- Introduction
Red Mole Construction Company, an emerging company in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts has been in operation for eight (8) years with about 500 employees consisting of both technical and administrative personnel. They have been involved in numerous constructions of school buildings and other government owned projects like cementing of roads. Aside from construction, they also offer conceptual planning, specifications, constructions estimates and the like.
Although upon incorporation, they claimed to have passed the safety management standards, they have never been formally audited by any safety auditing organization. This audit is a first for them in their eight years of existence. Only around fifteen (15) work-related incidents have been recorded in the companies incident log and three (3) of which have caused the death of 3 laborers on site.
Currently, they have twenty construction projects involving classroom construction and road cementing and widening.
The scope of the audit inspection conducted is to check in general the safety management systems implemented by Red Mole Construction in their Office Site and in two of their current project sites.
Documents used as part of the audit are the company’s safety regulations manual, statistics from the Department of Labor of any reports of incidents their employees or any people involving the company, Safe Operating Procedures, Memorandums and letters of management to employees, previous audit reports, site inspection reports, risk management plans, employee trainings, minutes of safety minutes and other available documents that are reflective of the safety management procedures of the company.
Likewise, the CEO, project engineers, chosen and randomly chosen employees, middle managers and the HR personnel were interviewed for the purpose of the audit.
- Management Leadership and Employee Participation
- Occupational Health and Safety
The top management showed its commitment to provide a safe and healthy working environment for its workers through the company’s safety and health policy detailing hereto its coverage and applicability, implementation procedures, administration, procedures on reporting injuries, the basic safety rules and what the sanctions if the rules imbedded therein were not followed.
However, upon performance of actual audit of their main office and two worksites, the OSHA standards for construction companies listed in Table 1 were found to have been violated. It is suggested that the listed violations will be corrected to set forth a more safe and healthy environment for its workers and people around their workplace.
Violated OSHA Standards (Based on Construction Industry Standards)
- Responsibility and Authority
The responsibilities of the each of the employee were clearly defined on the safety rules and ensured that this rules are understood by the employee by signing to his copy of the policies.
The company’s responsibility in ensuring the safety and healthy working environment for its employees were also defined however, there was no clear provision as to the extent of help an employee gets if in case he is involve in work-related accidents. The firms must clearly identify in their policy the extent of help an employee gets when involved in work-related incidents.
In addition, the specific roles and responsibilities of each of top management must be explicitly defined.
- Employee Participation
In addition to this, employee representatives must also be invited or required to participate in any other safety and health related planning, review or meetings done by the management.
- Planning
- Initial and Ongoing Reviews
During the duration of the audit, there were no documents or proofs indicating that the company has ongoing reviews with regards to their safety. Management should see to it that the safety measures provided by the company are constantly assessed and review in order to check loopholes or possible improvements.
Likewise, the review should include discussions on “internal and regulatory policies and procedures, workers’ compensation injury information, inspection/audit findings, and any results from exposure monitoring conducted in the workplace. To ensure programs are maintained, the reviews should be an ongoing process instead of a one-time occurrence.”
- Assessment and Prioritization
Although the firm has listed some potential hazards in their safety and health policy as well as posted some necessary cautions and notices around their head office and worksites, there is no official document showing that they have conducted a formal and well documented risk assessment. The firm should come up with risk assessment using the ANZI-AIHA Z10-2005 as basis. Specifically, this activity should be able to perform the “identification of potential hazards, exposure, measurement data, sources and frequency of exposure, types of measures used to control hazards and potential severity of hazards.” (Manuele, 2006)
- Implementation and Operation
- Hierarchy of Controls
Although, there is no specific document showing how the firm achieves feasible risk reduction, there are situations that indicating that they are making steps to reduce risk. In particular, all personnel working in the worksite no matter what their positions are and whether they do administrative or technical work, they are required to wear the necessary protective gear like hard hats and boots. Likewise, worksites are properly fenced. Warnings are displayed in conspicuous areas in bold letters. In addition some purchase order documents shows that some machines have been replaced with new ones to because they have been hazardous to use.
