The absence duration of Self-reported non-horrendous injury amongst workers who have worked in the last 12 months.
Source: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causinj/index.htm
The bar chart shows the annual absence duration of workers who suffer from non-fatal injury at work between 2003 and 2010. As can be seen from the bar graph, although there was a significant decrease from 2003 to 2010, the number of non-fatal injuries was still high. Moreover, when the non-fatal accidents occur, workers had to take their time to get better. This would lead to many problems such as cost overruns and time delay. This is because the company has to pay for medicine and find a new worker.
Twenty year trend in worker fatalities
Source :
The line graph highlights the number of fatalities between 1990 and 2010 in three sectors in the UK. It is readily apparent that the highest number of fatal accidents was in the construction field compared with other sectors. This may be because there were many high risks in construction sites such as falling from high places, electrical short circuits and so on. It is clear that the figure for fatal injuries reduced drastically from 125 cases to 50 cases during 20 years. This means that people have considered it necessary to prevent accidents in construction sites.
A good case study is an accident in a big company in the United Kingdom on 14 November 2007 cited by Hackitt (2012).
In this case an employee was delivering goods. He carry out the normal safety check when he loaded his truck but his manager did not have time to double check the truck after loading. As a result, when the employee arrived on site to deliver goods, one heavy item on the pallet fell out and crush him.
This incident demonstrates the importance of safety; if every employee is careful of safety processes, the risk of fatal accident will reduce significantly. We can see that the loss from carelessness not only causes death but also the company will lose reputation and incur a lot of legal cost. Although some accidents might be caused by technology and environment, the main reason for accidents is ignorance and lack of awareness.
Another case study is about good practice to achieve a positive safety culture on the Olympic park. Cited by Nicola & Caroline (2012).
Safety culture was measured using a modified version of the Health and Safety Laboratory’s Safety Climate Tool (SCT). Scores for contractors working on the Olympic Park project were higher than the SCT ‘all industry’ dataset. This is because they have good practice that had been implemented on site in relation to the eight factors. Management should support all segments and they also can decrease conflict by demonstrating the positive behaviors. Using workshops and campaigns based on trends in recent incidents on site by guest speakers is a good way to engage the workforce. Moreover, Rewarding can encourage the positive behaviors. The workers should review and understand the risk assessment documentation at the point of work. Attitude to colleagues is one of the essential thing to take responsibility for their own and others health and safety. Ensuring resources and time should be plan in a early stage to complete the work safely. Although the workers have good training about safety, the accidents might be happen. This is clear that accident and near miss reporting still be important for all workers. From all factors, we can see that if every worker has good practice and behaviors, they can avoid the accidents.
In today’s world, there are many dangers to health; however, safety procedures can help you to prevent the major accidents. In the United Kingdom, one major factor which has an impact on safety is a strong relationship between age and experience. According to the survey, the 16-20 age group was most at risk from accidents. After the age of 20, the number of accidents had a steady drop to hit a low point in the mid forties. In other words, the older people had already gained experience which made them more aware of basic safety requirements and they had high skills. Another factor in the UK is about safety performance and economic variables. Most employees work their whole life for money. It is not surprising to say that most companies use strategy to improve their productivity. They pay bonus money to expand high capacities sometimes through performing unsafely at site level. This also happens in Thailand, take an example from my workplace, the company has recorded the safety performance which will be counted with bonus pay. This means that if the figure for accidents is 0 and workers can produce a large number of good quality products, bonus pay will be a drastic rise. As a result, these workers will speed up their work without caution. Although they have a minor accident, they do not report to the safety sector. The last factor is psychological variables. Previous researchers such as Davies and Stachi (1964) found that frequent communication between supervisors and workers has a big effect on safety culture. The employees will understand the importance of safety, if their supervisor regards safety as being equally important as production.
In Thailand, Injuries and work-related accidents can be eliminated by safety programs. Sirirut-tanapruk and Anuntakulnathi (2004) pointed out that Thai people do not pay well attention to safety program and also the enforcement of legislation is very weak. In other words, the levels of safety in Thai construction industry are poor. The key factor which relates to safety program implementation is worker involvement. Worker safety attitude can be motivated by the foreman. Most employees strongly believe that their leader should be a person who has a lot of knowledge and makes good decisions. Then if the leader attends to safety activities, subordinates will follow the lead. Another important factor is safety prevention and control system. Many construction industries in Thailand lack an effective regulation and enforcement scheme. The authorities often make rules that seem bureaucratic and irrelevant to real safety concerns. This means that many companies do not obey their rules and leads to an end of obligation. Safety rules should be more appropriate to the needs of safety and training which suit everyone. Likewise, everybody should comprehend and follow standards for preventing accidents.
To conclude, improving safety performance brings a lot of benefits not only to workers but also owners since this can prevent accidents and reduce costs. It is clear from the essay that the main factors influencing safety performance in the UK and Thailand are different. In the UK, the major effect is workers’ experience, while worker involvement is the most important factor in Thailand.
Bibliographies
Aksorn, T. and Hadikusumo, B.H.W. ‘Critical success factors influencing safety program performance in Thai construction projects’ in ScienceDirect, No. 46: pp. 709-727.
Sawacha, E., Naoum, S. and Fong, D. (1999). ‘Factors affecting safety performance on construction sites’ in International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 17, No. 5: pp. 309-315.
Sidney, M. (2000). ‘Safety in construction’ in Project management in construction. The United States: the McGraw-Hill, pp. 289-306.
Siriruttanapruk, S. and Anuntakulnathi, P. (2004). ‘Occupational health and safety situation and research priority in Thailand’ in Industrial Health, No, 42: pp. 135-140.
Hackitt, J. Health and Safety Executive. . Viewed 06/08/2012
Prasert, B. (19/04/2012). Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). . Viewed 03/08/2012
Nicola, H. and Caroline, S. (2012). ‘Safety culture on the Olympic park’ in Health and Safety Laboratory, No. RR942: pp. 6-39.
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