Module Title: Health and Safety

Management

Module Code: BN4410

Submission Date - 26-10-2022

Words 2133
Characters 14502
Characters excluding spaces 12039

By - Simranjeet kaur
 Contents

Introduction……………………………………………………………………3

Key aspects of an effective culture………………………………………….4

Safety Culture Assessment Technique…………………………………….4

Indoor environmental quality and well-being of workers……………………5

What are effective strategies improving environmental quality control ………..6

A panacea for better health and safety management………………………………..7

Some benefits of a safe and healthy work environment……………………………..8

Mental health and well-being at the workplace requirements and

recommendations…………………………………………………………………………….9

References……………………………………………………………………………………10
 Introduction

What is safety culture?

"The commitment to, and the style and competency of, an organization's health and
safety management are determined by individual and group values, attitudes,
perceptions, competencies, and patterns of behavior. This is known as the safety
culture of an organization. Positive safety cultures are defined by communications built
on mutual trust, consensus on the significance of safety, and faith in the effectiveness of
preventive actions.

As much as the safety management system, an organization's culture can affect safety
outcomes. A part of the entire company culture is the "safety culture" (and is defined in
the box on the right). Many businesses use the term "safety culture" to describe their
employees' propensity to follow regulations or behave safely or unsafely. However, we
find that management culture and style are far more important, such as a natural,
unconscious predisposition for productivity over safety or a propensity to be excessively
reactive and short-sighted.

Symptoms of poor cultural factors can include:

• Widespread, routine procedural infractions

• Noncompliance with the business's own SMS (although either of these issues may
simply be the result of subpar procedure design)
• Management decisions that consistently seem to prioritize production or cost over
safety. It is feasible to learn more about a company's culture through inspection, but
doing so necessitates interviewing a representative sample of employees at all levels.

Key aspects of an effective culture

★ Management commitment: This dedication raises motivation and promotes a

culture of safety and health throughout the organization. The amount of
resources (time, money, people, and support) devoted to health and safety
management as well as the ranking of health and safety in relation to other
factors like production, cost, and so on are indicators. Senior management's
active participation in the health and safety system is crucial.
★ Visible management: When it comes to health and safety, managers need to be
seen to set an example. Good managers are visible on the "shop floor"
 frequently, talk about health and safety, and show their commitment by stopping
work to address problems. It's critical that management is seen as being
genuinely dedicated to safety. If not, workers will typically believe that they
should prioritize business interests, which will undermine any safety initiatives or
programmes.
★ Good communications between all levels of employee: In a productive
workplace environment, discussions on health and safety should be
commonplace. Management should actively listen to what people have to say
and take what they hear seriously.
★ Active employee participation in safety is important: to foster a culture of safety
ownership at all levels and take advantage of employees' special insight into their
own jobs. This may entail taking an active part in workshops, risk analyses, plant
design, etc. Employees and management will typically tell the same story in
organizations with a strong culture, and safety is viewed as a shared
responsibility. Inspection Interviews with a representative sample of the company,
particularly a sufficient number of employees, must be conducted as part of the
inspection in a non-threatening way. The number must be large enough to allow
for varying perspectives and backgrounds. In light of this circumstance, the
open-ended questions in the question set will help paint a useful portrait of the
corporate culture.

Safety Culture Assessment Technique

Ronny Lardner discussed in his Safety Culture Application Guide – Final Version
1.1 – August 2003, that there are a variety of methods that can be used to assess
safety climate, and identify the main issues that need to be addressed. It is
important to note that the very act of assessing the safety climate can have an
impact on the culture. When people participate in the process they will wonder
what is happening and how it is going to change their working environment.
Frontline workers are likely to look for signs that indicate that management are
doing this because they are truly interested in their safety, as opposed to some
ulterior motive. The assessment method chosen can either reinforce the negative
aspects of the current culture or be the beginning of the improvement process
(Carroll, 1998). The assessment process should be consistent with the positive
culture that is desired, for example one which gains a high degree of employee
involvement.

