Outline possible reasons why good standards of health and safety in the workplace may not be

achieved?
OR
Why might accident rate be increasing? OR reasons for an increase in the number of accidents?

There are several potential barriers in promoting good standards of Health and Safety due to which
organization might not able to achieve or maintain safety goals or performance standards. Due to
failure in achieving good standards of health and safety accident rates might increase. Some of the
barriers are as follows:

Complex workplaces:

Sometimes workplaces are complex in nature that means several people doing several different
activities at the same time and at the same place. In this case, it might be difficult to maintain good
standards of health and safety for every person or activity.

Complex issues:
There are times when we encounter complicated or complex health and safety issues or problems.
Now finding the solution to that problems might be difficult and require extensive background
knowledge and experience.

Some solutions are straightforward and for some issues, several courses of actions are available with
different good and bad outcomes. So lack of competence might become another barrier in promoting
good standards of health and safety and wrong selection of solution might result in increased number
of accidents.

Conflicting Demands:

Employer sometimes places conflicting and competing demands on workers. A common conflict of
interest is like demand to increase supply of a product or service by speeding up the process so as to
make a profit or to do so safely.

Obviously, this conflict will compromise safety in the real world. So the conflict of demand become a
barrier in maintaining good standards of health and safety and may cause accident rates to increase.

Conflict of standards:

This conflict may be created when there is a need to comply with different types of standard at same
time and same place like ‘Health and Safety Laws’ as well as ‘ Environmental protection Laws'(it is
obvious that theme for both is totally conflicting as health and safety standards demand the prompt
removal of hazardous waste material from workplace while environment protection standards refrain
from throwing it in environment so some standards can be compromised) .This type of conflict of
standards become the barrier in maintaining or promoting good standards of health and safety.

Budget Issues:

Unfortunately several employers, due to lack of awareness, consider it an extra financial burden to
improve health and safety standards in the workplace and some wants to improve but due to lack of
resources their desires fail to be accomplished. So budget issues become a barrier in promoting good
standards of health and safety.

Behavioural Issues:

It is fact that human behaviour is the most challenging barrier in maintaining and promoting health
and safety standards. All hardware and procedural improvements go in vain if workers do not behave
ideally. Poor morale and low motivation towards safety goals may deteriorate safety culture.
Sometimes they make mistakes and sometimes they do violations and similarly sometimes errors
occur. As a result safety culture will deteriorate in an organisation resulting in increasing number of
accidents.

Enforcement Agencies:

In most of the countries, there is no enforcement agency for the health and safety laws
implementation. Even if it exists in any country then health and safety standards of the companies are
influenced by a number of inspectors, their legal mandates, punishments on breaches and
competency of inspectors. Absence or poor control of such agencies might become a barrier in
achieving national safety goals of improved standards at workplaces.

Lack of Top Management Commitment:

If management commits to bringing improvement in the health and safety standards at the workplace
in policy but doesn’t give it a priority and does not demonstrate its commitment by visible leadership
then safety culture will deteriorate dramatically and morale of workers decline resulting in increasing
number of accidents and become a barrier in maintaining good standards of health and safety.

Ignorance of standard:

Workers should be involved in every step towards promoting good standards of health and safety.
They should be consulted regarding health and safety matters and should be communicated all
required relevant information, instructions and training like a safe system of work.if workers will not
be involved or safety standards will not be communicated to them timely chances of accidents will
increase.Ignorance of health and safety standards may become a significant barrier in promoting good
standards of health and safety matters.

Ineffective supervision:

If the employer does not make arrangements for supervision or will not take disciplinary actions on
demonstrating poor safety behavior then standards of health and safety could not be maintained and
the result will increase in a number of accidents. So supervision can bound workers to behave safely
and the poor supervision may become a barrier in maintaining and promoting good standards of
health and safety at the workplace.

Why Is It Important To Manage Health And Safety In An Organization?

Managing Health and Safety; This question may be asked in several other ways like
Why is it important for an organization to manage health and safety?

Why is it important to manage health and safety?

What are the legal reasons to manage health and safety?
Why is it important to have health and safety management system?

Reasons to manage health and safety can be categorized into following:

Moral Reasons also called as Ethical Reasons:

Moral reason is all about the moral duty that every person owes for others. It is not morally
acceptable that when people go to work they will be exposed to danger resulting in pains, suffering,
injuries and ill health. Workers expect to work in the safe environment and to return back to families
and friend at the end of the shift.

When a worker is killed, injured or suffer any terrible disease by any accident he is not the only one to
suffer but also his family, dependents, friends, and colleagues pass through a massive impact. So it is
must for workers to be provided with the reasonable standard of care to prevent them from such
sufferings.

