Why is it necessary to maintain health and safety best standards?

Why is it necessary to maintain health and safety best standards?

Why is it necessary to maintain health and safety best standards?

Importance of health and safety in workplace: Whether it is manufacturing, processing, engineering, construction or any other type of industries, work site may be a complicated area. Peoples of different religion, languages, experience, and with other competencies working together in workplace involving the co-ordination among them to perform different activities. It is a complex issue to find a solution to a specific health and safety problem and therefore it requires extensive background knowledge and an awareness of potential consequences of the various activities.

To understand the workplace HSE issues, we must be fully aware about technical background of that particular concern and relevant competency/knowledge about it. We must have knowledge of applicable legal obligations and standards that may apply to the workplace related to health and safety issues. Also, to resolve the issues, possible strengths and weaknesses of the various options should be available.

Therefore, to understand the concept of Health and safety, we must have knowledge of different subjects viz. chemistry, physics, biology, engineering, Law, psychology, sociology, etc

As part of its safe work programs, International Labour Organization (ILO) publishing global statistics related to the number of accidents and disease cases that are reported and recorded globally. This accident/ incident statistics alerting and helping the different organizations and individuals to manage health and safety standards within the workplace for various reasons.

Importance of health and safety management

There are three main reasons to manage health and safety best standards in workplace.

Moral Value:

Several people being killed, injured, or made sick by their work, morally it is unacceptable, and society demands that people should be safe in their workplace. Its moral duty that one person must care another.

Social Factor:  

Its legal requirement and law govern the conduct of businesses/organizations (whether small or large). An employer has a duty to provide a safe place of work, equipment, safe plant and safe systems of work, adequate training and supervision, and competent employees.

Economical Value:

Accident cause direct and indirect costs (loss), some of these losses can be insured but most of them are uninsured. Its truth that accidents and ill-health cost money.

Direct costs: Cost for first-aid treatment, sick pay, overtime, costs incurred to cover their absence, cost to repair of damaged equipment, lost/damaged product cost, lost production time, fines, and compensation payment, etc. 

Indirect costs:  Time taken to investigate the accident, the costs of additional control measures to prevent recurrence, comply with enforcement notices, cost associated with the training and new recruitment, loss of morale could impact productivity, or damage the organization’s public image or customer relationships.

Barriers to health and safety best standards

There are many barriers to maintain best health and safety standards in a workplace:

Complexity: Resolving specific health and safety issue can be complex in workplaces as it involve co-ordination of many people performing several different activities simultaneously and it requires extensive knowledge & experience of potential risk and consequences.

Conflict demands: Conflict of interest between operation targets to make a profit, and same time ensure health and safely of peoples by complying with different types of standards/law as well as environmental protection law.

Behavioural issues: People sometimes do not behave in an ideal way and to maintain the health and safety standard, worker must carry out their job in an ideal way. Sometimes they deliberately do the wrong thing and thus health and safety standards are affected by worker behavior.

Summary:

Though there are many barriers to health and safety standards, because of moral, social and economic demands we have to maintained health and safety best standards in workplace. When health and safety improperly managed in workplace, people get killed and injured or suffer terrible diseases not only impacting them but also impacting their dependents, families, friends and colleagues. Society never accept it morally. Giving compensation to injured or their family is not a solution.

It is immoral that if employers providing workplace to their employees to produce the goods and services from which employers earn profits and in return paying salary to employees only. Its moral responsibility of employee to provide safe and healthy working conditions to their employees.

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