Health and Safety in Organizations - Essay Example

Health and Safety in Organizations Did you know that there are about 313 million cases of work related accidents every year? Out of these, there are approximated 2.3 million deaths annually (International Labour Organization 2014, para.1). Additionally, there are significantly as many deaths and serious health effects emanating from work related diseases. Moreover, such incidences are accompanied by unmeasurable organization losses due to loss of a large workforce and costs incurred in catering for accidents. As a result, there are relatively huge economic strains due to reduced Gross Domestic Product (GDP). These finding are alarming and it is a clear call to revisiting safety and health measures at work places. However, work related risks are different in the various sectors with some holding higher risks than others are. This implies that some of the safety and health measures and conditions may differ and hence all organizations should ensure that safety and health measures provided are in line with the risks related to the specific sectors. Therefore, it is the responsibility of every organization to ensure the safety and health of its entire workforce at all times. For instance taking a scenario of a company manufacturing high tech composite components for the US defense department, there are a number of measures that can be taken to ensure safety and health of its workforce. Such companies as the one in reference require significantly many safety and health measures due to the nature of activities carried out in the organization. For starters, the company should ensure to have a well written safety program addressing all the common accidents in relation to the company’s activities. Additionally, the safety program should address all necessary steps that should follow in case of an accident. In manufacturing industries, accidents are prone to happen from time to time therefore it is important to identify some of the most common accidents prone to happen. In a bid to ensure accessibility and frequent revision of these particular accidents, the company can produce some printed copies and attach them on various appropriate sites within the company. Furthermore, it is necessary that the company keeps on updating the written safety program as new accidents occur. With such a program, the entire workforce including new recruits can be alerted on these accidents thereby becoming more cautious in dealing with equipment or events attributed to these accidents. In line with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) safety and health measures it is required that companies should have informational centers within the company to address safety and health issues. These stations assist the workforce to access information related to safety and health frequently. Although the company might have already adopted the written safety program and pinned the print outs across the company, some of the issues addressed by the print outs may require clarification hence the informational centers can assist. Moreover, these stations can act as reporting centers in case of an accident within the organization. Informational centers can comprise of a safety and health team with people who are well aware of all the important information related to safety thereby ensuring that all issues are addressed. In ensuring safety the company should ensure that there are adequate first aid equipment within the company. The acquired first aid equipment such as fire extinguishers should be spread within the company’s premises to ensuring proximity especially to areas posing greater threats. However, acquiring equipment is not enough and therefore there is need to train the workforce on how to use the first aid equipment. For instance, the workforce can be trained on how to appropriately handle fire extinguishers. In the course of the trainings it is also important to consider other basic techniques that can be applied in case of emergencies such as appropriately conducting CPR. Knowledge of first aid has been known to save many lives and assisted to avoid fatal complications in cases of accidents. Nevertheless, it is important to ensure that print outs attached alongside safety equipment such as fire extinguishers giving guidance on ‘how to use’, are present and are legible. This is to ensure that confusions that arise during tragedies do not hinder safety operations. In addition, it is important to check on the functionality of safety equipment frequently to ensure that they are all in perfect working conditions. This can involve regular equipment inspections by a team of professionals or people with skills to identify the working conditions of the various safety equipment. Some the accidents that escalate to be fatal can be stopped at an early stage but sometimes it is unfortunate that companies discover dysfunctions in the safety systems during tragedies. In relation to ensuring functionality of safety systems and equipment, it is important to ensure that safety systems requiring power to operate are connected to secondary or emergency sources of power. For example, some accidents may affect the main source of power meaning which implies that if safety systems are not connected to other sources of power they will not function. As a result, it may be difficult to even warn some of the workers of the impending dangers thereby increasing fatalities. Therefore, it is important to regularly check and ensure functionality of all safety systems and equipment. Furthermore, the company should ensure that all workers are in the appropriate dress code in relation to the different sections of operation within the company. Large companies such as the one in discussion are prone to have different sections of operations each with its own set of activities. This implies that the dress code across the entire company in relation to safety may differ. Therefore, it is essential for the safety committee should ensure that all workers are in their rightful working attires such as overalls and helmets. This can be done by coming up with programs that enable the company to provide the appropriate attires to the workers. Issuing of safety attire should be done regularly to ensure that they are always in good a condition. Additionally, the safety committee should come up with regulations requiring that all workers should be in the right attire before engaging any operations. It is also important to make sure that these regulations are strictly followed maybe by conducting