Legal Reasons:

As laws are made to protect human rights so it compels the employer to do what he morally should do
in order to take reasonable care of employees. Laws define the framework that governs the conduct
of business and organization. It sets rights and responsibilities of employers and employees so that
they can be made accountable for that. In order to get a license to operate one need to oblige local
laws. Failure to achieve minimum standards set by laws can lead to enforcement actions and
prosecution before the court.
Legal reasons also include preventive reasons to avoid from enforcement notices such as
improvement notice and prohibition notice. It also includes preventing from Punitive damage where
the criminal prosecution due to breaches of legal duty may result in a fine for organizations and
imprisonment or fine or both to individuals. There is also a compensatory effect of law where
employees are able to sue in civil courts for compensations claims by proving negligence of the
employer.

Social Reasons:
Society expectations are different in terms of standards of deliverance but as a minimum, all societies
demand safe working environment that includes safe place of work with safe access and egress, safe
plant and equipment, safe system of work, adequate training and supervision and competent
employees. Expectations of society tend to increase with time and these are often translated in laws
and standards. The organization needs to improve the standard of behavior to meet these higher
expectations.

Economic Reasons are also known as Financial reasons:

Though most employers think health and safety arrangement as an additional cost, researchers show
that it is not true because such arrangements prevent us from so many losses caused by accidents due
to the absence of such arrangements. Accidents and ill health result in various direct and indirect cost.

Some of the cost can be insured against but researchers show that uninsured cost can be 8 to 36 times
the insured cost (also known as iceberg principle).So economic reasons include the following

An organization can enjoy the economic benefits due to the highly motivated workforce that may
result in increased rate and quality of products and services.
Competitive edge by maintaining the image and reputation of the organization with stakeholders and
law staff turnover rate
Cost avoidance of
– Accident investigation
– Hiring legal services to face the prosecution in courts
– Hiring and training of replacement staff
– Remedial actions or repair of plant, equipment, and location
Similarly, reduction in insurance premium and helps to secure favorable terms for insurance
Outline the legal reasons to manage health and safety?

Reasons to manage health and safety can be categorized into following:

Moral Reasons
It is morally unacceptable to expose the worker to danger in return to the work that they do to earn
for their families. It is the moral duty of the employer to prevent his workers from pain and sufferings
from injuries and ill health by providing them a safe environment to work.

Legal Reasons:
There are strict legal obligations imposed on employers and employees relating to health & safety.
Legal reasons are based upon compliance with the national laws and international standards to avoid
preventive, punitive and compensatory damages as a result of prosecution before the court. It also set
the boundaries and govern the rules for the conduct of business.

Social Reasons:
Social reasons relate to social expectations that demand from employer to provide a safe place of
work, safe plant and equipment, safe systems of work, competent workers and a high standard of
training and supervision.Organization tends to bring improvements in standards in order to meet
these expectations.

Financial reasons:

Accidents and ill health result in various direct and indirect cost. Some of the cost can be insured
against and most cannot be insured. To prevent such financial losses and damage to the profitability of
an organization it is required to manage health and safety to avoid accidents and ill health.

The Role of National Government or National Government contribution’; This question can be asked
in several other ways like

The role of National Government in towards maintaining good standards of Health & Safety?
Explain how National Government can contribute to improving health and safety standards in the
workplace?
Outline the ways by which national government can contribute towards maintaining good standards
of Health & Safety?
Outline the ways by which national government can improve standards of health and safety in the
workplace?
National Government should show a clear commitment to bringing Health and safety to the higher
priority. This should be done by several steps that need to be taken. Some of the steps will be
discussed here:

First of all National Government need to announce occupational Health and safety policy at the
National level, if it has not been so far.
National Government should pass health and safety Act through Parliament and need to bring
regulations regarding health and safety.
National Government should develop independent legislation or / to adopt ILO conventions (e.g C155)
and recommendations (e.g R164).
The National government should establish independent authorities for managing Health and safety.
National Government should also develop enforcement agencies for implementation of laws.
Inspection Regime should be made by those enforcement inspectors on the basis of received
complaints, priority due to high risk, routine or random selection of places for inspection.
The National advisory body should be established to provide guidance and approved the code of
practices to employers. A research center should be made for bringing improvements in health and
safety standards.
The National government should start social and print media advertising campaigns for bringing
awareness regarding health and safety legislation, punishments, requirements, responsibilities of
employers and employees and future plans and goals regarding health and safety.
Complaint mechanism should be devised for the employees and SOPs should be made to deal with
the complaints.
Similarly, specified events(like dangerous occurrences) should be listed or defined by the National
government and accident reporting mechanism should be developed.
National Government should also establish statistics department to analyze the data of reported
accidents, injuries or diseases. It helps in measuring the performance of government and related
authorities. It also helps in decisions regarding allocation of resources. National incidence rates should
be published annually.
The National government should also provide insurance and social security schemes to cover some of
the losses in the event of accidents, injuries or diseases.
The National government should clearly define Roles and responsibilities of employees and
employers, consequences of non-compliance with health and safety standards; powers of health and
safety inspectors for the smooth running of systems without conflicts.
Though for NEBOSH above points are sufficient the but the national government should give priority
to managing health and safety and up-bring health and safety awareness in society. Health and safety
management systems should be announced mandatory for every company as it also helps in providing
more employment opportunities and results in increase number of institutions providing safety
qualification, training, and awareness.