According to the Health and Safety act of 1974 all these procedures must be maintain by the employer and the employees. It is the responsibility of the employer to make sure that the employees are in no danger while at work and at no risk of injury. The main reason for employers to ensure that they follow the practices of health and safety are that it can cost them a lot of money. This money is in terms of lost working days due to occupational ill health and compensation of injury caused at work. Employers must also ensure that employees are paid on time, are not discriminated against and have equal pay.
It is also the responsibility of employees that they do not endanger the lives of their colleagues and themselves – this means that they must take care of themselves, others and the premises and equipment when they carry out their tasks. Employees must also be available to do the work required of them and they must comply with the terms and conditions provided by employers. Employees must also be honest to the employer. Therefore, all the above procedures must be followed by employers as well as employees to ensure that they work to the best of their standards whilst complying with the Health and Safety Act.
Analyze the approach adopted by the Site Services Manager
As we have already seen, employers and employees are both responsible for their Health and Safety at work. Managers play a key role in the business and therefore they should act as a role model when it comes to health and safety at work. Managers are aware of the consequences of not having adequate measures in place to ensure that their employees are safe at work. These consequences all add up in terms of money. This is because days of work will be lost. The Site Services Manager does not look at the effects of this. This is because if the Health and Safety practices are paid more attention to, he will have much less pressure on him towards the workload as his department would be more efficient.
The Site Services Manager uses an autocratic style of leadership. He takes much pride in this. This is good as it ensures that the employees do the work required of them and in the time required to meet demand. However, this is not good in terms of health and safety. This is because it seems like he does not see it as important as getting the work out of the door. The Site Services Manager does not realise that there are negative effects of only looking at work being the most important element at work.
Employees will work harder if they are happy with their working conditions. These working conditions are determined by the practices the company uses in relation to health and safety. The Site Services Manager needs to recognise that problems such as untidy working conditions, irregular use of protective equipment and poor storage of goods can all lead to accidents at work. These accidents cost money to JJK Retail Outlet.
The Sites Services Manager seems to be looking at short term goals with more importance in comparison with long term goals. This is because in order to ensure that the work is carried out when it is needed, he is avoiding important areas like cleaning or protection at work. These areas are more important in the long term for the company as they cost money in terms of accidents and injuries.
It is very important that employers also take responsibility when it comes to health and safety at work. However, the Site Services Manager puts this responsibility solely on his employees. This is because employees are punished if or any accidents, injuries or unsafe practices. This autocratic style is not good for the employees. This is because the manager tells them that the work must be done on time with strict orders and at the same time they are responsible for their own safety at work. This type of behaviour is what will de-motivate employees at work and can lead to work related stress. This is turn adds to the number of days lost due to sickness. This highlights that the policies the Site Services Manager uses to carry out the work (which he takes pride in) is not very good.
The approach adopted by the Site Services Manager is not flexible. He is very strict in his rules and procedures although they do not look at the interest of his employees. His main objective should be to ensure that his employees are safe and happy at work. This will be through ensuring that they are safe and are happy with the working conditions. Employees will not want to come to work if they will be embarrassed in front of their colleagues and given unpleasant jobs to do and this is only if they do not look after their own health and safety at work when this is also the responsibility of their employers. Employers need to ensure that their employees are treated fairly as this is also related to health and safety at work.
It seems as if the employees in the Site Services Department are afraid of their manager. This is shown by the number of accidents which they do not report. It seems as if there is a lot of pressure on them not only to do their own work, but to ensure that the health and safety is taken into account while they work. Although the Site Services Manager takes pride in his work he does not realise that he actually delegates a lot of his tasks to his employees. It is the manager’s responsibility to ensure that employees are safe at work and this also includes them having someone that they can trust to talk to if they have any problems at work. If employees have no one to talk to, this can increase the pressure on them and therefore they will become stressed when it comes to work. This pressure can lead to role conflict and stress at work. Role conflict is when employees will become stressed if more than one role is required of them at work. The expectations of the employees in the Site Services Department are too high and this can lead to conflict between employees as they need to meet customer demands as well as demands from managers. The Site Services Manager does not see this problem as he only wants to get the work out of the door as fast as possible.
It also seems like the Site Services Manager does not have much faith in his employees. This is because he thinks that it is pointless to try to train staff in terms of health and safety at work. He does not realise that if he takes charge of these problems now, they will be less of a problem in the long term.
It is clear that the Site Services Manager uses an autocratic style of leadership which he thinks is good as it gets the work done. What he does not realise is that the employees do not say anything to him as they are afraid of him and his ‘rules and procedures’ in relation to health and safety. Punishing employees for any accidents that occur is not an appropriate practice of health and safety. Even if employees are part time workers or temporary workers, it is the employers / managers responsibility to ensure that they are safe in their working environment.