random checks to make sure that all workers are in appropriately dressed. Ensuring appropriate dressing code is essential since it reduces the risks of accidents and also health complications. In most cases, some of the health complication related to work are caused by long term exposures to either toxic substances or harmful conditions. For instance, use of gas masks is important in preventing inhalation of harmful fumes that may cause different diseases depending on the type of fumes inhaled. In other cases some environments long term exposure to some working conditions such as noisy areas may cause ear impairments or other health implications in relation to the nature of the working environment. Appropriate dressing code can also prevent or reduce fatalities of some accidents either major or minor. For instance wearing a helmet may prevent fatal injuries to the head in case a person falls from a short height. This implies that safety gear is highly important in ensuring both health issues and preventing accidents. In a bid to ensure safety, the company should ensure that all workers hired have the right training and skills in relation to their field of operation. In a company dealing with defense related products and having 300 workers there are chances of getting fraud workers in terms of qualifications. This may be attributed to the fact that defense information is highly important and some people with ulterior motives may maneuver their way into the company. Such incidences may increase chances of accident events either intentionally or accidentally due to lack of skill in the areas of operation. Some of the accidents may be fatal causing great damage and losses. In a bid to prevent such cases, it is highly important that the company ensures that the entire workforce is well skilled. Additionally, in allocating workers to different operations it is important to ensure conversance with the field of interest to avoid mistakes that may lead to accidents. With a skilled a workforce chances of mistakes that may result to accidents may be significantly reduced. Furthermore, it is important that the company acts in compliance with the lockout and tag out program under OSHA’s standards. The lock out and tag out program seeks to ensure safety of workers when handling hazardous energy sources such as electrical, chemical, and thermal energy sources among others. For example, the program requires a worker working on an electric circuit to use safety practices such as switching off electricity when making contacts with some of the electric cables. The lockout and tag out program caters for safety for workers mainly ether when carrying out machinery repairs or maintenance services. In the course of a company’s operations some of the machines used are prone to breakdown or have some malfunctions eventually. When such incidents happen, in cases of minor malfunctions the next step of action is mostly repairs. Additionally, maintenance services are frequent and are in fact part of safety precautions therefore they are bound to happen regularly. This implies that repairs and maintenances are bound to happen eventually in any operational company hence the need to have provisions protecting safety of workers dealing in this line of operation. According to OSHA lockout and tag out programs prevents about 120 fatalities and 50,000 injuries annually (OSHA 2002, p.1). This implies that adoption of lockout and tag out program can make a great step towards reducing work related accidents and injuries. The company should also put into consideration some of the seemingly minor safety precautions such as setting up eye washing stations and emergency weather plan. Natural disasters are prone to happen sometimes unexpectedly and therefore it is important for the company to come up with preparedness steps in case they occur. However, even when they are expected it is important for the company to have safety measures on the best course of action. For instance there may be adverse weather conditions such as hurricanes, tornadoes or earthquakes. The company can ensure that they are aware of some of the signs of adverse weather conditions in order to when possible predict changes in weather. However, the main safety precaution should be ensuring availability of safe shelters. The company should also provide eye washing stations within the company’s premises. Eye related accidents are arguably common in manufacturing companies and in most cases the first treatment is washing. Therefore the company may consider creating such a facility for use in cases of emergency. Both the weather plan and eye washing facility can arguably be considered precautions for emergency cases and are therefore highly important. However, actualizing all the stipulated safety and health precautions requires relatively great availability of resources such as finances. Therefore, the company needs to set aside some resources for safety and health advancement during budgetary allocations. This is to ensure that there are no strains in implementing the safety and health measures stipulated. Additionally, this should be considered a wise step since it will reduce the losses incurred in sorting work related direct and indirect accidental issues every year. More importantly by implementing the safety and health measures stipulated, the company will be safeguarding the well-being of its workers thereby saving lives and consequently retaining an experienced workforce. Moreover, the company will be acting in line with the requirements of OSHA thereby increasing chances of being awarded the OSHA VPP Star Certification. In conclusion, it is highly important for organizations to ensure safety of workers. This can be done by writing safety programs, educating workers on safety matters, preparing for emergencies, ensuring appropriate dress codes, and complying with all OSHA’s safety and health requirements. As a result, number of work related accidents will drop significantly and also ensure a sustained economy due to sustained production. Therefore, the safety and health of workers should be ensured at all times in a bid to build a more productive society. Works Cited International Labour Organization. “Safety and Health at Work”. 2014. Web. 20 Nov. 2014. < http://ilo.org/global/topics/safety-and-health-at-work/lang--en/index.htm>. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “OSHA Fact Sheet”. U.S Department of Labor. 2002. Web. 20 Nov. 2014. < https://www.osha.gov/OshDoc/data_General_Facts/factsheet-lockout-tagout.pdf>. Read More