The potential assessment methods can be divided into three main types:

- Quantitative (e.g. safety climate survey tools).

- Qualitative (e.g. interviews, workshops and focus groups, observation,

ethnographic methods

- Triangulated methods, which combine quantitative and qualitative methods.

Indoor environmental quality and well-being of workers

According to research, wet houses can cause some respiratory symptoms and
disorders. What concentrations of indoor pollutants indicate that employees are at risk
for illness is unknown. It can be difficult to identify the contaminants that are in charge of
conditions that may be associated with buildings. The results of environmental and
medical tests are frequently insufficient.

Despite the lack of consensus over what should be assessed and how to interpret the
results, research indicates that ailments related to buildings are linked to building
attributes.These characteristics include:

● Dampness
● Cleanliness
● Ventilation

Indoor settings are more complicated. Residents in buildings may be exposed to a

range of contaminants, such as the following gases and particles:
 ● Office machines
● Cleaning products
● Water-damaged building material
● Microbial growth (fungal, mold, and bacterial)
● Insects
● Carpets and furnishings
● Perfumes

Cigarette smoke, building sites, and outside pollution are additional toxins. The relative
humidity, ventilation, and indoor temperatures all have an impact on how people react to
their surroundings.

Building-related illnesses in employees can be avoided or treated by minimising the

sources of indoor environmental pollutants. There is accessible advice on how to
preserve and enhance the indoor environment.

Workers should get a medical assessment for a diagnosis and treatment if their
symptoms are persistent or getting worse.

What are effective strategies improving environmental quality control

● Use daylighting.
● Install operable windows.
● Give occupants temperature and ventilation control.
● Give occupants lighting control.
● Conduct occupant surveys.
● Provide ergonomic furniture.
● Include appropriate acoustic design.

A panacea for better health and safety management

➔ 1. Appoint an officer for health and safety

Enhancing the health and safety management at work can take up a lot of your limited time as a
small business owner. The IMSM advises that hiring a health and safety officer to oversee the
organization's health and safety would be best practice in your place of employment. By doing
this, you can divide the workload and make sure that someone else is in charge of seeing that
the job is finished. However, you are free to choose whether to do this or not since it is not
necessary for ISO 45001 certification.
 ➔ Prepare a plan for your management system for health and safety
It might be advantageous to make a plan for your health and safety management system
utilizing the ISO 45001 manual from IMSM as reference for practical reasons. As part of this
strategy, you ought to

By looking through past instances, it is possible to spot prospective workplace hazards.

Before establishing a timetable for future safety assessments, set goals and targets and
compare your performance to that of comparable workplaces and organizations.

➔ Conduct risk analysis

When identifying the prospective risks that are most likely to result in harm or injury, be realistic.
The effectiveness of your current controls must be assessed, but you also need to gauge the
efficacy of your planned future controls. Health and safety go beyond merely the risk of harm;
include potential health issues like radiation exposure that could arise at work. Additionally,
remember to take both physical and financial dangers into account.

➔ Educate your staff

Clarify any ambiguity and reinforce your grasp of dangers and precautions. For instance,
instruct your staff on how to handle emergencies and what steps to take if one arises. The
safest and most effective workers are appropriately ready for both major and minor obstacles.

➔ Offer a formal health and safety policy

Companies with five employees or more are required by law to have a written health and safety
policy. This will not only outline the dangers but also detail the steps your company will take to
safeguard employees from them, preventing mistakes before they happen and providing a
workable remedy. Your staff members need to have quick access to this information.

➔ Constantly keep records

Once your policy is in place, it's simple to become complacent, but it's crucial to document every
occurrence, no matter how big or minor, as soon as it happens. First aid, internal and external
inspections, investigations, and any formal training fall under this category. Recognize patterns
and trends so that your policy can be modified in the future.

