The 2010-2011 Safety Maintenance Campaign - Essay Example

The 2010-2011 Safety Maintenance Campaign The European Union created the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, EU-OSHA to make Europe a productive, healthy and safe place to work. Its main priority was providing workers with vital information that served their informational needs, as well as give answers to their questions regarding occupational safety and health. EU-OSHA does this by stimulating the flow of scientific, economic and technical information between the parties involved in the health and occupational safety issues. This paper shall seek to explain one of the EU-OSHA safety campaigns, the 2010-2011 Safety Maintenance Campaign (EU-OSHA Announces Safe Maintenance 2010-2011 Campaign, 2010). Therefore, it will lay emphasis on the activities that characterized the campaign, the strategies that were used, as well as the ideas that they could have used to make the campaign more successful. The 2010-2011 Safety Maintenance Campaign involved fifty three pan-European companies and organizations, as well as the whole network of Europe EU-OSHA. The campaign was launched in April 2010, and by the time it was coming to an end in 23 November 2011 it had reached thousands of people. The campaign was conducted through partnership meetings, awareness raising activities, as well as information sessions (EUOSHA, 2011). All these strategies were geared towards bringing awareness of the significance of safe maintenance in workshops. The campaign reached out to many workers in their workplaces. It was even intriguing that their languages were used to make them understand what was being said by those running the campaign. Over the two years that the campaign was conducted, several activities and events were held within the member states of the European Union. One of these activities organized to support the campaign was the European Good Practice Awards. This event was organized to facilitate the identification of good practice examples that are related to safe maintenance. Forty good practice examples were selected from twenty three countries of the European Union. Then out of the forty, eight winning examples were chosen and fifteen out of them were commended. Its main aim was to identify the most innovative and outstanding contributions that facilitate the promotion of safety maintenance. The workers were made to understand these examples so that they could comply and follow them while working to prevent accidents and injuries while on duty. The campaign also comprised two weeks of European Safety and Health Work events held in October 2010 and October 2011. The event is an annual EU-OSHA event since the year 2000. The member states and the participating companies and organizations use the two weeks to continue promoting health and safety in the workplace. The campaign was open to like-minded individuals and organizations who wished to educate their workers on workplace safety. These individuals and organizations are allowed to take part in safety demonstrations, attend training events, seminars, workshops, just to mention to but a few. Additionally, the campaign gave multinationals that wished to take part in it an opening to become official European Union Campaign partner. This is because they could easily multiply the efforts of the campaign by bringing in the large numbers of their workers on board. All the activities and events that were organized during the campaign focused on making the workers aware of the risks linked to maintenance activities. It also focused on promoting good practice in the workplace as well as supporting the member states and European Union activities, initiatives and policies that revolve around workplace safety. In order to create awareness, the Safe Maintenance Campaign highlighted the significance of maintenance of equipment, workplaces, machines, and plants to reduce hazards workers experience while on duty. However, the ultimate goal of the 2010-2011 Safety Maintenance Campaign was to decrease the number of workers being injured or have ill health due to lack or inadequate maintenance (EUOSHA, 2011). The strategies used in the Safety Maintenance Campaign were extremely effective. This is true according to the huge number of people who were reached. In as much as the success can be tied to the long duration that the campaign was conducted; the organizers also played a key role in its success. The mode in which it reached people to persuade them to acquire information also influenced its success. Reports indicate that ten to fifteen percent of fatal accidents that occur at the workplace, and fifteen to twenty percent of all the accidents are linked to maintenance (Healthy Workplaces Campaign Guide, 2010). Workers are exposed to physical hazards such as vibration, noise, adverse weather conditions, and ultraviolet radiation during maintenance of tunnels, bridges, roads, among others. Work places that have hazardous chemicals also pose serious threats to workers. It is also worth noting that several accidents are related to machine maintenance and work equipment. For instance, maintenance related accidents comprise falls from height, accidents from falling objects, as well as being crushed by moving machines (Healthy Workplaces Campaign Guide, 2010). Workers are aware of the problems that they face in the workplace; therefore, by the campaign addressing their immediate needs, they were easily persuaded to join the campaign. The manner in which the campaign handled the pressing issues affecting workers made them have positive attitudes towards it. In simple words, the campaign had matching attitudes with the workers’; thus, they did