Perhaps more than any other HR activity, health and safety offer HR manager an opportunity to be more proactive than reactive. There are a number of strategies that can be used by organizations to ensure a healthy and safe workplace and ensure compliance with legal requirements. Some are:
Design Safe and healthy systems of work
Exhibit Strong management commitment
Inspect Workplace for health and safety problems
Establish Procedures and controls for dealing with health and safety issues
Develop Training programs
Set up Health and safety committees
Monitor Safety policies
Draw up Action plan and checklist
1. Design safer systems of work:
The most direct approach to ensuring a safe and healthy workplace is to design systems of work that are safe and without risk to health. This can often only be done satisfactorily at the design, planning or purchasing stage. It may be far more difficult to modify existing machinery or systems of work to eliminate or reduce hazards, than at the investment stage. Thus, management must take cognizance of long-term organizational changes to control hazards. Simply trying to persuade employees, for instance by poster campaigns, to adapt their behavior to unsafe systems of work is unacceptable. ‘Most accidents involve an element of failure in control – in other words failure in management skill. A guiding principle when drawing up arrangements for securing health and safety should be so far as possible work would be adapted to people and not vice versa’. As managers identify processes, machines and substances that are hazardous to the health and well-being of employees, they must modify the process to eliminate or reduce the hazard and risk ‘at source’. The provision of protective equipment is the typical means used by organizations to reduce physical hazards, and it is also an employer responsibility.
2. Exhibit commitment:
No matter how much activity on health and safety is initiated by HR professionals, health and safety... [continues]
Design Safe and healthy systems of work
Exhibit Strong management commitment
Inspect Workplace for health and safety problems
Establish Procedures and controls for dealing with health and safety issues
Develop Training programs
Set up Health and safety committees
Monitor Safety policies
Draw up Action plan and checklist
1. Design safer systems of work:
The most direct approach to ensuring a safe and healthy workplace is to design systems of work that are safe and without risk to health. This can often only be done satisfactorily at the design, planning or purchasing stage. It may be far more difficult to modify existing machinery or systems of work to eliminate or reduce hazards, than at the investment stage. Thus, management must take cognizance of long-term organizational changes to control hazards. Simply trying to persuade employees, for instance by poster campaigns, to adapt their behavior to unsafe systems of work is unacceptable. ‘Most accidents involve an element of failure in control – in other words failure in management skill. A guiding principle when drawing up arrangements for securing health and safety should be so far as possible work would be adapted to people and not vice versa’. As managers identify processes, machines and substances that are hazardous to the health and well-being of employees, they must modify the process to eliminate or reduce the hazard and risk ‘at source’. The provision of protective equipment is the typical means used by organizations to reduce physical hazards, and it is also an employer responsibility.
2. Exhibit commitment:
No matter how much activity on health and safety is initiated by HR professionals, health and safety... [continues]
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