Strategy to resolve the situation in the Site Services Department
A wrong health and safety policy may deteriorate a company’s operation and moral. Form the above analysis; it is obvious that the site services manager has adopted a totally inappropriate health and safety policy in the site service department. Thus, it needs some remedial action to improve productivity and customer service level or it will downgrade the efficiency of the business operation. In the following are some strategies which are helpful to change the current problems of the site service.
- Abolish the current health and safety policy
The current policy has resulted in many problems in the site services department which have been discussed above, so it should be stopped as soon as possible. It is a wrong managerial approach which leads to unsatisfactory result, such as bad relationship between employees, complaints between departments. In order to change current situation, a special meeting in the site service should be held. In the meeting, site service manager should publicly announce the abolishment of the current policy, and confess the fault of his/her managerial approach. This can help to remove the wrong health and safety notion of the employees and improve the relationship between employers and employees. Except for this, the relationship between departments is critical. The managers of site service and sale area should discuss together to draw out new health and safety policy which suit both departments’ operation.
- Create a safe workplace to work
It seems ridiculous that site services, as a cleaning department, cannot provide a tidy and clean area for employees to work. How can it provide a clean workplace for employees in other department? Poor standards of working environment are a contributory factor in many accidents. The site service provides staff with an untidy working area which affects staff health and results a high level of absences. Therefore, cleaning schedules or plans should be correctly produced. What is to be cleaned, the nature and extent of soiling, the frequency of cleaning, method and materials to be used, who is responsible for it and monitor procedure. All of these details should be clearly identified and reviewed annually. Except for this, there must be adequately ventilated by means of circulating fresh air or artificially purified air. The quantity and quality of lighting should be suitable and sufficient and natural for staff to do cleaning job. Temperature should be controlled to a reasonable level otherwise personal protective clothes should be provided. Environment stressors should be reduced to lowest level which creates a comfortable condition to work. The floor must not slippery or wet which easily make employees slip during working process.
- Safe manual handling operations
Over a quarter of all accidents reported each year in the site service are associated with manual handling operations. This leads to long absences from work and may require extensive rehabilitation. In terms of this situation, site service should try to use substitution to reduce accident potential such as the introduction of remote control handling facilities for direct manual handling operations. But as the site services department is responsible for receiving and storing deliveries, some manual handling operations is unavoidable. Thus, some appropriate actions should be taken. For example, personal protective equipment should be provided and regular used, such as safety helmet, safety boots, gloves, etc. It is not enough that employers provide safe manual handling operations. It must make sure that employees are committed to safety. Information, instruction, training and supervision should be given to help employees to operate safely. In the operation process, some unsafe behaviors must be definitely prohibited, such as riding on the tines of a fork-lift truck, climbing over moving conveyors or working on roofs without crwaboards. Anyone who breaks the rules will be punished, so the rules can be effectively implemented.
4) Safe transport and storage of goods
Site services department has storing goods poorly and this could financially lead to losses being made as stock items may get misplaced, misplaced items then end up in places where they shouldn’t be and in turn contributes to a messy environment. Facing this serious problem, the layout of stock must be redesigned to measure up the requirement of health and safety law. A new and sound layout should be produced by engineering and instructions should be given to employees who are responsible for storage. Also, fire escape cannot be obstructed by goods or waste. Make sure it is unblocked all the time. It is important for regular checking of the whole company’s security system. Any problem arise from security should be reported immediately.
5) Enhance employers and employees’ health and safety awareness
Not only employers but also employees should be aware of the risks in the workplace. To the employers, it is their legal duty to make sure the health and safety of staff; to the employees, it is concerned with their bodies and well- being. Some courses which help managers to feel the importance of health and safety for its staff should be given. Also, the way of increasing and maintaining health and safety awareness at work cannot be ignored. Posters, training, safety competitions, various forms of safety monitoring ,hazard-spotting exercises, hazard reporting systems and the use of ‘Day Lost’ notice boards indicating the number of days lost per month as result of accidents at work can be implemented (J Stranks, 1990).
- Increase communications between employers and employees
One of factors that results in bad relationship between managers and its employees is lacking communication. The strategy for reinforcing communication can be having a meeting once a month. This provides opportunity for employees with giving their suggestions about health and safety issues at work. Company can adopt a confidential way which permits staff express their opinions of any new policy applied and managers’ managerial style. Complaint procedures in the company should be established. Safety incentive scheme is another good way to communicate with employees. Various forms of planned motivation directed at rewarding good safety behavior on the basis of formally agreed objectives and criteria are very effective.
