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Contents
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................ 3
BACKGROUND.............................................................................................................. 3
JUSTIFICATION............................................................................................................. 4
STRATEGY APPROACH............................................................................................... 5
STRATEGIC ADVICE.................................................................................................... 7
Management commitment ............................................................................................ 7
Risk perception and management ................................................................................. 8
Safety systems and procedures..................................................................................... 9
Work pressures and scheduling .................................................................................. 10
Employee training and competence............................................................................ 10
Genuine and consistent management of safety........................................................... 10
Clear communication.................................................................................................. 11
Employee engagement and involvement .................................................................... 12
Responsibility ............................................................................................................. 12
Regulatory compliance ............................................................................................... 13
CONCLUSIONS............................................................................................................ 14
RECOMMENDATIONS................................................................................................ 15
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INTRODUCTION
The growing concern for workers' occupational safety and health requires all companies
to develop and implement management systems that contribute to the depreciation and
elimination of the causes of accidentsand occupational diseases while seeking to increase
productivity within a good work environment.
In this sense, the following are strategic tips on how to improve safety performance in the
company. Considering that this need arises since occupational health and safety is, in
addition to being a requirement, health and safety is not only a legal requirement but also
a social responsibility. Therefore, implementing what is presented in this document
becomes a tool that allows the application of actions and techniques in the preventive
field, with all the benefits that this represents.
BACKGROUND
• Occupational Health and Safetyis consolidating as a critical element in companies
in terms of competitiveness and sustainability. The changes in the environment
make it necessary to develop a prevention strategy that is adaptable, innovative,
and dynamic.
• The defense of health is gaining strength as a strategy to improve the physical
condition of employees, reduce sick leave and work-related accidents, and
promote their motivation and ability to work as a team.
• More and more companies are committing their best efforts and resources to
recreate and strengthen a culture of health and safety. Especially when considering
that the presence of occupational health in a company is vital because, in addition
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to ensuring the highest physical, mental, and social well-being of employees, it
also seeks to establish and sustain a safe and healthy work environment.
• This new commitment to health and safety will not only allow companies to
overcome accident problems, with the legal, social, business, psychological, and
moral issues that they entail. Still, it will also facilitate introducing a new health
and safety vision through modern company management.
• The strategic advice approach derives from the business need, from the human
and social responsibility to create an optimal work environment through the
commitment to provide adequate working conditions to those who make up the
company. To generate better performance, in addition to compliance with current
legal requirements.
• The strategic advice seeks the welfare of employees through the prevention and
reduction of occupational risks, which due to their specific activity and number of
workers, constitute a risk that must be considered and requires implementing a
management system that minimizes the impact of such risks.
JUSTIFICATION
One of the main objectives of any productive activity is to comply with its mission fully,
so it is essential to implement management systems that ensure this compliance.
Health and safety in the workplace have become fundamental pillars of business
management, which is why implementing those is essential for the company that keeps
its efficiency based on achieving a suitable environment for developing its activities.
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Implementing and promoting a culture of health and safety; leads to the practical and
operative design that shows application schemes for any company to guarantee the
prevention and reduction of work risks through the implementation of strategies and
activities by the policy under which the company referred is governed.
STRATEGY APPROACH
The present strategic advice implies the application of procedures that lead to the
prevention of accidents, occupational diseases, and accidents through health and safety
management. In this sense, it is essential to carry out a situational diagnosis based on the
three fundamental pillars of management, such as Administrative, Technical, and Human
Talent Management, thus making teamwork indispensable to comply with the application
of the strategic advice satisfactorily.
Each organization member is responsible for managing safety and health in our personal
lives or at work.
"The legislation on the subject also confers additional responsibility on
employers, who must not only protect their employees but also those who come
into contact with them as a result of their activities or, as the terminology of ISO
45001 calls them, <other interested parties>.", (Achilles, 2022).
In this sense, it is essential to implement a culture of health and safety in the company. It
means ensuring an environment where the different disciplines associated with
occupational health and safety work together. For the identification, environmental
assessment, control of agents and occupational risk factors, and health surveillance of
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exposed employees, in a scheme of risk management system sustained over time with a
seal of continuous improvement to ensure safe and healthy work environments.
For Ferret (2021),
“An organization’s safety culture is the product of individual and group values,
attitudes, perceptions, competencies, and patterns of behavior that determine the
commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organization’s health and
safety management”.
Thus, to implement a culture of health and safety, and from the situational diagnosis, it
will be possible to determine the current state of the company and the reason why injury
rates in the plant are increasing. In addition, the increase in the number of premiums paid
to WorkSafeBC and the difficulties associated with implementing return-to-work plans
for injured employees.
Consequently, according to Harrison (2011),
“There is evidence from a variety of industries (healthcare and non-healthcare)
that health and safety is dependent on a number of crucial factors. These are
summarized by Currie and Watterson (2010) and include poor communication,
failure to recognize danger, complacency by management where health and safety
issues are raised, and failure to follow procedures and protocols”.
