Health & Safety Flashcards
Occupational health definition (WHO)
Covers every aspect of health and safety at work
Focuses on preventing hazards as the primary goal
Health definition (WHO)
A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or illness
Wellbeing of employees depends on…
- Quality of working life provided by employers
- Feelings of satisfaction and happiness arising from the work itself
- Work environment
Employers role (Armstrong, 2010)
- Duty care
- Provide safe work environment
- Foster environments to create engaged and committed employees
Health and safety frameworks
- Legislation
- Policies
- Handbook
- Certifications
- Collective agreements
Health and safety issues
- Injury on duty
- Ergonomics
- Sick building syndrome
- Workplace violence/bullying
- Pandemics (e.g COVID)
- Life threatening illnesses
What is injury on duty?
An injury that occurs while working (on duty)
Want to prevent this
Injury on duty - areas to explore
- Issue and enforce PPE
- Investigation of incidents (can include insurance, and labour department if more serious)
- Training/retraining/follow up
- Monitoring/collaborating
- Documentation-incident report, witness statements, medical records etc.
- Exits (letting go of an employee because they cannot come back to work/perform a specific job after an injury - must be exited, mutual separation)
Why is health and safety important in manufacturing?
Employees in manufacturing may be prone to more injuries/accidents because they are working constantly and closely with heavy, and potentially dangerous equipment and machinery
Lost time accidents
When an injury is so severe that recovery is required. The amount of time that an employee was unable to work is called ‘lost time’
Lost time accidents target
Goal is to reach a target of zero for lost time accidents (LTAs)
How to increase health and safety in the workplace
- Training of new employees
- Retraining/refreshing of old employees
- Health and safety committee
- Provide personal protective equipment (PPE)
- Staff awareness
- Disciplinary action for careless mistakes - warning, suspension, dismissal (reinforcement)
- Enforce code of conduct
- Annual assessments
Health and safety committee
A group consisting of representatives of both the employer and employees that meets regularly in order to reduce accident rates
Identify potential hazards and develop protocols to prevent or reduce hazardous situations
What usually causes accidents?
Many accidents are avoidable and are as a result of an individual’s behaviour
Often times employees know the right thing to do but they take a short-cut
