The Hazards
The hazard is the source or situation with the potential which cause harm, ill health or human injury, damage to property, damage to the environment or a combination of those (Hillson & Murray-Webster. The management of organization is required to manage a lot of business in order to achieve its production objectives. Safety is one of the important aspects of such a business (Sadgrove, 2016). The management of safety is a very important business function equal to another kind of management (Alston, 2017). Safety is the state in which the risk of harm to person or risk of damage of property is reduced to, and maintain at or below. Safety should always be considered as a priority before any other thing in an organization (Boyle, 2015).
In the case of Canberra Construction Company, the company has been fined because of breaching the work safety law, the company was found guilty of safety breaches (Inman, 2015). In the following context, there will be detailed discussion on the topic of safety and risk management which was not adopted by the Canberra Construction Company and the impact and response of such breaches and the way the company can improve the safety in the organization which can help the company to work in the safe environment and can manage the risk.
In 2012, Michael Booth was seriously electrocuted while driving into the multifaceted to unload when his vehicle bucket touched the wires; Michael Booth was a truck driver and contracted by Kenoss. Magistrate Lorrain Walker accepted that the offense of Kenoss was not worst case scenario instead it was the high end of the scale (Taylor, 2015). The company has failed to adopt the safety aspect which led to such an incident. The company has ignored certain things such as (Enhance Solution, 2018):
Kenoss failed to deliver the work environment without risks to health and safety and failing to sustain a harmless system of the workforce. On the incident, Mr. Michael booth has entered in the location and slanted his truck, to unload the delivery; his bucket either connected low lying power lines or came very close which caused an electric arc to form. It shows Koenoss failed to provide a healthy working environment in the organization (Peace, Mabin & Cordery, 2017).
The unsafe compound could have been put under the lock and key and the clear external signage could have to indicate the sort of dangerous electrical hazard which would give a driver pause for the thought. The company has ignored such important safety thing and failed to provide safety signs or flags to warn of the live power lines. Michael Booth was unknown about the dangerous side because of the absence of safety signs and flags provided by the company.
Safety Breaches and Realizations
The company was quite careless towards their responsibility. According to Workplace healthy and Safety Act 1995, the company is responsible to deliver a healthy environment in the organization and assure the health, safety, and welfare of employee at work. But the company has been failed to do so, the work site of the company was poorly managed which cause the incident.
During the work, a power line was not turned off which was the main reason for the occurrence of the incident. If the power line would be turned off, it would have saved the life of the driver. It shows the absence of brain and careless of the contractor. The death of Michael Booth was considered preventable by cutting off the Powerline during the incident but they have not taken any steps to prevent the incident.
There was no lock on the gate to the composite which seemed as, if it was intended for dumping material.
Poor corporate culture
The designated safety officer had no formal safety qualification of any kind. The safety officer is the son of the general manager and the organization also lacked in the documentation and systematic approach to the safety. It shows poor culture policy adopted by the company. They were not concerned with the safety system in the organization.
No efforts towards safety
The clear and present hazard was identified it shows the company has not made any efforts to eliminate or reduce the risk or control over hazardous activities. Either they have tried to shift their blame on Michael Booth with an instance report.
Poor Contractor Management
The incident was occurring because of the poor management by the contractor. By following the safe work practice, the contractor could have saved the life of the driver. It shows the carefree attitude of the contractor towards the safety work. The place foreman had also told workers to stop using the compound, but it can be an effective and organized approach towards the health and safety workplace would have deliver the message to all contractors.
After the incident, the company has faced many issues. The government has taken several steps to resolve the case.
Penalty imposed
The company was penalized 1.1 million by the SAFEWORK under the act of WHS, which covers under new nationally harmonized work health safety laws. The representatives of the company or the liquidators did not allow attending the court to hear the decision (Hadley & Tyquin, 2014).
SAFEWORK’s Response
The response to the incident is explained in below points which are as follows (Furci & Sunindijo, 2018).
Loss of Reputation
It takes a long time to the company to earn a reputation in the market. A good reputation is the crucial part of success in the business. It can bring a greater volume of investors and client. The poor health and safety culture adopted by the company ruined the image of their image in the market. The incident was found to be a result of vaguely established safety rules, which receive heavy criticism of the accident. The share price of the company has plummeted because of the incident occurred.
Legal Repercussions
It is the responsibility of the employer to make the workplace a safe environment for the employees in the organization. If the company neglects the legal responsibilities, then they may face high legal cost, hefty fines, and the possibility of a jail sentence. In March 2012, the Kenoss was held responsible with the company for the inadequate security and safety measures adopted by them. The company pleaded guilty in the act of Industrial Court of serious safety breaches which causes the death in workplace. The company was penalized with a huge amount and steps have been taken against Kenoss by the law (Furci & Sunindijo, 2018).
Decrease in Productivity
The company failed to recognize the importance of health and safety which may affect the company at a great level. The productivity may decrease because the workers and the employees would not feel safe in the organization which would reduce the productivity of the company at a high level. The company may suffer loss due to the act.
Increase Turnover
Due to the incident happened in the company, the turnover of employee would definitely get increased. Any employee does not want to continue their work in an unhealthy environment. The staff would not feel motivated to work hard in which the company would not able to provide the basic requirement. Every individual has a right to feel safe in the workplace. Therefore, the turnover would be increased in the company from such an incident.
Loss of life
The company would not able to deliver a safe environment in the organization which causes loss of life of Michael Booth. The company cannot compensate any one’s life from money. In the whole incident, Michael booth was the only person who suffered because of the carelessness of the company and contractor.
