Domino Theory
Discuss about the concept of accident causation, risk and its role in managing occupational safety and health management.
The term Risk management in the workplace can be described as an action to identify and prioritize the factors of risk within the workplace and that is followed by making necessary changes to decease the identified factors of risk. Irrespective of the size and category of the industry, risk management is one of the fundamental principles that should be maintained by the management of the organization. Risk management is necessary as if it is overlooked, it can cause potential damage like injuries, decrease in productivity and lesser moral of the workforce that can make it troublesome for the organization to operate (Glendon, Clarke and McKenna 2016). The purpose of this essay is to highlight various factors of risk management under the light of several theories regarding accident causation.
There are numerous theories regarding the accident causation within the workplaces and in this section of this essay those theories will be discussed. There are numerous theories regarding accident causation and each of the theories has some predictive and explanatory value. Some of the theories are The Domino Theory, Human factors theory, Epidemiological theory, Systems theory, behavior theory and many more.
Domino theory was developed by H. W. Heinrich who was a safety engineer; he stated that accident is an aspect in the sequence that might lead to an injury in the workplace. According to Heinrich’s theory, the risk factors might be visualized as a sequence of dominos standing on edge and when one factor falls, proper linkage would be required for the chain reaction to be completed (Li, Zhang and Liang 2017). It is seen that each and every factors are interdependent on the previous factor. It is observed that a personal injury can only take place as a result of an accident and accident can only take place as an outcome of a mechanical or personal hazard. It has been observed that the mechanical or personal hazard can only be present through the carelessness of the risk and safety management team of the business organization. The faults of the individuals either can be acquired or be inherited as an outcome of the social environment or can also be obtained by ancestry (Glendon, Clarke and McKenna 2016).
To explain the critical aspects of Heinrich’s theory, it can be stated that the factors preceding the unwanted incident in the workplace that is the unsafe act or the physical or mechanical hazard must receive most of the attention. Heinrich observed that the individuals who are actually responsible in the workplace for the control loss, must be interested in all the factors mentioned previously but, primarily should be concerned regarding the proximate causes of the accidents and on the accidents (Hale, Borys and Adams 2015). Heinrich also observed that accidents in the workplaces are most of the times unplanned and majorly uncontrolled that can result in property damage and even personal injury. For an example, it can be said that if an individual slips and falls from a considerable height, injury might not occur, but that is still an accident.
Human factor theory
Heinrich have presented his Three E’s sequence that is widely popular as Corrective Action Sequence. Those three Es are Engineering, Education and Enforcement. He observed that Engineering controls the hazards in the workplace by the process change or product design. Via education, the employees can be trained regarding the safety issues, and finally, Enforcement part ensures that the external and internal rules and regulations and the standards set by the management regarding the business operations are getting followed by all the employees within the workplace (Li, Zhang and Liang 2017).
The Human factor theory proposes that errors made by individuals in the workplaces generally bring in the accidents. These errors can be divided into categories like Overload, Inappropriate Worker Response and Inappropriate Activities (Asan and Akasah 2015). Overload involves the psychological and physical factors and it gets influenced by various internal, environmental and situational factors. Inappropriate Worker Response indicates the employees’ errors regarding safety and hazardous matters. It also includes work station that is incompatible, which is the fault of the management and the environment. Lastly, inappropriate activities involve misjudgment of the risks and lack of training.
Accident theory or Incident theory can be seen as an extension of the theory of human factors. There are three elements of incident theory and those are Ergonomic traps, Decision to err and systems failure. In this regard, it can be said that Ergonomic traps are incompatible tools, work stations and expectations and this is the fault of the management of the organization (Glendon, Clarke and McKenna 2016). Decision to err is the conscious or unconscious failure of individuals. Finally the systems failure is the failure of the management regarding training and effective policy making.
Epidemiological theory studies relationship between the diseases and environmental factors; apart from that it is also utilized in studying the casual factors present in a relationship. There are two vital constituents of this theory and those are predisposition characteristics that show that tendencies might predispose the employees to some specified actions (Hale, Borys and Adams 2015). On the other hand, the situational characteristics show risk taking, peer pressure and poor attitude in the workplace (Asan and Akasah 2015). These characteristics together can prevent or cause accidents that an individual predisposed to a provided situation might succumb to.
The initial phase of risk management is to investigate and identify the problematic areas within the workplace that can bring in various hazards that can affect the external and internal stakeholders of the organization and can potentially damage the property of the business organization (Moura et al. 2017). Elements that can aggravate the situation are slippery areas on the floor, inappropriately stored goods, employees not wearing safety gears in the workplace and the lack of awareness among the individuals of the organization regarding safety issues. In this regard it should be mentioned that it is the duty of the management of the business organization to locate the issues and take proper precaution. Though it is a matter of fact, that most of the business leaders does not understand the cost of the injuries and accidents of the employees (Hale, Borys and Adams 2015). It is the duty of the management to compensate the injured employees, but the hidden cost in this area deeply affects the finances of the organizations (Hale, Borys and Adams 2015). For an example, it can be said that replacing a trained employee, losing moral of the workforce, repairing the equipments that have been affected by the disaster and the legal issues which are the obvious consequences of the hazard within the workplace affects the business organizations deeply.
Epidemiological theory
There are numerous ways that the business owners can take to decrease the rate of accidents within the workplace and the steps are mentioned in this sector. After analyzing the problematic areas the second step would be to send resources with an objective to fix the issue. Then the management should engage the workforce in a training program regarding the identified segment of the probable hazard. After identifying and analyzing the risk factors in the workplace, the management should either try to reduce the risk factors or should hire a third party agency to control the situation (Moura et al. 2017). If the management of the business organizations show reluctance regarding fix the problematic areas within the workplace that may harm the workforce, then it would become a major legal issue for the company and eventually the company may lose their reputation and most importantly the productivity due to lack of adequate moral of the general workforce.
Thus to conclude, it can be said that according to the Work Health and Safety Act 2011, the management of the business organizations should manage the risk factors with high priority and eliminate the factors as soon as possible. This responsibility of eliminating the risk factors extends to the management of the managements of the large business corporations to small scale business owners to most importantly the team within the business organizations especially designated for managing and preventing the risk factors. The five most important steps are to make relevant strategies to prevent risk factors, the next step is to prevent the risk factors that has been already identified, after that the individuals or the management should response with accordance to the nature and fatality of the risk factors which have been identified. After giving proper response, the management should try to manage the risk factors and solve the issues so that the situation does not aggravate and affect the individuals in the workplace and the properties of the organization. The final step is the recovery phase, where the management of the business corporations should try to compensate the individuals who have been affected due to the unwanted hazards in the workplace. Thus it can be said that managing the risk factors in the business organizations are very important for the management in order to sustain the productivity and profitability along with maintaining the moral of the workforce and also to avoid the unwanted legal consequences.
References
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Glendon, A.I., Clarke, S. and McKenna, E., 2016. Human safety and risk management. Crc Press.
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Li, W., Zhang, L. and Liang, W., 2017. An Accident Causation Analysis and Taxonomy (ACAT) model of complex industrial system from both system safety and control theory perspectives. Safety science, 92, pp.94-103.
Mortimer, S.T. and Mortimer, D., 2015. Quality and risk management in the IVF laboratory. Cambridge University Press.
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