Analysis of Safety Standards - Assignment Example

Analysis of Safety Standards Customer Inserts His/Her Name Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name Insert Date Here (Day, Month, Year) 1. Any industry or a company has to undergo safety standards and regulations, as per certified Safety Management Systems. Occupational health and safety management issue is a legal requirement making it mandatory for companies, organizations or industries in many countries of the world to get adhere to and they have to produce report also on their health and safety performance on time to time basis. Expectations for the safety requirements are increasing and so are increasing the legal requirements. Authorities, customers, and employee representatives are all increasing their demand for the health and safety of the workers. Occupational health and management systems are also adopting a very methodological approach to reduce risks in the workplace as far as possible. They provide guidelines to the organizations facilitating them in the management of the legal requirements and bringing in improvement in their occupational health and safety performance by giving them ideas on the ways they can identify various risks, measurements of the depth of the associated risks, the ways they can implement policy measures and set their targets conforming to the methods of reducing risks. Though many countries formulate their own occupational health and safety legislations, yet many like to follow international standard as it provides common regulations and ideas and sets standard to make organizations adopt best management practices. Among many, OHAS 18001 is the most accepted globally recognized standard for occupational health and safety management systems and could apply to any organization in any business sector. The standards set in OHSAS 18001 are conducive to the ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 to help organizations meet their health and safety obligations in the most effective way. By formulating the most efficient occupational health and safety management system, companies can to a maximum extent decrease the risks associated with their particular work and thereby lessen liability on the company. Moreover it shows the company owes responsibility towards their employees, other workers and the people. It makes companies have and effective framework with obligations and expectations when it comes to business relationships. It also brings in the improvement in the operations and decreases the occurrences of injuries or ill health and it also increases the status and glory of the company and increases the confidence of stakeholders. Any organization with willingness to create healthy environment by adopting the international certified standards can adopt OHSAS 18001 certification. AS/NZS 4801 also mentions about various requirements for the health and safety management systems at various occupational levels. It enables organization to formulate policies and objectives taking into account various legalities and detailed information about various risks and hazards. It also refers to those risks or hazards whereby an organization can exert their influence without any expectation of any results that may arise out of the particular OHS standards. As it is said, “Safety Certification is recognition from an accredited independent third party that your organization complies with a recognized standard detailing good safety management system principles.” (NCS International, 2009) Through the set standards, safety certification publicly displays organization’s commitment for decreasing and finally removing injury that may arise in a work place. 2. There are many causes behind companies having their management system get certified by a third party certification body. Many companies see the certification as the means of added value in their preparation of the audit reports of their management systems independently. They validate the reports and documents of their findings by the means of the certificate. Neck-to-Neck competition in the globalised market and a bid to remain ahead in the market without giving any chance to any accidents or injuries of their workforce too enforces upon the managerial team to ahead for certification. The process of certification also opens the door for the companies to enter into the trade market along with the international trade. Along with it regulatory requirements, demands of globalization may also be yet another reason for certifications. Moreover certification also shows companies’ accountability of the business conduct to their stakeholders. In such kind of cases, companies develop their own independent assessment measures and adopt certification for their own management system for showing their competence to demand assessments on the independent ground measurements by showing their commitment towards their stakeholders. The certification process is an assurance for stakeholders about companies overall performance measures, quality, and other safety related issues. This also helps companies’ bring in the improvement in its overall strategies and several operational levels including services. By selecting the right certification body, company can have third party validation and benchmarking of the management system. It can also help companies to take on the most risky path, in other words it will encourage entrepreneurs to take risks and boost their confidence to carry on the path of continuous improvement. By certifying OHSAS 18001management system, it ensures that organization is adapting to its specifications in its various functionaries. By fully complying with the standards, company may assure potentiality of reducing risks and its costs and also that it is adhering all the legality and regulatory requirements. Over and above, it is displaying its innovative spree towards the world, increases its trust and confidence towards its clients, gains new customers and business partners and provides healthy and safe environment for its workers now and future. Moreover it also decreases insurance costs. 