Understanding Workplace Safety Culture
Discuss about the Impact Of Safety And Interventions On Training.
For Parker Smallgoods the safety of the employees is a key issue that needs a well laid down strategy on how a safety culture can be implemented in the company. From the auditor’s report, the employees are operating on such a dangerous working environment which can easily result in accidents. As per Peter Parkers these hazards may lead to death within the factory. It is important to provide recommendations on how to implement the safety culture for the company, analyzed and see their practicality. Within the paper a number of recommendations will be provided for the company to apply.
Before providing these recommendations, it is important to clearly understand what a workplace safety culture is to every party concerned. A workplace safety culture refers to the way day to day matter are handled within a company (Nielsen, K.J., et al., 2015). A good safety culture begins from the company’s management body which entails the managers going downwards to the employees. When the management is dedicated in keeping the workplace safe, then the policies will flow from the top level to the down levels of the company smoothly. This entails, having specific workplace practices for dealing with the workplace hazards, being in a committed position to the workplace safety daily, also making the concerns about safety hazards in the company a shared responsibility for everyone so as to increase the surveillance responsibility and finally giving the managers and workers the opportunity to learn more on workplace safety via training and other forums (Williams, J.H., 2008).
There are a number of recommendations that Parker Smallgoods should implement to improve the safety culture of the organization. The first recommendation would be performance management. This is the management of the performance of all the workers within the company, it can be broken down into smaller sub units for easier explanation. The company can start by the identification of the hazard within the workplace, this involves having the managers and the workers do a walkthrough of the working environment and in the process note the hazards in every step of the processes involved in the productions phases of the company. During this operation there should be notes on how the workplace is currently laid out and the different types of machines that the employees are operating. Inclusive of the movable equipment they use daily (Reiman, T. and Pietikäinen, E., 2010). For the performance management approach, it will be more effective for the management to identify solutions to all the hazards in the production arms of the company since the identification of the hazards has been laid out. The approach on how to address the hazards will also be much easier since the hazards have been broken down in to smaller units in respect to where they emanate (Strauch, B., 2015). This also makes it possible to handled them independently.
Recommendations for Parker Smallgoods
The other sub unit under performance management is the conducting of the annual safety audits. Every year take time to analyze the performance of the company which is basically the management of the company’s performance. But specifically, this will be based on how well the company is running in regards to safety. In the process any incidences that may have occurred in workplace can be analyzed, how they happened and what led to the incident in the first place (Nordlöf, H., et al., 2015). With this information a perfect solution as to how such a case can be avoided in case of a next time can be put in place. Such safety audits will also keep the working team on there toes since they would not wish to be found having neglected the company safety culture. This helps a lot in the management of performance in the company. The recommendation will greatly help in the implementation of a safe culture within the company.
The second recommendation would be the provision of safety trainings and forums for the management and the employees. After the identification of all the hazards within the company, different safety procedures are needed and there exists companies which offer trainings on the safety ways of operating different functions within the company that are hazardous (Hussain, R., et al., 2018). Some including the different machines the employees operate on daily basis. The training includes the safe ways on how the employees need to operate these machines and ensure their safety is of key concern (Hollnagel, E., 2016). The different training the company offers the employees can be certified and the attendants receive different safety certifications so as to motivate them attend the trainings more. The management on the other hand also attends the forums or the trainings so as to ensure they are in a position to see if the employees are implementing the training knowledge received. As the company grows and acquires more sophisticated equipment the employees need to be kept up to speed with the operation of these equipment and the safety policies associated with the equipment (Harris, J.R. and Current, R.S., 2012). This recommendation keeps the safety information at the tips of both the managers and the employees’ heads. It is important for this to be highly considered so as to see the safety culture in the company implemented.
The third recommendation would be rewarding the employees. This is one of the most implemented strategy by many other companies. Research shows that the strategy has a 95% success chance and has been very effective in most of the companies that have implemented it. Rewarding involve the giving of awards to employees and department in relation to safety measures. This means that department with the best safety adherence routine gets to receive an award. With such a policy the departments will do their best so as to receive these awards. These can be in the form of certifications, bonuses, trips for the involved bodies and other awards that are in respect with what can highly motivate the teams. The strict adherence to the safety culture starts with the employees (Reiman, T. and Pietikäinen, E., 2010). Employee with the best safety abidance record can also be awarded. This not only motivates the employees to follow the company’s safety culture but also motivates the productivity of the employee. The strategy has an impact on different fields of the company hence making its an appropriate recommendation for Parker Smallgoods. The management body needs to consider the different awarding plan for its employees that will greatly impact their productivity (Robertson, M.F., 2017). The management body is responsible for this task so as to avoid picking the wrong awards that do not have a significant effect on the employees. Implementing the safety culture in such an environment becomes easier. This makes the recommendation such a productive tool.