➔ Obtain ISO 45001 certification

Obtain ISO 45001 certification to advance your health and safety management. The new
worldwide health and safety certification, ISO 45001, provides a benchmark for best practices in
the workplace internationally. The ISO 45001 standard can be the best investment for you if you
want the most effective health and safety management system that prioritizes employee safety
while also enabling improved managerial control and potentially lowering insurance costs.
Some benefits of a safe and healthy work environment

★ The workplace is more productive the safer it is. Productive workers are
advantageous to all firms. For instance, productive employees can produce more
work in less time, reducing operational costs.

★ Workplace safety promotes the health of employers and employees alike. When
there is more safety, health improves. A healthier workforce performs tasks more
successfully and is generally happier.

★ Accidents are very uncommon in a safe working environment. By doing this,

worker's compensation expenses and downtime for safety concerns are reduced.
Additionally, it expedites the healing process for workplace injuries.

★ Damage to industrial equipment entails costs for both replacement and repair.
Preventing industrial equipment damage and workplace accidents will save
money and increase revenue.

★ If their bosses care about their safety, employees are typically more confident
and at ease. Additionally, absenteeism rates drop, and employees are more
focused on finishing their tasks.

Mental health and well-being at the workplace requirements and

recommendations

● Families of those with mental illnesses are all too familiar with the topic of work
and employment. No therapy, medication, or living arrangement can compare to
the calming power of labor.
● Working gives a stable source of income as well as opportunities for
self-affirmation, which raises one's self-esteem. Additionally, working offers
advantages including enduring social connections, routine daily schedules, and
most significantly, a sense of value.
● In Europe, mental health issues are becoming one of the major factors
contributing to early retirement and absences from work. In Germany, mental
illness currently accounts for more than 30% of cases of occupational incapacity.
Today, mental health problems are a factor in approximately one third of early
retirements.

● However, even if they are less resilient than their peers due to disease, most
people have an important role to play in today's employment market even if they
are more seriously afflicted than their counterparts.
● There are many useful suggestions for improving employment options for those
with mental illnesses. Organizations in Germany have been actively working to
address this issue by creating potential remedies for a number of years.

● Companies starting to hire persons with mental illness under the same conditions
and on an equal basis with people without mental health issues would be the first
step toward overcoming the detrimental consequences of mental illness at work.
By hiring project employees, the Families-Selbsthilfe Psychiatrie BApK e.V.
(Family Self-Help in Psychiatry) members have already taken this step.

References

■ Patty's Industrial Hygiene. 5th Ed. New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons Inc.,
2000. Presents principles and practice of industrial hygiene and hazard
evaluation and control. Four volume set.
○ Volume 1: Part I, Introduction to Industrial Hygiene
○ Volume 1: Part II, Recognition and Evaluation of Chemical Agents
○ Volume 2: Part III, Physical Agents
○ Volume 2: Part IV, Biohazards
○ Volume 3: Part V, Engineering Control and Personal Protection
○ Volume 3: Part VI, Law, Regulation, and Management
○ Volume 4: Part VII, Specialty Areas and Allied Professions
■ Patty's Toxicology. 5th Ed. Bingham, Eula, Cohrssen, Barbara, and Charles H.
Powell. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2001. Provides comprehensive
guide to toxicological data for industrial chemicals. Coverage includes other
industrial toxicology issues. Eight volumes set with cumulative index. CD-ROM
version available. Previous editions published with title: Patty's Industrial Hygiene
and Toxicology.
■ The Occupational Environment Its Evaluation and Control. 2nd Ed. Dinardi,
Salvatore. Fairfax, VA: American Industrial Hygiene Association, 2003.
■ Vincoll, Jeffrey W. Basic Guide to Accident Investigation and Loss Control. New
York, NY: John Wiley and Sons, 1994. Provides information on safety principles,
techniques, including preparation of safety system applications.
■ Occupational Medicine. 3rd Ed. Zenz, Carl, O. Bruce Dickerson, Edward P.
Horvath. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Mosby, 1994. Provides information on
occupational medicine principles and practice as well as on specific hazards and
agents.