The company has a program for monthly check-up for the purpose of ensuring that their employees are fit to work.
It is suggested that the organization will formally prepare a document outlining the hierarchy of controls adhering to the suggestion of Z10 in the order of controls as: elimination, substitution of less hazardous materials, process or equipment, engineering controls, administrative controls and personal protective equipment. (Manuele, 2006) In addition, when doing the risk assessment, employees must be consulted.
- Design Review
No documented design review is in place. It is recommended that the firm world conduct regular design review to check the effectiveness of the safety programs and update them as such.
- Management of Change
Some activities of the documented and based on memos filed, there are indications that management are open to changes to improve safety management program of the firm. This should be continued as well as well-documented for ready reference.
- Procurement
With regards to procurement, the firm does not have a written policy with regards to the quality and risks associated with some company procurements like those that are hazardous to the health. The firm should come up with such clearly outlining materials that should be avoided and the quality or materials to be bought. Likewise, it should be spelled out that although the firm wants to reduce expenses, the quality and safety of the employees exposed to these purchases must not be compromised.
- Emergency Preparedness
The basic requirements for emergency preparedness are present however, these needs to be replenished. There should be a company doctor since their employees are exposed to high risk environments.
- Education and Training Awareness
Records shows that all employees undergo safety training upon entering the firm but that are it. Continuous trainings must be provided by the company specially if there are new equipments or materials used by the company so that all employees will know how to safely work around them. Likewise, if there are opportunities of continuous education relevant to the employees work, then the company should let them.
- Evaluation and Corrective Measure
- Monitoring and Measurement
Currently, the firm does not have a mechanism for monitoring and measurement of the effectiveness of their safety and health policies. The firm should come up with one where the measures or levels of safeness of each indicator must be explicit for objectivity. This will be use as a tool for improving of coming up with design changes.
- Incident Investigation
Records show that there have been 15 incidents involving the firm and only five have filed or documented incident investigations in their HR files and 3 in the local police station. All incidents should have records even if these are minor incidents. Causes must be determined and the corresponding action taken by management relevant to these must be clearly defined.
- Audits
No external or internal audits have been made prior to this audit.
- Corrective and Preventive Actions
Of the five (5) recorded incidents, the necessary corrective and preventive actions have been made. Specifically, the machine that have malfunctioned in one of the accidents have been replaced and the brand of the protective gears of the employees working with welding equipments have been changed to protective gears with more quality.
- Management Review
No formal management review has been made ever since. The management should have it as one of its policy to have an annual management review to be represented by employees to suggest and determine necessary improvements to the company’s safety and health regulations.
- Summary
It is evident from the results of the audit conducted that they are committed to provide a healthy and safe working environment for their employees. However, they seemed to lack the some of the requirements to provide their employees a completely safe and healthy environment. Documentation of programs must be done to have a ready reference in case these are needed and for uniformity in decisions. The suggestions made based on the audit have to be made. Specifically, the list in Table 1 must be corrected to reduce the risk of accidents.
References:
ANSI Z10-2012Now Available.Asse Tech Brief. Retrieved from https://www.asse.org/shoponline/docs/Z10_Tech_Brief_2012_Revised.pdf
“ANSI Z10: The Blueprint for a Better Health and Safety Program”. Commonwealth of Virginia Workers Compensation Services. Retrieved from http://www.covwc.com/templates/System/details.asp?id=48008&PG=resources&CID=30648
Manuele, Fred (2006). ANSI/AIHA Z10-2005 .In Professional Safety. Retrieved from http://www.asse.org/publications/standards/z10/docs/25-33Feb2006.pdf
OSHA(2005). “Small Business Handbook”. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Retrieved from http://www.osha.gov/Publications/smallbusiness/small-business.pdf
“OSHA Checklist for the Construction Industry”. Office of OSHA Voluntary Programs South Carolina Department .Retrieved from http://www.scosha.llronline.com/PDFS/construction%20check%20list.pdf
