...Workplace Safety Article: Avoiding Corporate Complacency Every day in the United States on the average, 15 workers lose their lives as a result of injuries or illnesses related to their work - that's over 5700 people. These people leave behind families, friends, and co-workers. The single most common cause is complacency - an attitude that "it won't happen to me." Complacency Kills The Entire Organization Too often individuals and companies become complacent when it comes to safety. Managers are satisfied with mediocre safety performance and do not work to improve the environment by raising safety awareness and eliminating the potential for injury. Employees are content and are not attentive to their work environments. They become convinced that management is not concerned about safety. They begin to think they are not responsible for their own safety. Over time, the entire organization gives little meaningful attention to safety. The result is that employees begin to get in a hurry and take shortcuts on the job. They are more focused on production and getting the job done than getting it done safely. That attitude becomes an organizational norm. Near misses go unreported. No one wants to take the time to fill out forms and employees don't understand the connection between sharing information and eliminating injuries. Managers do not pay attention to reports, so they become unimportant. The number of injuries increases and they become more severe. Everyone becomes...
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...Reaction Summary: Workplace Safety at Alcoa In your opinion, what will be the key challenge to Alcoa's strategic effort to meet its goal of improved safety performance? Explain. There are many obstacles in front of Alcoa in its improvements of Safety. First of all, aluminum operations throughout the US had high injury rates. Alcoa has no peer models in the industry to follow. If Alcoa wants to improve its safety rates, it has to make extra efforts all by itself, despite the fact that peer companies are using different rules. Also, objections from line workers add a lot of pressure on implementing safety policies. However, different coworkers have distinct reasons to object. Some of the line workers are afraid of being laughed at by their coworkers when they follow new safety regulations. Workers don’t all understand the necessity of a new regulation at the beginning, so they feel easier to reject new rules. Some experienced workers refuse to follow new regulations because they are using their experience to judge all kinds of possibilities in work. They’ve never had accidents in the past, so it’s hard for them to adopt new regulations. Besides these two reasons, there are cultural norms and emotions. Workers may know it’s easier to get injured when they wear rings. However, cultures and emotions hold them back from safety concerns. Alcoa’s management also needs enhancement to meet with its safety expectations. Merton found workers have lax attitude within the...
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...Describe key features of legislation and regulations on health and safety as applied to working conditions in wholesale. In the Netherlands a company has to meet the needs of the law on different subjects and in this case that is health and safety. Before that I decide to go to an organisation and take a look at the work floor and the safety there, I decided to look for laws to help me decide whether the company meet the needs of a required law on health and safety. On the site of FNV Bondgenoten, the Dutch work association. I researched and found a list of the requirements a organisation should fulfil on health and safety. Here below you will see list with few important key features for health and safety of an organisation such as a wholesale company. • All safety precautions that exist within the company must be taken. - In the wholesale they of course also have rules of safety within the compound and those have to be applied. • The use of machines with parts sticking out have to be taken care of and not in harm for others. - In wholesale they could have stock pilled up with dangerous parts sticking out that could harm someone if they don’t notice it or it could cause a accident if it isn’t stacked up orderly. • The machines have to have enough emergency stop buttons. - Machines such as packaging machines that run the whole day could be overused and cause a power shortage and the machines have to be capable of shutting down before that happens. • When...
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...Health and Safety Executive Working alone Health and safety guidance on the risks of lone working Introduction This leaflet provides guidance on how to keep lone workers healthy and safe. It is aimed at anyone who employs or engages lone workers, and also at self-employed people who work alone. Following the guidance in the leaflet is not compulsory, but it should help employers understand what they need to do to comply with their legal duties towards lone workers under: ■ ■ the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974; the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. This is a web-friendly version of leaflet INDG73(rev3), published 05/13 Is it legal to work alone and is it safe? Working alone is not in itself against the law and it will often be safe to do so. However, the law requires employers to consider carefully, and then deal with, any health and safety risks for people working alone. Employers are responsible for the health, safety and welfare at work of all their workers. They also have responsibility for the health and safety of any contractors or self-employed people doing work for them. These responsibilities cannot be transferred to any other person, including those people who work alone. Workers have responsibilities to take reasonable care of themselves and other people affected by their work activities and to co-operate with their employers in meeting their legal obligations. Who are lone workers and what jobs do they do? Lone...
