Risk Management in Aquatics Profession - Research Paper Example

?Running Head: Risk Management in Aquatics Profession Risk Management in Aquatics Profession [Institute’s Risk Management in Aquatics Profession Introduction This paper is an attempt to explore various aspects of risk management in aquatics profession. Without any doubts, risk is present in all professions and businesses but the aquatic experts have to deal with the risk, which involves saving lives, health, property, and liability. The paper will explore various dimensions of risk management and center its efforts on answering the question that why, in the first place, is it necessary to have risk management in the aquatics profession. The same would be done with the help of briefly highlighting the literature available on the same and shedding some light on related researches and cases. Discussion Without any doubts, aquatics is one of those profession where professionals have to deal with a lot of risk and in the absence of effective risk management plans and techniques, the liability may become unbearable for the organizations. If organizations and pool managers fail to manage and deal with the risk in an effective manner then they might not only end up with losing customers due to injuries and other incidents but also with huge liability claims. Furthermore, stakeholders are also putting a lot of pressure on the staff and professionals to engage in preventive practices and fire prevention rather than fire fighting1. Risk management is present in other professions as well but the nature of aquatic risk management is much different from the generalized form of risk management. Important here to note is that aquatic environments have a tendency to change very quickly, within hours and at times, within a few minutes. Furthermore, at many occasions, these changes are not even predictable for the experts. Therefore, aquatic risk management is not a one-time process but an on going process, which requires extensive training, enthusiasm, and commitment from the staff and the professionals2. Another very important reason why aquatic risk management is imperative is because of the general attitude of public about the hazards and risks of aquatic environments. It appears that when people enter into an aquatic environment they lose their sense of sight as well as sense of hearing. Despite the fact that the staff puts a lot of energy and money into putting as much sign boards to increase the awareness of public regarding the risks, but people are more likely to read the micro font message on billboards rather than bothering to notice the sign boards which are around them in aquatic environments3. Suddenly in aquatic environments, sign pollution becomes an important issue. Furthermore, if there is any staff or deployment in those facilities to guide and instruct people about the risks and hazards then not only people avoid these instructions but strongly feel it as interference during their “fun time”. In short, aquatic risk management is important because it has to deal with blind and deaf people4. Many experts and professionals related to the field of aquatic risk management believe that in order to create an effective risk management, following are the seven steps, which should be kept in mind. First, the process stars with the identification of aims and objectives of risk management problem. Without any doubts, the ultimate goal of many risk management programs is to reduce the chances to injury, incidents of employees, guests and others and reduce any other risks associated with property loss. Furthermore, most professionals are more likely to stress on elimination and prevention of injuries, however, in more risky environments, safety of lives and prevention of any causality may become the ultimate goal. Aims and objectives also refer to the practice of quantifying them, delegating them and establishing and identifying resources to achieve those objectives. Second, once the goals and objectives have been formulated, it is important to create an assessment team. This team will have to have people having expertise in different fields such as ergonomics, water chemistry, lifeguard training, swimming pool management, and others. These people remain responsible for fire prevention, which means that they have to identify all possible sources of hazards and risks and then either remove them or create mechanisms with which the public could be saved from the potential effects of those hazards. In worst case, the assessment team must identify the hazards to the public and communicate it to them effectively to protect their own selves. Third, the process then involves the exercise of measuring the risks against one another. Important here to note is that there is no universal yardstick to measure the risks associated with particular elements but most institutions use statistics to arrange elements or sources of hazards according to their severity. For example, statistics for rivers and oceans reveal that more than 88 percent of the incidents of drowning take place due to rip currents and shark attacks or lightening strikes rank as second and third respectively but pose a much lesser risk. Therefore, it is clear that the organization must devote most of its time and energy for coping with the risk posed by rip currents5. Fourth, as mentioned earlier that there would be some hazards and risks about which the team would not be able to eliminate. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the team to provide adequate warnings regarding the same. Signage is the most common method of warning people. However, recent research in this regard shows that putting up signs is not enough and various other dynamics should be in consideration before putting up the signs. First, the staff cannot put up a lot signs because that would lead to sign pollution6. When there are too many signs at one place or overall then the public tends to avoid them and the effort becomes useless. Second, a significant number of the population fails to see correctly in aquatic environments because of their visual imparity, contact lenses, glasses, or others. Therefore, not only it is important to place these banners and boards at strategically these banners strategically important locations but also at the same time, these boards must have extra large letters. Third, there are also chances that the visitors or guests who come to the facility may not understand