Monitor a Safe Workplace - Essay Example

Monitoring a Health and safety Business Portfolio Monitoring a Health and Safety Business Portfolio My business is a private Health and Safety Organization (HSO). It is concerned with safeguarding people against all possible risks which might occur at the workplace. This organization, is a medium sized business and is often opened 24/7 because of the nature of its services. Presently, my Health and Safety Organizations has a total of 30 employees whose responsibilities are divided as per the organizational chart below: The Health and Safety Organization’s Organizational Chart HSO Director: - Is the administrative head of the Health and Safety Organization and thus directs and coordinates all the activities within the organization to ensure that the HSO meets its objectives.

The director is concerned with building team work, hiring, discipline, planning and directing training, administering budget, and defining and delegation of duties. HSO Assistant Director: - Works hand in hand with the director to foster the objective of the HSO. In the absence of the director, the HSO Assistant director assumes the full responsibility of the director. HSO Managers: - Is in charge of policy development, planning and implementation. Plays the role of human resources manager for the organization thus evaluates staff, collaborates with top management to hire and fire staff, and ensures that there is appropriate deployment of the staff.

HSO Coordinators/Officers: - Makes annual sanitary survey and ensures that there is continuous health and safety supervision with his/her area of jurisdiction. Takes steps necessary to ensure there is prompt report from the field officers. HSO Filed Field Officers: - Promotes the spread of information on the role of HSO and enforce prompt support to as per the company needs. Makes periodic inspection on the status of workplaces and provide recommendation to prospective management for action.

HSO Accountant: - Is concerned with advising the HSO managers on the organization’s financial status for appropriate financial planning and management. HSO Secretaries: - Concerned with administrative assistance duties, keep the organization’s data, information, and diary up to date. HSO’s Occupation Health and Safety Procedures HSO safety procedure is to ensure there is safe workplace for all its employees, private and public organizations, contractors and the general public. To attain the global health and safety workplace standards in-terms of law, policies and expectations.

Ensure good neighborhood by protecting possible risks for workers. To receive feedback on its operation for service improvement for successful health and safety provision at workplace. HSO’s Policies Procedures Higher competent persons based on knowledge, training and experience to offer efficient and quality health and safety services as per the international policy and procedure. Operate under the guidance of international health and safety regulatory procedures to ensure 100% trust and quality services.

Empower each worker to embrace personal responsibility in preventing safety and accident for a healthy workplace. Identify, hazard, assess risk, control risk and offer appropriate recommendation for a safe and healthy work place (CCH Australian Limited, 2007). Relevant legislation for HSO include, Occupation Health and safety, first aid tools, infection control, appropriate disposal of dangerous and contagious waste, appropriate storage and handling of hazardous (Johnstone, 2003). Relevant states OHS Authorities include, Commonwealth – Comcare Legislation, World Health Organization, The Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission, and Self Insurance.

The National OHS Authorities are National industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS), National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority, and Safe work Australi. HSO’s Risk Assessment Procedures Identifying and listing all Agency activities through brainstorming technique. Identifying and rating risks for every activity before controls Identifying the steps taken to control the risks after mitigation. Indentifying significant risk changes from the consolidated activities either from the probability or impact of risk.

HSO’s Task Two How to carry out the following activities in an organization a. For information sessions on OHS Legislation. I would create posters and post them in public and strategic places and send the staff memos. b. I would use the following methods to explain industry regulations to staff: Training all the employers and employees about safety of workplace through seminars, conferences and networking. Offer information through safety alerts and publications Drafting of suitable OHS policy would entail including all the procedures that should be contained in the policy and all the required responsibilities.

Copies of the policy will be availed in offices and at the reception to ensure that they are accessible to the employees. The following procedures for electing the OHS and committee will be follow and include: i. Posting of Notification of election ii. Self and employee nomination of candidates Conducting OHS elections would involve: i. Voting ii. Post election where the results are notified. iii. Retention of voting materials iv. Appointment of the winners. The meetings will be conducted once after every three months to share important information about the occupational health and safety welfare.

This would allow the employees opportunity to take part in decision making. For methods to use to consult and assess employees identification of the work i. Establishing a work place for the OHS committee. ii. Having meetings, workshop suggestion boxes and surveys and keeping employees posted. iii. Involving the employees on identification and assessment of hazards Training would entail (Fang, Choudhry & Hinze, 2006): i. The trainee should be able to identify the risky situations and be competent to ensure that all areas are safe. ii. Should be able to distinguish between safe and unsafe areas or equipments iii.

Should be able to foresee the potential hazard For checklist relating health hazards in my area. i. I would caution the employees to be aware of hazards such as spillage from spoilt regulators, links and hosepipe, and breakdown of plant or equipment. Drafting incident reporting procedure would entail assigning a group of employees the tasks of writing the report then go through it and discuss it for final material HSO Task Three The responsibilities that OHS legislation places on employees and managers are ii.

To ensure that the employers and managers provide adequate facilities for the employee’s welfare. iii. They should ensure that there is safe and healthy workplace. iv. Ensure provision of information, instructions, training and adequate supervision for safe workplace. The legal responsibility of safety representatives and committees are i. Inspecting the workplace by investigating accidents and incidents which affect the organization. ii. Go along with the inspector when the inspections are being conducted. iii. Assist in the development and distribution of policies and procedures which support health and safety in the work place. iv. Resolve health and safety issues in the organizations.

An employer’s OH&S Duty of Care is the responsibility for an employer to think about the employees who may be affected by their acts or errors. The OH&S audits should evaluate the effectiveness of the systematic approaches which identify the OHS hazards, risk management and monitoring processes. All of the OH&S records should be maintained so that they will be used to assess and analyze the performance. These records are proactive and reactive records that report the incidences in workplace.

The reason why we have OH&S policies and procedure is because they help the organization to adhere to the safety rules. Another reason is to caution the employers and employees on the hazards and therefore reduce the injuries that occur in workplaces. References Fang, D., Choudhry M. R., Hinze, J. (2006). Proceedings of CIB W99 international conference on global unity for safety & health in construction, 28-30 June 2006, Beijing, China. Beijing: Tsinghua University Press. Wells, G. (1997). Hazard identification and risk assessment.

Warwickshire, UK: Institution of Chemical Engineers. Johnstone, R. (2003). Occupation health and safety, courts and crime: The legal construction of occupational health and safety offences in Victoria. Sydney: Federation Press. CC Australia Limited. (2007). Master OHS and environment guide. North Ryde, N.S. W: CCH Australia Limited. Sherriff, N. B. (2010). Understanding the model work Health and safety Act. Sydney: CCH Australia.