Work Health Safety Assessment

Work Health Safety Assessment

Mishaps and accidents are circumstances that are unforeseen and can have an impact on both groups and individuals during any time and environment. The majority of the accident are avertable, but due to negligence and carelessness, major grievances and injuries do occur. The occurrence of accidents in the workplace may have a critical effect on both the health and ability of the workers that are involved. The wellbeing and safety of all the workers are essential for the consistent production of the firm.  Human resources and the workers are the critical components in ensuring environmental protection in the work environment (Holt & Allen, 2015). A long term sustainable growth and success can be attained in an organization through safe, healthy, motivated, and efficient workers. The safety and health of all workers are essential in enhancing the efficiency and productivity of all the levels and areas in an organization. Inappropriate safety measures in a firm can lead to mayhem, which can have a negative impact on the working condition of a firm. On that note, it is significant that the management of the firm will have to devise and implement efficient safety procedures that will aid in reducing hazards and prevent accident rates in the work environment (Kliem & Ludin, 2019). The employees prefer working in an environment that is safe; thus they become motivated. Working in a more stable condition increases the employee’s performance index since they are comfortable.

The management must coordinate all the stakeholders that are affiliated to the organization when devising policies in regards to safety and workplace; thus, it will promote positive change in the firm. It is essential for organizations to abide by explicit health and safety laws to ensure that the employee not exposed to harm within the workplace (Tchiehe & Gauthie, 2017). The majority of the firms identify and evaluate the hazards and risks within the workplace. Therefore, identification of the risk and hazards is core since it will help an organization in implementing specific precautions that will aid in risk minimization through the creation of regulation or rules in the work environment (Sargeant, 2016). On that note, health and safety assessment in the workplace is significant.

Work safety policy is designed to aid in the establishment of the formal safety policy for any organization. It covers the essential elements of safety policies, and it includes a variety of environmental workplace that may pose varying levels of hazards. The safety and health of the employees are covered under the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act. This act facilitated the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). These agencies are mandated with the duty of protecting the wealth of the employees and the prevention of occupational injuries, death, and diseases (Reese, 2015).

Risk Assessment Steps

Risk assessment is essential in the identification and evaluation of the elements that may be of risk in the work environment.

Step1: Hazard Identification

It is the duty of the employers to assess the health and safety risks that may be encountered by employees. Therefore, the employer has to check systematically for any possible mental, physical, biological, and chemical hazards. The most common risks comprise of chemicals: cleaning fluids, asbestos, and aerosols. Mental: these are the psychosocial hazards that have an impact on the mental health of the workers within the workplace. They constitute the long working hours, excessive workload, and bullying. Physical hazards consist of slips and trips, lifting, awkward postures, machinery, dust, and computer equipment (Care, 2015).

Step 2: Identification of who may be at risk

Identification of the individual who may be at risk commences with the part-time and fully employed workers. On the other hand, the employers need to access the threat that is faced by the contract stuff, agencies, clients, visitors, and any other member of the public that may access the premises of the organization. Therefore, the employers have to review the work routines of all different situations and locations that the staff have been assigned.  The supervisors in a home care setting need to take account of the personal safety of the client by ensuring lifting arrangements and safe working in-home care. In supermarkets, hazards are often found in the checkout; thus, the stuff often faces the risk of violation from intruders and customers, particularly in the evening.

Step 3: Risk Assessment

The employers need to put into consideration and evaluate the likelihood of the hazard causing harm (Scanlon, Lloyd, Gray, Francis & LaPuma, 2015). This will aid in the determination of whether or not the employer needs to reduce the risk level of the hazard.

Step 4:  Take Action

In some instances, the risk remains constant despite taking all the precautions. Thus, it is the responsibility of the employers to decide whether the risk is medium, high, or low in the remaining hazard. Evaluating the severity of the risk will aid in taking appropriate action for mitigation of the hazard.

Step 5: Record the Findings

The main findings of the assessment need to be recorded by both the staff and employers. The record should compile data on any hazard that has been noted during the risk assessment and the appropriate action that has been taken to eliminate or reduce the risk. Record is a valid proof that assessment was carried out, and it is utilized for review in the upcoming working practices. The records should be readable and kept in a safe place for future references.

Step 6: Review of Risk Assessment

There is a need for the risk assessment to be kept under review to ensure that the safe working practices that were agreed upon are being applied. In addition, it helps to take into account any new machinery, working practices, or challenging work targets.