not have any other option than to comply. The 2010-2011 Safety Maintenance Campaign also used the reward system as part of its strategy. During the campaign, an event known as European Good Practice Awards was organized. The event aimed at identifying organizations that had come up with exemplary innovative ideas on how to practice safety at the workplace (Safe Maintenance, n.d). The competition was divided into two categories; organizations that had ninety-nine employees and below, and organizations that had over one hundred employees (Safe Maintenance, n.d). Some of those who received awards include; a Swedish music place that had invented ways of keeping low sound levels, making them safe without compromising the quality of music (Healthy Workplaces Campaign Guide, 2010). Another winner was a motor manufacturer in the Czech Republic that had invented new ways of identifying risks in its assembly lines (Healthy Workplaces Campaign Guide, 2010). This reward system played an influential role in ensuring that the organizations played an active role in the campaign. This is attributed to the fact that they wished to receive awards. Additionally, the rewards would boost their image and attract more business. The seminars, training sessions and discussion forums conducted during the 2010-2011 Safety Maintenance Campaign were also effective. It is worth noting that some of these trainings and discussions were conducted in the worker’s language (Sas, 2010). This shows that there was no way the awareness message could fail to reach the workers. They grasped and understood whatever they were told by the promoters of the campaign. The only responsibility that the workers had was to implement what they were taught in the workplace. During the campaign, the promoters are likely to have used scary examples of workers who had been injured at their workplaces because of minor mistakes that could have been avoided. They showed video clips of workers getting injured. For instance, the promoters are likely to have used the video clip of a chef who slipped and burnt herself because she failed to clean cooking oil that had been spilled on the floor (Deshan, 2009). The video clip is extremely sad and scary since the chef was getting married in the next few weeks. Another video clip had several scenes of people getting hurt because of minor mistakes at the workplace (JS718, 2008). Letting workers watch these video clips played instrumental roles in the campaign. This is because they became aware of what could befall them in case they do not obey safety maintenance guidelines at the workplace (Pichot, 2010). In as much as the 2010-2011 Safety Maintenance Campaign was successful; there are other strategies that the campaign promoters could have used to promote it further. For instance, they could have employed the use of radio and TV adverts. TV and radio are the most common forms of advertisements. This is because several people listen to the radio and watches TV. Having well-choreographed TV advertisements running during the prime time, especially before news bulletins could have enormously impacted their course (Sas, 2010). This is because several people are back from work at this time, and most probably have taken a shower and are watching the television while waiting for dinner. Therefore, those workers who may fail to attend seminars and training workshops due to tight schedules may get a chance to grasp one or two essential things from the adverts. Additionally, the 2010-2011 Safety Maintenance Campaign could have made an immense impact if it had used the social media. In the recent times, social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are widely used by several people all over the world. If they could have actively participated in running discussion forums using Facebook pages and groups; then the campaign could have reached several workers, some of who need the information, but do not reside in the European Union. In conclusion, the Safety Maintenance Campaign successfully managed to create awareness to the workers. It depended on the active collaboration and support of the varied campaign partners and stakeholders for its success (Mewes, 2008). Workers all over the European Union gained a lot from the campaign, and it would be necessary if a similar campaign that includes some of the strategies I have proposed be organized. References Deshan, J. [judedeshan]. (2009, Sep 21). Dangerous Workplace hazards [video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f01ixZXqqzA&feature=related EUOSHA. (2011, Nov 18). Healthy Workplaces Campaign on Safe Maintenance 2010-2011 [video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN_o-Ek5jqU “EU-OSHA Announces Safe Maintenance 2010-2011 Campaign” (2010, June 04). In Occupational Health & Safety. Retrieved Nov 16, 2012 from http://ohsonline.com/articles/2010/01/04/eu-osha-announces-campaign.aspx “Healthy Workplaces Campaign Guide”. (2010). A European Campaign on Safe Maintenance 2010-2011. Luxemburg: European Agency for Safety and Health at Work. JS718. (2008, Dec 2). Funny Video of Workplace Accidents PSA [video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4svAoq1usM&feature=related Pichot, Claude. (2010). Measuring safety in maintenance- Identifying the problems and where they lie. Maintworld, 1, 67-79. “Safe Maintenance”. (n.d). In Health and Safety Executive. Retrieved Nov 16, 2012 from http://www.hse.gov.uk/safemaintenance/index.htm Sas, Katalin. (2010). Occupational Safety and Health in Maintenance. Maintworld, 1, 90-103 Mewes, D. (2008). Ageing of components, technical work equipment and personal protective equipment made of plastic. Sankt Augustin: Monumenta Sirica Read More