Performance management
Employee involvement is the next recommendation on how Parker Smallgoods can implement a safety culture in the working environment. This has been a perplexing issue in many companies. How does the company get its employees? There is no specific answer to the question but there are different strategies that Parker Smallgoods can utilize so as to get the employees involved in safety culture implementation. The first being the internalization of safety (Little, B. and Little, P., 2016). This involves the making of the issue personal for the employees. Let them know that their safety affects not only them or the company but it also affects their families. This involves the sharing of miss/close calls and incidences that are in relation to the hazards the employees have to operate close to. With this the employees get as sense as to why it is important for the safety culture in the company. Also letting the company know the impact of such incidents to their families or those closely associated with them All these approaches makes the employees takes take the matters more personally hence the implementation of the safety culture becomes less troubling to adapt.
The other sub unit under employee involvement would be the implementation of a ‘Good Catch and Near Miss Process’ this is a process that has been developed even for mobile phones especially smartphones (Biddison, E.L.D et al., 2016). It’s a process that involves the employees to capture a potential hazard in advance in order to get the potential hazard corrected by the management. This makes it easier for the employees to keep track of any hazard around their workplace. In the process the safety culture within the company will be highly prioritized, the employees will be actively involved and in return the safety of the company will be greatly upheld.
The other applicable recommendation for Parker Smallgoods would be recruitment and hiring strategy or body of the company. This involves different aspects of the body. Hired employees need to be qualified for the position so as to avoid any possible incidences from occurring which would be as a result of incompetence of the employee (Zwetsloot, G.I.J.M., 2009). This endangers the other employees as well as affects the safety culture of Parker Smallgoods. The body responsible for hiring needs to perfectly vet the interested workers for any jobs they need new employees. This means that all the hired employees are competent at what they are doing. Employees involved in handling heavy machines within the company on daily basis need to be practically assessed in a safe environment so as to avoid any accident from happening and with this, the right person for the job is hired due to their competence. The strategy greatly torches on the Human Resource department since it’s in charge of the recruitment and hiring duties. The company also needs to assign an assistant for the employees who temporarily guides the employee on the different safety measures involved in their operations. This greatly helps in the implementation of a safety culture within Parker Smallgoods and with the growth of the company it is evident that recruitment and hiring of new employees is inevitable.
The company needs to consider the five recommendations so as to facilitate the implementation of a safety culture within its operations. From the analysis of the previously conducted audit it is evident that the company has a number of hazards that can trigger different unexpected accident within the workplace which can result to the loss of employee lives or other cases. This shows the serious need for the implementation of the Parker Smallgoods safety culture.
References
Biddison, E.L.D., Paine, L., Murakami, P., Herzke, C. and Weaver, S.J., (2016). Associations between safety culture and employee engagement over time: a retrospective analysis. BMJ Qual Saf, 25(1), pp.31-37.
Harris, J.R. and Current, R.S., (2012). Machine Safety. Professional Safety, 57(5), p.50.
Hollnagel, E., (2016). Safety management–looking back or looking forward. In Resilience Engineering Perspectives, Volume 1 (pp. 77-92).
Hussain, R., Pedro, A., Lee, D.Y., Pham, H.C. and Park, C.S., (2018). Impact of safety training and interventions on training-transfer: targeting workers. International journal of occupational safety and ergonomics, (just-accepted), pp.1-24.
Little, B. and Little, P., (2016). Employee engagement: Conceptual issues. Journal of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict, 10(1), p.111.
Nielsen, K.J., Kines, P., Pedersen, L.M., Andersen, L.P. and Andersen, D.R., (2015). A multi-case study of the implementation of an integrated approach to safety in small enterprises. Safety science, 71, pp.142-150.
Nordlöf, H., Wiitavaara, B., Winblad, U., Wijk, K. and Westerling, R., (2015). Safety culture and reasons for risk-taking at a large company: investigating the worker perspective. Safety science, 73, pp.126-135.
Reiman, T. and Pietikäinen, E., (2010). Indicators of Safety Culture: Selection and Utilization of Leading Safety Performance Indicators, 63, pp.110-185.
Robertson, M.F., (2017). Examining the Relationship between Safety Management System Implementation and Safety Culture in Businesses, 22, pp.210-335.
Strauch, B., (2015). Can we examine safety culture in accident investigations, or should we?. Safety Science, 77, pp.102-111.
Williams, J.H., (2008). Employee engagement. Professional Safety, 53(12), p.40.
Zwetsloot, G.I.J.M., (2009). Prospects and limitations of process safety performance indicators. Safety Science, 47(4), pp.495-497.
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