Critical Thinking in Action
2016-06-29
Critical Thinking in Action
Introduction
The issue of the providing safety of employees is quite important in the enterprise.
It should be noted that safety technique is a set of rules and regulations designed to ensure safe working conditions and carrying out different kinds of work. In our case, it concerns the production shop. The list of all the safety regulations, aimed at meeting the requirements of labor protection is usually presented as the special instructions for employees. It should be noted that each enterprise should have management system that provide an appropriate safety level for employees in the production, machine shop and other departments.
Explanation of the Issue
The issue concerns an accident at the production shop. The employee John Schmidt has injured his hand while working with the equipment. In this case, there are two options: either employee or company’s manager is responsible for this accident.
It should be noted that occupational safety at work is very important, so all related activities ideally must be combined with specific actions of people in their workplace and corresponding processes. The compliance with the basic rules should not produce additional burden on the workers, cause any inconveniences, interfere the work operations and reduce the wages of workers and their productivity level.
Ensuring safety at the production shop is achieved in a simple way. The employees must know only a few simple rules. The most basic thing is that the collective is not considered as a simple sum of its participants. It is not necessary to do, because individual behavior can change dramatically in a team (Boyd, 2003, p.35). Forming a collective point of view, it needs all the time to combine the impact on the team as a whole and the impact on individual members.
Analysis of the Information
Proper organization of work on occupational safety is of paramount importance to improve productivity, the elimination of the causes of accidents, prevention of accidents and occupational diseases. Administrative and technical staff must ensure that all employees follow the safety rules, industrial sanitation and fire safety and take the necessary measures to eliminate the violations noticed. In our case, the foreman Harry Hiller has ignored the claims of workers about some problems with the equipment, especially, the safety guard. In this case, the employees must not work with the faulty equipment. At the same time, the foreman must use the appropriate measures to resolve the issue. None of the parties have not acted correctly: the workers continued to work with the defective safety guard as well as foreman did not check equipment on the basis of the complaints. In this case, the employees as well as foreman can be blamed in the happened accident.
Management of the labor protection and responsibility for the overall safety and industrial hygiene in general is assigned to the foreman (“Safety Management: Improving Safety Management”, 2003). The organization of labor protection, its leadership and responsibility for its state of the enterprise is assigned to the company’s manager (director, head, manager) and chief engineer.
Analysis of Alternative Viewpoints and Solutions
As we know, persons, which are responsible for compliance with safety standards and requirements, must conduct instruction on health and safety at the enterprise, as well as directly at the employee workplace, where it is required. One of the mandatory requirements of occupational health and safety in the production shop is a visualization of the most dangerous areas of production and measures to prevent occupational injuries (Gunningham & Johnstone, 1999, p.78). As a rule, the posters and visual aids are added for this purpose in the workplace. In this case, it needs to analyze if the foreman has conducted regular instructions for employees or not.
Understanding the norms of correct, safe behavior by the employees themselves is quite important in order to ensure safety at the enterprise. It is even more important than all the technical and technological innovations, as they also require an understanding of the person, his observance of established safety requirements. The correct attitude of employees leads to a positive psychological climate in the team. Occupational health management system, which should be present in every modern enterprise, is the highest indicator of the desire to preserve the permanent staff of the organization.
One more alternative point is connected with the fact that the majority of accidents occur due to the so-called human factor. The price of errors that an employee can make at his workplace has greatly increased with the development of industrial facilities. The consequences would be devastating not only for the person who made a mistake, but also for the environment. Different reasons can encourage violation. Many people neglect the safety rules in force of habit to not pay attention to such “trifles” (Hofmann & Tetrick, 2003, p.49). In this case, an employee violates the set safety rules in the production shop. Thus, employee John Schmidt must not work with the defective safety guard if the foreman has not checked the workers’ claims and has not taken any measures. The driving force of non-compliance with the safety rules can be bravado in front of other staff, the propensity to risk or banal lack of discipline. In our case, an employee John laughed with other co-workers. It can display the frivolous attitude to the safety rules in the workplace.
It should be noted that the mental state of employee (the existence of conflicts, fatigue, illness, dependence on drugs, alcohol, nicotine, features of the human psyche) can impact on the safety of human labor. The presence of hazards (moving parts of machines, cluttering walkways, poor lighting and others) and the depressed state of the human psyche can be the main reasons of the accidents.
Proposed Decisions
Proposed decision concern the following aspects:
serious changes in the safety management that is adopted in the enterprise;
improvement of the current safety management system at the enterprise that include regular trainings for employees and regular review of current safety instructions as well as regular checking of machines, safety guards and other crucial components;
Conclusion
In conclusion one can say that the safety management system plays a crucial role at each enterprise (especially, in manufacturing). Each enterprise must conduct measures, which aim to ensure that the work is safe for employees. The appropriate expanses, together with the effective organizational structure are the main precondition of safer working conditions and the minimal number of traumas at the workplace. The special safety service is responsible for development instructions and regular equipment testing in the enterprise. It is also responsible for employee trainings. In our case, foreman together with the safety service can be blamed for the accident. The proposed decisions aim to improve the safety service of the enterprise, to replace the foreman and compensate the cost of treatment for the employee, John Schmidt.
References
Boyd, C. (2003). Human resource management and occupational health and safety (p. 208). London: Routledge.
Gunningham, N. & Johnstone, R. (1999). Regulating Workplace Safety: System and Sanctions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hofmann, D. & Tetrick, L. (2003). Health and Safety in Organizations: A Multilevel Perspective. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Safety Management: Improving Safety Management. (2003). Occupational Hazards, 65(12). Retrieved from https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-111621581/safety-management-improving-safety-management
