reliability: Proceedings of ESREL 2003, European Safety and Reliability Conference 2003, 15-18 June 2003, Maastricht, The Netherlands, Volume 1. Netherlands: Sweets & Zeitlinger B. V., Lisse. CCH Australia., 2009. Planning Occupational Health and Safety. Sydney: CCH Australia Limited Cutter, M. A. and Shelp, E. E., 1991. Competency: A Study of Informal Competency Determinations in Primary Care. Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Davies, A., 2011. Health and Safety: Workplace Law Handbook: Premises and Environment. Cambridge: Workplace Law Group Ltd. Dalton A. J. P., 1998. Safety, Health and Environmental Hazards at the Workplace. London: Cassell/ Wellington House. European Process Safety Centre., 1994. Safety Management Systems: Sharing Experiences in Process Safety. Warwickshire: Institution of Chemical Engineers. Health and Sector Executive., 2003. HS (G) 48. Reducing Error and Influencing Behaviour. (2nd Ed.). Suffolk: HSE Books. Houdmont, J. and Leka, S., 2010. Contemporary Occupational Health Psychology: Global Perspectives on Research and Practice. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons. Hughes, P. and Ferrett, E., 2013. International Health and Safety at Work: For the NEBOSH International General Certificate. New York: Routledge. Karmis, M., 2001. Mine & Safety Management. Colorado: Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, Inc. (SME). Lum, D., 2011. Culturally Competent Practice: A Framework for Understanding Diverse Groups and Justice Issues. California: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning. Perezgonzalez, J. D., 2005. Construction Safety Management: A Systems Approach. Raleigh: Lulu, Inc. Read More