Repercussions of the Incident
The company can improve safety and can avoid injuries, illness, or fatality. The best way to achieve this is to conduct an audit in the workplace, identifying the hazards or risk and take action to rectify them in a best possible way (Workplace Health and Safety, 2015)
Risk Assessment
The company should start focusing on making an assessment of the risk to the health and safety of the employee within the organization. The employers must access and review the work-related risk which could be faced by its employees and others affected by the activities of the company (Leveson, 2015).
Protective and Preventive Measures
The company should adopt the measures of preventive and protective to safeguard the employees. The measures that have been identified by the management through the assessment of risk must be used to diminish the risk as much as possible and try to eliminate the risk at entire level, where possible (Zohar, 2014).
Arrangement of Health and Safety
The company should provide a proper arrangement of health and safety in the organization to prevent the incident happened in the company. The employer is needed to provide support to their employees where needed, to ensure that they are fulfilling with this regulation (Sousa, Almeida & Dias, 2014).
Contact with External Services
The employer should gather information on emergency medical care which includes the contact details of the nearest accident and emergency hospital. It should be available at all the time in case of an emergency (Tappura, S. & Nenonen, 2015).
Training and Capabilities
Proper training of health and safety should be provided to the new employees and to the existing employees also to ensure that they are aware of each and every risk associated with the workplace. The company should also ensure that the employees are capable to handle the work as they are being needed to undertake (Antonsen, 2017).
Duties of employees
It is the duty of the employee to ensure that whatever they use any equipment or machinery it should be accordance with the training provided to them by the superior authority. It can assort from using equipment correctly, to ensuring that the equipment that they are using is in proper working order (Dekker, 2016).
Protecting young people
The manager is required to protect young people that he has employed. It ensures that the employee is capable of handling the task he is being asked to do.
Preventive Measures
Coordination and Co-operation
The employer in the company should coordinate with their employees in a workplace to ensure that they are complying with the regulation efficiently.
Arrange Programs
The organization should arrange and implement a safety observation program for officers. As action always speak louder than words and shaping the improvement through positive reinforcement strengthens safe behavior and builds engagement (Bahr, 2014).
Conclusion
From the above, the conclusion has been made that the management of health and safety plays a prominent role in the organization. It is mandatory for the organization to serve a healthy and safe environment for their employees in the organization. The government has introduced various laws to prevent an unhealthy environment in the organization. In the case of Canberra Corporation, the Kenoss Contractor has been fined $1.1 million for the safety breaches that led to the death of a worker. The company was having a carefree attitude which leads such incident. They have not adopted any security measures to prevent the incident happened. Michael Booth was electrocuted when he delivered a load of material to Kenoss Contractor. The contractor could prevent his life by taking certain steps such as cutting down the power line. The company had a casual attitude towards the safety and risk management such as not providing signals which indicate the kind of deadly electrical hazard that would give a driver pause for thought, represent unhealthy working environment and so on. It could directly affect the image of the company, and the company was penalized with a big amount. Therefore, the company should take certain steps to prevent such incident happen in the near future.
References
Alston, G. (2017). How safe is safe enough?: Leadership, safety and risk management. London: Routledge.
Antonsen, S. (2017). Safety culture: theory, method and improvement. Florida: CRC Press.
Bahr, N. J. (2014). System safety engineering and risk assessment: a practical approach. Florida: CRC Press.
Boyle, T. (2015). Health and safety: risk management. London: Routledge.
Dekker, S. (2016). Just culture: Balancing safety and accountability. Florida: CRC Press.
Enhance Solution. (2015). Poor Safety Culture and Lack of Systems Lead to Fatality. Retrieved from: https://www.enhancesolutions.com.au/blog/poor-safety-culture-and-lack-of-systems-lead-to-fatality
Furci, J., & Sunindijo, R. Y. (2018). Impacts of the WHS Act 2011 on safety management in small and medium construction companies. International Journal of Construction Management, 1-11.
Hadley, J., & Tyquin, P. (2014). Harmonised work health and safety legislation: Recent developments. Governance Directions, 66(8), 508.
Hillson, D., & Murray-Webster, R. (2017). Understanding and managing risk attitude. London: Routledge.
Inman, M. (2015). Kenoss Contractors fined $1.1 million for workplace death. Retrieved from: https://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/act/kenoss-contractors-fined-11-million-for-workplace-death-20150819-gj2fra.html
Leveson, N. (2015). A systems approach to risk management through leading safety indicators. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 136, 17-34.
Peace, C., Mabin, V., & Cordery, C. (2017). Due diligence: a panacea for health and safety risk governance?. Policy and Practice in Health and Safety, 15(1), 19-37.
Sadgrove, K. (2016). The complete guide to business risk management. London: Routledge.
Sousa, V., Almeida, N. M., & Dias, L. A. (2014). Risk-based management of occupational safety and health in the construction industry–Part 1: Background knowledge. Safety science, 66, 75-86.
Tappura, S. & Nenonen, N. (2015). A management accounting perspective on safety. Safety science, 71, 151-159.
Taylor, G. (2015). Canberra construction company fined $1.1 million over death of truck driver. Retrieved from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-19/construction-company-fined-1-million-over-workplace-death/6708032
Workplace Health and Safety. (2015). Put a stop to workplace injury and fatality. Retrieved from: https://employsure.com.au/blog/put-a-stop-to-workplace-injury-and-fatality/
Zohar, D. (2014). Safety climate: Conceptualization, measurement, and improvement. The Oxford handbook of organizational climate and culture, 8(7) 317-334.
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