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...living organism at a given time. It encompasses the soundness of the body, freedom from disease, sickness or abnormality and the condition of optimal well-being. Physical state of health is deemed to be sound when the body is functioning as it is designed to function. Potential Threats to Physical Health in Workplace: Disease, Sickness and Abnormality Germs, bacteria, molds, and viruses may invade parts of humans’ bodies, attempting to infiltrate and use the body as a home or source of food. The consequences may not limited to merely cell destruction but more direly it involves expel of poisons and toxins that damage the body system. Cleanliness is one of the defense mechanism against disease. Withal to that, the body creates internal defenses against specific bacteria and viruses. Poison Ingesting the wrong material can poison a person. At times, poisons are subtle parts of the environment, for example toxic gas in manufacturing facilities in chemical industries. Being aware of potential poisons is an important defense. In undesired circumstances, environmental poisoning is unavoidable as workers may not have realized it until it actually occurs. In many workplace past cases, having noxious and toxic chemicals on machineries without proper procedures and measures taken to remove the chemical leftovers...
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...Health and safety in the Business Workplace P1/M1– All work places need to ensure the health and safety of their employees, customers and any persons who will be entering the premises of a business. Businesses have a legal obligation to do so therefore Legal requirements have to be met and guidelines to be followed such as COSHH, RIDDOR, COMAH and other safety factors have to be followed. Legislations such as the Health and Safety Act 1974 ensured that all employers would have certain duties they must perform toward their employees and customers and what duties employees would have with other employees and customers, This act did not state that employers would have to take action in reducing any risks in the work place if it impossible or that the time, cost or trouble involved outweighed the risk. This Act just ensures businesses have good management and tackle any risks that occur in a sensible manner, unlike the next legislation. The Health and Safety at work Act 1999 ensure business follow guidelines implemented by the law. It gives more explicit instructions on what employers and employees must do within with workplace to keep it a healthy and safe environment. This Act states that A business or employer must do everything they can to reduce the Risk of any injury to an employee. If they do not only could they face legal action against an employee or customer they could face criminal legal action against the court for failing to follow the Health and Safety act Legislation...
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...Introduction Workplace violence is any form of cruelty against workers and it can take place either inside the organization or on the outside. Employees or workers usually refer to their workplace as the permanent or temporary site where they carry out any of their job-related responsibilities. Workplace violence can extend from verbal abuse to physical abuse and could even lead to homicide. How do workplace violence incidents affect the productivity of the organization? An organization and/or business number one resource are their employees. Employees are essential to the failure or success of an organization. With that being said, employees must feel safe and secure in their workplace environment in order for them to perform their duties to the best of their ability. Workplace safety should be considered a number one priority in order to maintain a healthy work environment. “Workplace violence costs United States businesses approximately $4.2 billion per year in missed days of work and legal costs”, (Ritchey, 2010, Statistics). Workplace safety should be addressed in our organizations’ regulations, policies and training; however it is everyone’s responsibility within the organization to make certain that all policies are adhered to. “According to a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health publication, on average, 1 .7 million workers are injured each year, and more than 800 die as a result of workplace violence”,(Dillenberger, 2010, paragraph 2). There could be...
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...Injuries and Safety in the Workplace Gail Coates BUS642 Research Methods & Tools Kelly Bruning July 4, 2015 Introduction If safety procedure programs are not implemented in organizations’ rules and policy, the amount of workplace injuries will continue to rise. As a prospective manager and business owner, workplace safety is important to research so I can ensure that my business is productive as well as having productive employees. Knowing what the main causes of work related injuries and the responsibility as management and having the proper plan and procedure to follow will help decrease those injuries and help my business become more productive. The well being of an organizations employers and employees are contingent on the organizations workplace health and safety procedures. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), “each year about 2.3 million people die from accidents and diseases that are related to their work” (Yarlagadda, Raju,, & Raju, 2010). The article also states that each day approximately 1 million employees suffer workplace accidents, and about 5,500 of those employees will die because of an accident or disease related to their work (Yarlagadda, Raju,, & Raju, 2010). Management Dilemma There are several different dilemmas that management deals with when it come to workplace injuries and safety. Management has to know what to do to prevent workplace injuries and how to deal with those injuries when they happen. Another...