Consequently, based on the above, it is essential to develop a model to positively
influence the organization's culture toward safety.
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For this, based on the above, and according to Sharman (2016) it is advisable to consider
the following aspects:
• Management commitment.
• Risk perception and management.
• Safety systems and procedures.
• Work pressures and scheduling.
• Employee training and competence.
• Genuine and consistent management of safety.
• Clear communication.
• Employee engagement and involvement.
• Responsibility.
• Regulatory compliance.
STRATEGIC ADVICE
The strategies to be implemented will be based on a work culture that focuses on the
health and safety of the company. By following the aspects above, the workers and the
company (employers) would seek their good through teamwork, sharing the same
objectives, and enjoying what they do.
Management commitment
All management systems and, in general, any project was undertaken in organizations
from its conception, implementation, and maintenance. Its success depends on the role
played by topmanagement, i.e., thefigure or role that corresponds to thehighest hierarchy
in authority as far as organizational aspects are concerned.
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This is because the guidelines for implementing a health and safety culture start from top
management. The necessary resources are designated for this purpose, such as budget,
people, equipment, and spaces.
To promote an adequate safety culture, it is necessary to involve the management, which
must lead, set an example in terms of prevention and good practices, and be responsible
for rewarding good behavior and reprimanding negligence (Proavance, 2022).
Risk perception and management
To assess or diagnose a company's health and safety culture is to understand how it
positively or negatively influences health and safety interventions. Therefore, a diagnosis
is a snapshot of the perception that those who live in the organization's day-to-day life
have on health and safety issues, on how safetyis lived and integrated into daily practices,
from management to field operators.
The diagnosis should make it possible to:
o make visible what is thought: it concerns beliefs, perceptions, and
convictions.
o to know what is being done by explaining safety practices and behaviors
and the difficulties encountered.
o to inquire into the coherence between what is thought and what is done.
It is therefore advisable to understand that the company's management should not
undertake the evaluation of its health and safety culture if it is not willing to:
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o involve the other stakeholders: management, staff representatives, field
teams, support departments, external companies, and sometimes local
communities or authorities, in other words, all the stakeholders.
o listen, share, and discuss the news that may be bad.
Work Safe BC (2021) asserts:
“Evaluating your organization’s health and safety processes, the key elements of a
health and safety program, can provide valuable insight to help identify areas for
improvement. These processes can include your inspection processes and approach,
your incident investigation processes, your joint health and safety committee’s
process, and your reporting and data collection processes”.
Safety systems and procedures
A company with an organizational culture that promotes the development of a health and
safety subculture must support the necessary competencies through training and
development processes to ensure the execution of business activities.
One of the competencies to be considered in designing and adequately implementing the
health and safety culture is the comprehensive knowledge of the final product or service
and its stakeholders.
Therefore, the necessary times, spaces, and operations must be observed to comply with
the requirements safely. Therefore, if the needs are well analyzed, the design of this
culture must guarantee mobility, safety, quality, health, and sustainability.
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Work pressures and scheduling
A health and safety culture is not changed like an organizational chart or a manufacturing
process. Therefore, acting on an entity's safety culture is only possible by acting on its
essence, i.e., the organizational culture.
In this sense, what is advisable is to undertakean accurate medium- and long-term change
project capable of evolving practices and ways of thinking. This presupposes:
o a shared conviction of the need for change and evolution.
o the existence of resources, especially time (it may take several years),
o the participation of all involved in this process.
o a constant commitment from the management.
Employee training and competence
Training employees is the best way to ensure that activities are carried out correctly and
safely. They must be competent, responsible, and aware of their activities' consequences.
It has been proven that investing in employee training not only prevents accidents but is
also very profitable for the company because it reduces absenteeism and increases
productivity. In addition, workers perceive that the company cares about their health and
safety, which is why employees are more motivated to work (Losada, 2017).
Genuine and consistent management of safety
Improving a health and safety culture can direct your efforts toward bettering the
workplace. In this sense, any company that intends to implement a health and safety
culture reflects how to conduct business, the risks they face at work, and how they
oversee the health and safety of their employees.
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Therefore, health and safety management uses principles, a framework, processes, and
methods to stop accidents, injuries, and other negative outcomes from using a service or
a product. It does so by either predicting system flaws before errors happen or
identifying and fixing them through expert analysis of safety occurrences.
According to the International Labour Organization (n.d.),
“Managing safety and health is integral to managing a business. Businesses need to
do a risk assessment to find out about the hazards and risks in their workplace(s)
and put measures in place to effectively control them to ensure these hazards and
risks cannot cause harm to workers”.
Clear communication
An element that is almost always forgotten or undervalued is communication. Thus,
communication has become a powerful tool for creating, generating, and promoting a
culture of prevention in terms of health and safety. Therefore, communication is much
more than information, and not only the communication channels should be taken into
consideration, but also the style, frequency, and means of interaction between the
different areas or departments of the organization.
