1. What do you need to do in order to guarantee safety in a fast-food kitchen?
Ensuring safety control measures in the kitchen is essential especially in a fast food kitchen where the operations require constant movement and high work pressure. This calls for the managers to come up with an effective safety control program that aims at regulating the occurrence of incidents and accidents in the kitchen. The first step towards maintaining safety measures involves conducting accident investigation and analysis program so as to identify and correct any causative factors. This involves identifying and repairing any leaks and overflows in sinks and deep freezers which as a result could result to slippery floors. The floors in the kitchen area is also prone become slippery due to the greases and water spillage and therefore it is advisable to install non-slip floor mats to reduce the cases of slips. Such measures include use of safety and hazard signs and ensuring an outlined division of labor and whereby the employees carry out their respective duties thoroughly and in the correct standards.
Also incidents reporting and record keeping should be adopted to ensure immediate measures are taken to correct any fault that may result to unsafe working environment. The supervisor should ensure efficient planned inspections and monitoring of the work areas and all the activities taking place within the workplaces so as to monitor any incident and ensure that it is corrected to avoid future occurrence of similar cases.
Managers should also ensure employees’ safety control protocols by creating awareness through initial and refresher training programs on the importance of observing various safety measures as indicated in various OSHA regulations. This involves informing the employees on the various steps they should adopt such as wearing protective clothing to prevent burns and the safety practices they should adopt to prevent occurrence of accident. Employers should ensure adequate staffing so as to reduce the strenuous and long working hours for their employees which is the main cause of incidents in the workplaces.
2. Analyze this accident using the ILCI Loss Causation Model and provide recommendations that could be used to prevent similar situations.
This accident can be analyzed using the International Loss Control Institute (ILCI) Loss Causation Model by identifying the series of events that as a result helps to determine on how one event led to the other resulting to subsequent loss that involved severe burns and physical injury. This process is essential in coming up with corrective measures that can be adopted to prevent any future occurrence of such loss.
The first step is the identification of the root cause of the incident also known as the lack of control. The factors that contributed to this incident includes failure to repair the ice making machine, failure to dry the floor as well as lack of the responsible person to ensure safety training to the employees. This lead to identifying the basic cause of the incident which in this case involves work related stress as the girl was working alone in the busy kitchen. This leads to the immediate cause which includes lack of protective garment that led to the burn, concealing the wet surface and lack of communication between the shift managers that led to neglecting the spillages. These factors leads to the incident which in this case is the fall and putting the hand into the hot oil. The subsequent loss was breaking the arm and the severe burns on her arms.
The recommended solution to this incident is immediate repair of the ice making machine to ensure that the floor is safe from continuous water spillages. The management should also ensure adequate staffing in the service areas so that there are adequate employees to clean and dry the kitchen as well as enable the manager execute his supervisory duties to ensure that all the safety issues are observed.
References
Groeneweg, J. (2011).Hazard Analysis: The Accident Causation Model. ILO Encyclopedia of Occupational Health and Safety.Retrieved from http://www.ilo.org/oshenc/part-viii/audits-inspections-and-investigations/item/914-hazard-analysis-the-accident-causation-model.
Hughes, P. & Ferret, E. (2009). Introduction to Health and Safety at Work.NY: Elsevier.