3. There is enough literature available, academic and otherwise to give knowledge to the people on the effectiveness of systematic safety management processes. Among them are books, journals, websites, magazines etc conforming to their own nations. They all cater to the different aspects of literature like the ways for safety measurements and regarding the need for the safety certifications. Models suggest the way certifications can be applied in the set standards of the companies, even the consequences companies have to face if they do not adhere to these safety measures. One of them is Safety climate and safety behaviour published on 1st December 02 in Australian Journal of Management to impart safety climate and safety management process and is written by Neal Andrew and Mark Griffin. This paper delivers various research programs bringing forth the past history and results show that companies follow safety climate and behavioural patterns. This journal displays a model showing several links that are created between the safety climate, knowledge about the safety, the way to motivate the entrepreneurs on the safety measures, and the behaviours they should adopt for their safety. In this journal, reviews are made on many studies that support the links between the safe climate that can be created and behaviours of the employees ensuring their safety. Analysis have also been done to examine the various roles that can be played like supportive leadership, organisational climate, and conscience thinking to give stability in the environment as various sources to bring in the stable environment and changes in the climate. Another one worth mentioning is Occupational and Environmental Medicine (OEM) Journal in which LaMontagne and his team’s research work conducted on the topic Assessing and Intervening on OSH programmes: effectiveness evaluation of the Wellworks-2 intervention in 15 manufacturing worksites and behaviour was published in 2004. This paper presented a transparent as well method that can be applied practically for making assessment about the occupational safety and health programs or management systems. The paper also showed making assessments on the various OSH programs while applying in a manufacturing sites and focusing on management whether it should bring in the greater improvement towards the OSH programs as compared to the intervention controls. In this paper, assessment is also made by adapting United States Occupational Safety & Health Administration’s 1995 Program Evaluation Profile. The paper adopted the measurement approach while assigning scores from 91 binary indicator variables grouped under four Essential Elements. After calculations and measurements, they found that OSH programme assessment method is the best and can be applied in the manufacturing industries, but there is a need for certain improvements in many of these kinds of workplaces. Inspite of small sample size, these results showed that sustained management measures could bring in the improvement in the OSH programs. One of the books is Advances in safety and reliability compiled and edited by C. Guedes Soares. One of the chapters written by Priestly & Livingston suggests what repercussions company or organization faces if it does not adopt safety management practices and what in monetary value it costs to the company. Authors suggest various methodologies by collecting data, which allows the entrepreneurs to easily identify the costs and the main causes of the accidents that may occur in his company. If the investigations on the main causes of accidents are carried out in appropriate manner then the latest failures in the safety management systems can be easily found out and identified and as said by writers “costs can be apportioned to elements of safety management via the root causes. By measuring the safety measurement costs before and after the introduction of the health and safety measures comparisons can be made to examine what level of savings have been accrued to the company”. (Priestly & Livingston, 1997, p. 247) This book is worth referring. Reference List Andrew, N. & Griffin, M.A. (2002). Safety climate and safety behaviour. Australian Journal of Management 27: 67-75. Bluff, E., Gunningham, N. & Johnstone, R. 2004. OHS regulation for a changing world of work. Leichhardt, NSW: Federation Press. Gustin, J.F. (2008). Safety Management. Lilburn, GA: The Fairmont Press. LaMontagne, A., Barbeau, E. et al. (2004). Assessing and intervening on OSH programmes: effectiveness evaluation of the Wellworks-2 intervention in 15 manufacturing worksites. Occup Environ Med. 61(8): 651-660. Lingard, H. & Rowlinson, S.M. 2005. Occupational health and safety in construction project management. New York: Spon Press. NCS International. (2009). OHSAS 18001, AS/NZS 4801 & SafetyMAP (Safety and OHS Certifications). Retrieved on April 14, 2009 from W.W.W: http://www.ncsi.com.au/safety Podgorski, D. ILO Guidelines on occupational safety and health management systems. Ed. Waldemar Karwowski. Handbook on Standards and Guidelines in Ergonomics and Human Factors. 493-506. Priestly, K.N. & Livingston, P. D. 1997.Development of Methodology to Examine the Cost effectiveness of health and safety management practices. Ed. C. Guedes Soares.. Advances in safety and reliability: proceedings of the ESREL'97, international conference on safety and reliability, 17-20 June, 1997, Lisbon, Portugal.Elsevier, 1997. Oxford: Elsevier Science. 247-256. Robson, L.S. et al. 2007. The effectiveness of occupational health and safety management system interventions: A systematic review. Safety Science, 45(3): 329-353. Rowlinson, S.M. (2004). Construction Safety Management Systems. New York: Taylor & Francis. Taylor, G. Easter, K. & Hegney, R. (2004) Enhancing occupational safety and health. Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann. Read More