“Communication cannot be a trivial element; it must be given the importance it
deserves, especially if the value of occupational risk prevention, the much-desired
preventive culture, is to be positioned as a necessity for any organization.”, (García,
2018).
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Employee engagement and involvement
When a company makes this decision consciously and with a strong commitment,
educating for a culture of prevention is possible. Although this clarification may seem
easy, the reality is that if there is no legitimate commitment from the parties interested
in promoting it, it will be challenging to achieve accurate results. Therefore, those
who make up the company, i.e., those involved in the process, must share this
conviction, which becomes one of the essential conditions.
On the other hand, it is essential to emphasize that what is to be achieved is a change
of beliefs and attitudes, often deeply rooted. This truly arduous task implies a
comprehensive and well-coordinated approach. The more companies in the same
sector actively promote it, the easier and faster the change will be.
According to Work Safe BC (2021),
"In an organization with a positive health and safety mindset, the managers,
supervisors, and workers share common values that make worker health and
safety a priority. They anticipate unsafe acts and conditions and correct them
before harm is done. They engage in injury and disease prevention. Most of all,
they take ownership of health and safety issues".
Responsibility
The culture of prevention, in terms of occupational health and safety, implies respect for
the right to enjoy a safe and healthy working environment at all levels; the active
participation of governments, employers, and workers to ensure a safe and healthy
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working environment through a system of defined rights, responsibilities and duties; and
the attribution of the highest priority to the principle of prevention.
In this sense, it is the responsibility of all actors that the excellence of health and safety
be worked in conjunction with the corporate culture, allowing active participation of
workers or employees of an organization, as well as a high commitment of top
management in the processes of transformation or change that can encourage any process
that needs these characteristics.
Regulatory compliance
Workers have the right to adequate protection in terms of occupational health and safety,
and this right implies the duty of the company to protect its workers against these risks.
In this sense, the company must comply with the regulations on the prevention of
occupational hazards by integrating a preventive culture in the company and adopting all
necessary measures to protect the safety and health of workers.
Thus, the company must monitor the preventive culture to continuously improve the
activities of identification, evaluation, and control of the risks that could not be avoided
and the existing levels of protection.
In fact, according to the British Columbian government (n.d),
“Workers have rights and responsibilities to protect their health and safety in the
workplace. These protections are set out in the following:
o Part 2 of the Workers Compensation Act,
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o the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation (especially Part 3),
and
o WorkSafeBC’s Occupational Health and Safety Policies”.
Employees are generally responsible for reporting harmful working circumstances and
have the right to a safe workplace. On the other hand, employers must ensure that the
workplace is safe and promptly address any harmful situations. For this reason,
WorkSafeBC can step in and make decisions and orders on what is necessary if
employees and employers cannot agree on health and safety issues.
CONCLUSIONS
• The evolution of the health and safety culture requires an accurate blueprint for
change, with a broad consensus on the initial state of the health and safety culture
and a shared vision of the level of health and safety culture desired in the future.
• Diagnosis is an essential starting point for any organization that intends to develop
its health and safety culture. It focuses on the practices of the stakeholders and
their perceptions of health and safety management.
• To move towards an integrated health and safety culture, combining a strategic
approach, a willingness to mobilize all stakeholders, and a selection of
fundamental processes on which to work is necessary.
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• Health and safety are strategic factors for strengthening the company's overall
performance. Therefore, as this subject can be agreed upon, preventing the most
critical risks is a good starting point to work on in the organization.
• Integrated safety culture involves seeking strong leadership from management
and greater involvement of employees and their representatives in safety matters.
RECOMMENDATIONS
• The top management in the first line must be convinced of the importance of
preserving the life and integrity of workers, as well as minimizing any possible
effect their activities may have on society in general. Then, the company's
management will give the necessary impetus and provide sufficient resources for
adequately implementing a culture of prevention based on the health and safety
of the company.
• Carrying out a process of sensitizing people and forming a culture of prevention.
The constant sensitization of the personnel about the specific dangers in their
workplace and the possible consequences and knowing the protection and
prevention measures available and required is a task that belongs to all of us. It is
also essential to measure the effectiveness of personnel training toensure a culture
of prevention that is sustainable over time.
• During their employment, workers must undergo medical examinations,
providing input information that will allow the occupational physician to take
measures and implement plans and efforts to improve the quality of life or
maintain physical and mental capacities during their stay in the company.
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• It is essential to highlight and communicate the actions and people who act
proactively in workplace safety and health matters. Conveniently sharing the
positive impact generated by a worker creates an example for the rest. These are
the attitudes that should be multiplied in the company.
• Generate contingency plans to deal with potential emergencies that the company's
operations may generate or emergencies of natural origin such as earthquakes,
earthquakes, phenomena, rains, floods, etc.
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Ferrett, E. (2021). Health and safety at work revision guide: For the NEBOSH national
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Garcia, D. R. (2018, March 9). La importancia de la Comunicación en la Cultura de
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