An active and positive health and safety culture can contribute to organisational effectiveness
In order to make these strategies useful, it is critical to establish positive health and safety culture in the organization to make the whole operation smoothly. Therefore, establishing an active and positive health and safety culture not only can help organisation manage the company more effective, but also can help organisation deal with the organisation relationship in the company. Furthermore, It can try to reduce cost and the rate of accidents, because it concerned with the financial economic of the company. Organisations with a positive health and safety culture are characterised by communications founded on mutual trust, by shared perceptions of the importance of safety, and by confidence in the efficacy of preventative measures.(http://www.iee.org 2001)
1) Health and safety culture is the essential foundation of effective management
It is known that any organisation hope to manage the enterprise effectively. But it must be depend on the health and safety culture. That is because not only it can improve safe management ability and leadership, but also it can improve the safe knowledge and consciousness of managers and employees. A questioning attitude and a rigorous and prudent approach are by all individuals. When the employers have the safety culture consciousness, the management behaviors all will be base on the safe production including the organisation planning, organizing, leading and controlling. The aim is ensured that the health and safety of employees and the safety of organizational property. Otherwise, manager will improve standards of health and safety performance. For employees, the organisation will try to provide a satisfactory standard of health and safety workplace and make reasonable allowance for employees to become proficient in tasks, including any precautions necessary to ensure safe working. When the employees have this consciousness, they understand how to protect themselves in the plant. And try to avoid the accidents, also they will try their best to accomplish the organisation goal better. Not just it can help organisation managing the workplace more effective, the most important thing is it can improve the labor productivity. Take the JJK retail outlet as example; because the Site Service manager did not pay attention to the essentiality of health and safety before, consequently, the department recorded a high number of accidents, injuries and absences. It took more difficulties for organisation to manage the company, also it spent more money in dealing with these accidents. Obviously, it will stop the company development. In other words, without health and safety culture, any organisation management will be seemed as ineffective.
2) An active and positive health and safety culture can deal with the organisation relationship better
When the Site Service manager got attention to the important of health and safety, he adopted negative health and safety policy, it did not change the situation, also it caused other problems to the organisation. Just like deterioration in relationships of employment and different department. Therefore, it is very important to establish a positive health and safety culture. When organisation has this culture, manager will try to provide safe workplace environment to employees. Otherwise, they also will control the risk of accidents according to the active policy and improve commutations with employees. Employees will work seriously and happily in this comfortable environment. Also they won’t worry the warnings or punishments for any accidents. When the employees work every day with a good emotion, the relationship of organisation will be friendlier than before. In one word, an active and positive health and safety culture implies that the whole is more than the sum of the parts. The different aspects interact together to give added effect in a collective commitment. But in a negative safety culture the opposite is the case. (http://www.iee.org 2001)
3) Health and safety culture is concerned with the finance economic of the company
All accidents and ill health cost money. Although most organisations are good at calculating the costs of health and safety, they are not good at calculating the losses associated with sickness, accidents and poor health and safety performance. Generally, these losses are larger than the budget of the costs of health and safety. Therefore, if the company establishes the health and safety culture, organisation will get more attention to how to establish the health and safety policies and systems. According to this system, employers should consider using a behavioral-based safety initiative to take employees nearer to their goal of zero accidents, not just budget the costs of health and safety. Try to reduce the losses, accidents, the budget of health and safety and the time. Then organisation can make use of this money to develop other projects. Furthermore, if the company’s rate of accidents reduces, and the organisation image will be improved, then it will bring on more investment and earn more opptunituty. More and more employees will prefer to work this company. All of this performance will promote the company development.
It is undeniable that the active and positive health and safety culture plays an important role in the company. The benefits of the health and safety culture are not just these three aspects. Establishing a health and safety culture, it can minimize the fees of penalty because of prosecution. As a human resource advisor with JJK, I strongly suggested that it should be established a health and safety culture. Not only it will be more effective for the organisation, but also it will be more powerful for the company.
Conclusion
To sum up, since the law of Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 come true, it should play an important role of the company. But some companies also did not have positive attitude to treat with the essentiality of health and safety, just like JJK Company, therefore, it brought many problems for the employees and organisation. As a human resource advisor with JJK, According to the law of health and safety, I hope that company have thus far establishes an active and positive health and safety culture in what will become the strategy of company to develop from now on. That is the essential way to deal with the company’ problems. In other words, health and safety culture not just concerned with the profits of the employees and organisation, the most important thing is it will effect one company whether will be successful or not.
References
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Stranks, J. (1990) A Manager’s Guide to Health and Safety at Work, 1st edition, London: Kogan Page
- http://www.iee.org, 2001
Bibliography
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Ridley, J.R.(1990) Safety at Work, 3rd edition, London: Heinemann
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Stranks,J (2000) The Handbook of Health and Safety Practice, 5th edition, London: Pearson Edication
