Health And Safety Programming

Foreword

Establishing a Health and Safety program in the workplace is one of the most effective ways of protecting our most valuable asset, our employees. Losing workers to injury or illness, even for a short time, can cause significant disruption and cost to the business as well as the individual and their families. It can also damage workplace morale, productivity, turnover, and reputation. Health and Safety programs foster a proactive approach to finding and fixing site specific hazards before they can escalate into injury or illness. Rather than reacting to an incident, leadership teams and colleagues, collaborate to identify and solve issues before they occur. This collaboration builds trust, enhances communication, provides a safe working environment, and often leads to other business improvements.

SAFETY IN THE WORKPLACE IS not only an organizational requirement and obligation, but also an individual’s responsibility. Although legislation varies from country to country, the process is the same with standards being very similar and there are many people that look at this from a moral standpoint. The core functions of these legislations no matter what country you are in are:

To take reasonable care for the Health and Safety of themselves and other persons who may be affected by their acts or omissions.

To co-operate with their Employer (and other persons) to enable any statutory duty to be performed or complied with.

Employees are responsible for acting in a way that does not put themselves or others at risk.

To help simplify and condense systems and processes in order to achieve measurable goals.

Ensure that everyone goes home safe and well every single day.

Introduction

An effective Health and Safety program emphasizes leadership ownership, participation by employees, and a find and fix approach to workplace hazards. The find and fix approach to workplace hazards refers to the Hazard Identification and Hazard Prevention and Control. Because of the wide variety of different industry conditions, these two core elements should be implemented on a site-specific, industry specific basis in order to effectively detect and correct hazards.

The concept of continuous improvement is key to these recommended Health and Safety practices. As with any journey, long or short, the first step is often the most challenging. The idea is to begin with a simplistic program and grow from that point and over time. By initially focusing on achieving small modest goals, monitoring performance, and evaluating outcomes, the business progresses along a path to higher levels of Health and Safety.

The benefits of effective programmes:

We know as leaders or as a leadership team, that the main goal