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...effective safety program. What "grade" would you give your current (or most recent past) employer for their efforts in promoting safety? Explain Elements required for any organization to have and maintain an effective safety program are: * Support from top management is essential for a safety program to be effective. Employee relations may falter when workers believe that management does not care enough about their safety in the workplace. * Safety training must be a continuous process to ensure a safe workplace. * Job hazard analysis (JHA) is a multistep process designed to study and analyze a task and then break down that task into steps that provide a means of eliminating associated hazards. JHA result in a written procedure as to how to safely complete multiple tasks within a plant. They include management support, supervisor and employee training, written program, and management oversight. It will address and bring to attention points of safety issues and risks. * Superfund amendments reauthorization act, title III (SARA) requires businesses to communicate openly about the hazards associated with materials they use and produce and any wastes generated from use. * Employee involvement is a key way to solidify a safety program. Any input from employees themselves give them a sense of involvement. Having employees watch out for each other strengthens a team and helps form positive attitudes and gives employees a place in the program. * Having a safety engineer...
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...Curtin University of Technology Department of Civil Engineering Environmental Engineering Management 690 Assignment 2 Management of Health and Safety at Work in the Chemical Industry Prepared for: Professor Geoff Taylor By: Mohammed Alshiha Student ID: 13884145 Date: Jan 1st 2010 1.0 Introduction 1 Declaration (i) I have read and understood Curtin University’s policy on plagiarism and I confirm that the work submitted on the 1st of January by me is my own work, and that the work of any other person contained therein is clearly acknowledged. (ii) The work has been written since the 8th of December 2009. (iii) The references in the work do directly relate to the material appearing immediately before them in the text. (iv) All word-for-word quotes from another author are in quotation marks. Mohammed Alshiha ID#13884145 1.0 Introduction 2 Contents 1.0 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 3 2.0 Safety Management System ........................................................................................................ 5 3.0 Risk Analysis ................................................................................................................................ 7 3.1 Search for hazards ................................................................................................................... 7 3.1.1 Systematic...
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...to think about Safety in the Workplace As a Quality, Safety and Environmental Manager, I’m passionate about safety in the workplace. Safety in construction has always been and continues to be the major focal point of construction and infrastructure companies. Aside from the cost associated with injuries and damage to plant or equipment, higher insurance premiums and impact on reputation, there are human elements that are affected. The estimated cost of injuries and incidents in the industry is huge and not just based on monetary impact, but also to the cost of claims, the reputation of various organisations, counselling and other services utilised to help people deal with trauma as a result of incidents and fatalities. Three major factors that make it even more important to create a first class safety culture on our project include; 1. a workforce that is just getting to know each other; 2. Two major motorways where driver behaviour isn’t always easy to control and is running at full capacity; and 3. A lot of high risk activities that could result in injury or worse. Without creating a culture where safety values, mateship and leadership within is a given, there is more likelihood that a major incident or worse, could occur and have a devastating effect on everyone. The research undertook and the advice and learning’s I obtained as a result were without doubt, extremely beneficial. Sources Web Query/Group Getting workers to think about safety in the workplace Source http://www...
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...Resources Administration of Workplace Safety Introduction Human resources administration is frequently considered with limited recognition for all the intrinsic responsibilities that are vastly complex and broad in scope. Some of the responsibilities of an enterprises’ human resources department include: the assurance that the enterprise is in conformance with State and Federal employment laws; prompt payroll processing; accounting, tax calculation and filing; employee fulfillment; workplace safety requirements and wide-ranging benefits to name a few. Given the complexity of the many roles of an enterprises’ human resources department, the question is can the human resources department effectively manage workplace safety requirements as they pertain to the inspection of the workplace for health and safety problems as well as the development of training programs. This paper will examine the enterprises’ human resource department ability to deftly manage workplace safety in the areas of inspection and development. Background According to Eckhardt (2001), the moral obligation of safety in the workplace will likely have divergent interpretations depending on the enterprises’ culture, funding and priorities. Federal regulations, as they are related to workplace safety in the area of inspection and development, are established in order to ensure that industry standards are practiced industry wide. Admin (2011), cites fundamental workplace safety inspection and development...