English or any other language, which is used on the signboards. Therefore, the effective method is to use signs. Fourth, there are certain guidelines, laid by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) regarding the size of the banner, font, font color, language, background color, and others, which should come under consideration7. Fifth, without any doubts, considering the seriousness of the issue, it is imperative that all the members of the staff, from lifeguards to the upper management of the organization must have a working knowledge about risk management. Quite understandably, it would require extensive training for the entire staff of the organization so that they all could be responsive, vigilant, and responsive to risky and problematic situations. Furthermore, many organizations dealing with aquatic environments have appeared to be training their employees just once, whereas, it is imperative to train the staff over and over again so that the training remains fresh and the message is reinforced. Sixth, record keeping is the operational step of this process. Documenting the procedures, systems, functions, incidents and other information about risk management is important. It allows the concerned professionals to have an overview about everything and at the same time, it ensures smooth transition between teams if one has to leave and the other has to takeover the risk management operations8. The last operational step of risk management is to conduct unannounced and objective audits by outsiders to ensure performance and safety standards. This will not only allow the organization to understand about the ground realities but corrective action could be taken before any thing is compounded9. Aquatics professionals, who have awareness about the dynamics of managing risk, would eventually go on to affect many aspects of the aquatic environment. As mentioned earlier that risk management in aquatic environments is not a separate aspect of the business but it goes to on to cover all aspects of business. A recent study, which took place under the umbrella of National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), shows that the ability of a diver to stay on the water surface and swim through the way is affected greatly with alcohol consumption. In fact, there is a negative relation between these two. Only an alcohol concentration of 0.04 percent in blood, which is half the legal limit allowed in most of the states, could lead to a serious injury. The research studied 13 male subjects, which were asked to consume alcohol before their dives. These males dived into the pool of water as if the pool was 3.5 foot deep; however, in reality it was deeper. Important here to note is that as these subjects kept on consuming alcohol, their dives became deeper and they appeared to be making less effort to stop their plunge. About 11 percent of the total 207 dives which took place would have resulted in injuries if they pool would really have been 3.5 foot deep. Furthermore, incidents where subjects misbehaved with the officers also increased which could also lead to injuries in uncontrolled environments. In addition, the subjects had no clue that their performance to dive and swim was being affected with alcohol consumption. Therefore, the point here is that professional risk managers in aquatic environments would not allow the use of alcohol for people who intend to dive in for the next few hours10. Risk management also becomes important for the aquatics profession because of the recent incident of Andy King. The person started as swimming coach in the late 1970s and held several coaching and training positions in several organizations fro California to Washington. He had a great record of working with hundreds of athletes and many of which either were high profile players or went on to become one. However, in the year 2010, the world witnessed the real face of Andy King. During the 1980s and 1990s, the molested and sexually abused many females athletes. One victim from the San Francisco Bay area said that King impregnated her and when questions arose regarding his behavior, he resigned before any thin could happen. This pattern continued. He would go on to take new jobs in new locations, abuse the athletes and as soon as doubts rise in the minds of the people, he would resign. However, the pattern broke down when King was sentenced for 40 years in prison on 20 accounts of child molestation. Furthermore, the investigation revealed that more than 32 swim coaches have been involved in such activities. Risk management in aquatics management has to deal with these issues as well. Therefore, risk management in aquatics environment goes on to monitor thee recruitment, selection, hiring, training, relations, and every other aspect of the process11. Conclusion Therefore, towards the end, it is understandable enough to conclude that risk management is an important aspect of aquatics management, in the absence of which the entire business and environment would be exposed to great hazards and risks. These risks may not only mean health risks, injuries, damages and grievances from the side of the customers but they may also lead to damage to the property of the organization. Worst-case scenario, it may lead to lawsuit, which would mean loss of thousands, if not millions of dollars. Therefore, it is imperative to have effective and efficient risk management techniques and professionals employed at aquatic environments. Not only shall the organizations must invest heavily in the same but they may also develop systems and procedures to strengthen their risk management departments or experts, which are looking after the same. Bibliography Appenzeller, Herb. 2005. Risk management in sport: issues and strategies. Carolina Academic Press. Fawcett, Paul. 2005. Aquatic facility management. Human Kinetics. Hronek, Bruce B., Spengler, John O., Baker, Thomas A. 2007. Legal liability in recreation, sports, and tourism. Sagamore Publications. Kozen, Kendra. 2010. “The recent USA Swimming sex abuse scandal shocked the aquatics world.” Aquatics International. Retrieved on July 07, 2010. Retrieved from http://www.aquaticsintl.com/2010/nov_dec/1011_abuse.html Nohr, K. M. 2009. Managing Risk in Sport and Recreation: The Essential Guide for Loss Prevention. Human Kinetics. Spengler, John O., Connaughton, Daniel, Pittman, Andrew T. 2006. Risk management in sport and recreation. Human Kinetics. Read More