Recommendation

The employers need to create awareness for their employees within the workplace in the instance that a hazard has been identified. Similarly, the stuff needs to file a report and notify their respective supervisors whenever they determine a problem. It will be harmful if people sit back and hold to the problem since it could be disastrous if not solved. Proper employee training is beneficial, especially when there is a risk in the workplace. The employers need to write safe work procedures and instructions so that the staff can familiarise themselves with it. Supervision of the employees is important; this will ensure that they are utilizing the training to perform their duties safely and adequately. Inadequate training will endanger the safety of the employees; thus the management will be liable for the occurrence of the incident.

Investigation of accidents is essential for any organization, even if the accident has not caused critical injury to the people at the workplace. Conducting research will help to determine the cause of the occurrence of the incident, which can be beneficial in preventing any possible conflict from occurring. On the other hand, maintaining an open dialogue with the employees is core in establishing a good rapport. Thus, the employees can be free to share their views and opinions in regards to their safety. Therefore, employers need to organize a regular meeting with their employees to discuss safety and health issues. During this meeting, the staff is motivated to share their thoughts and ideas on the appropriate measure to improve their safety in the workplace. First aid training could be provided to the employees for them to be able to deal efficiently with the occurrence of emergency situations.

Frequent checks of all the tools and equipment is an efficient strategy that the majority of the firms need to adapt to ensure that they are correctly used and maintained. Safe work prerocedures and storage areas need to be reviewed. A typical example is when the tools and equipment are arranged in a safe manner. Additionally, it is important to keep records for all inspections, first aid treatment, training activities, and incident investigations. This information will be beneficial in identifying trends in the conditions that are unsafe. The core practice that is recommended is finding and fixing hazards earlier before they cause illness and injury (Borg, Wnuk, Regnell & Runeson, 2016). This approach is very efficient in the prevention of the occurrence of any incident.

Ethical Moral Reasoning

The majority of the employers are often concerned about the behaviors of the employees within the workplace.  Employee behavior towards a customer may have an impact on the customer on whether to come back or never show up. Organizations enforce ethical behaviors that may comprise of: not stealing, not lying, not cheating, and not providing false information. On that note, an organization can state its ethical policies; hence, the employees can be held responsible for their specific behaviors (Artvinli, 2016). Thus, ethical behavior is often rewarded, and bad behavior is punished.

The vulnerable groups in the work environment are the disabled employees, young workers, shift workers, night workers, and breastfeeding and pregnant women (Sezgin & Esin, 2016). The employers have a key role to play towards the health and safety of this vulnerable group to ensure that they are not harassed in their workplaces (Quinlan, 2016).

In conclusion, accidents are costly to families, organizations, individuals, and the nation as a whole. Therefore, it is crucial to create a safety and healthy workplace. Safety and occupation health is significant to everyone; worker and employers need to work together to prevent these accidents from occurring (Işık & Atasoylu, 2017). The key goal of safety and health programs is to prevent deaths, illnesses, injuries as well as the financial hardship and suffering that these hazards may have to the employers, workers, and their families.

References

Artvinli, F. (2016). The ethics of occupational health and safety in Turkey: responsibility and consent to risk. Acta bioethica, 22(1), 111.

Borg, M., Wnuk, K., Regnell, B., & Runeson, P. (2016). Supporting change impact analysis using a recommendation system: An industrial case study in a safety-critical context. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 43(7), 675-700.

Care, K. B. E. (2015). Physical environment.

Holt, A. S. J., & Allen, J. (2015). Principles of health and safety at work. Routledge.

Işık, I. N., & Atasoylu, E. (2017). Occupational safety and health in North Cyprus: evaluation of risk assessment. Safety science, 94, 17-25.

Kliem, R. L., & Ludin, I. S. (2019). Reducing project risk. Routledge.

Quinlan, M. (2016). We’ve been down this road before: Vulnerable work and occupational health in historical perspective. In Vulnerable Workers (pp. 21-55). Routledge.

Reese, C. D. (2015). Occupational health and safety management: a practical approach. CRC press.

Sargeant, M. (2016). The meaning of the terms precarious work and vulnerable workers. E-Journal of International and Comparative Labour Studies, 5(3), 1-10.

Scanlon, K. A., Lloyd, S. M., Gray, G. M., Francis, R. A., & LaPuma, P. (2015). An approach to integrating occupational safety and health into life cycle assessment: Development and application of work environment characterization factors. Journal of industrial ecology, 19(1), 27-37.

Sezgin, D., & Esin, M. N. (2016). Vulnerable groups in working life: disabled workers in Turkey. Enfermería del Trabajo, 6(1), 28-33.

Tchiehe, D. N., & Gauthier, F. (2017). Classification of risk acceptability and risk tolerability factors in occupational health and safety. Safety science, 92, 138-147.