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...Maintain workplace safety in the property industry Question 1 Explain in your own words the purpose of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2000 in New South Wales and other similar Acts in other States and Territories. The Powers of the Health and Safety Representative A health and safety representative has the power to: Identify Workplace Hazards The health and safety representative has the power to identify workplace hazards. This power is usually exercised by conducting workplace inspections. Obtain Information from the Employer The health and safety representative is entitled to the same information available to a joint committee member. Under the Act, the employer must share with the representative any such information that he or she has. Be Consulted about Workplace Testing If the employer intends to do testing of any kind in or about the workplace and related to occupational health and safety, the representative has the right to be consulted before the testing takes place. Make Recommendations to the Employer The representative has the power to make recommendations to the employer on ways to improve workplace health and safety–the same power given to joint committees. Investigate Serious Injuries If a worker is killed or critically injured on the job, the representative has the right to inspect the scene where the injury occurred and any machine, equipment, substance, etc., that may be connected with it. Duties of employers...
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...CATALYTIC CONVERTER THEORY, OPERATION AND TESTING 2 The gasoline used in the modern automobile is a complex blend of both straight and branched chain hydrocarbons. In simpler terms it is a mixture of different types of bunches of hydrogen and carbon. We will use the fictitious molecule C8H17 to approximate the blend of different hydrocarbon compounds found in gasoline. In more simple terms one gasoline molecule* contains 8 atoms of carbon for every 17 atoms of hydrogen and nothing else*. ONE GASOLINE MOLECULE* GASOLINE IS --> C8H17 8 CARBON ATOMS + 17 HYDROGEN ATOMS BONDED TOGETHER *There is no such thing as a single gasoline molecule. Gasoline is a very complex blend of several different molecules. C8H17 is used to represent the average “gasoline molecule”. COMPOSITION OF AIR 1 PART OXYGEN (O2) AND 4 PARTS NITROGEN (N2) When gasoline is mixed with air and ignited in the combustion chamber it burns, and in doing so reorganizes the hydrogen, carbon and oxygen atoms. As these atoms are reorganized they can form CO, CO2, H2O, NO (and other NOx), and of course if some of the gasoline is left unburned, C8H17 or other forms of generic HC. Optimum combustion occurs at an A/F ratio of about 14.64:1. If all of the fuel vaporizes and takes part in combustion and no NOx is formed we would have perfect combustion. Perfect combustion would result in the formation of nothing CO2, H2O. Perfect combustion: Air + Fuel CO2 + H2O (and nothing else) Unfortunately as more and more CO2 is formed...
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...Employee Drug Testing Justin Boykin Columbia Southern University Employee Drug Testing When managing a company, one of the primary focuses of the employer should be the safety of their employees and the safety of their customers. By ensuring that the work environment is free of any substance that can potentially cause distraction or impaired judgment, employers will decrease the odds of injuries to employee and the patrons as well. Studies show that when frequently abused substances such as illicit drugs and alcohol are removed from the work environment, employees are four times less likely to be injured on the job (Ivancevich, 2010, p.534). In the case of Castulon Corporation, I feel that the plan to implement drug testing is a good idea if carried out right. The argument against having the drug test in the case study is that the drug test will undermine the trust level of the company and the employees. However, I feel that if the employees are innocent then it will not affect them at all by having to take a drug test and it will not bother them to do so. On the other hand, for the employees who are partaking in the use of illicit, I feel that they have already undermined the trust of the company and should be disciplined accordingly (Ivancevich, 2010, p.532). For employees who fail to comply with the company’s substance abuse policy, I believe there should be positive disciplinary actions for each offense. By giving employees the option to enroll in a substance abuse...
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