HSW at work

You might have seen every time when floor cleaning in company is going on, a yellow signboard is kept on the floor with "Cleaning at progress. Wet floor!" written on it. This is one of the preventive measures to prevent any employee slipping down on floor.

Health, Safety and Wellbeing of employees is very important in organizations. Without these, life of any employee will be put at risk and no employee can work efficiently.?It is duty of companies to facilitate a safe workplace, a safe working environment. Companies should not do business at the cost of risk of their employee's lives. They need to ensure that everyone works safely and returns home safely after work. Company should consider safety of any employee, not only when the employee is working inside the company but also ensure their safety while they are working at client place as well as while they are travelling for work.

The Bradley Curve helps organizations to understand the point they’re at in their journey towards an effective safety culture.?

There are the 4 stages of safety culture as per Bradley's curve:?

Reactive, Dependent, Independent, and Interdependent.?

Injury rates are higher when there is "reactive" stage of Bradley's curve. In this stage, there is lack of management involvement and safety is ensured by natural instincts.?

Stage 2 which is called "dependent" stage, involves management and supervision. Training, rules, procedures and discipline are defined which cause lesser injury rates.

The 3rd, "self" stage of Bradley's curve even cause less injuries than stage 2 because it involves "self awareness rather than following safety rules and disciplines by forceful implementation. Personal knowledge, habits and commitments ensure the safety and wellbeing in much effective manner.

At stage four, there are teams taking care of each other's safety. Hence, here HSW becomes interdependent with care for others. It becomes organizational pride to take care of each other.

Thus, each stage represents a different level of safety awareness, commitment, and maturity within the organization.?

To measure safety culture, several methods are available, including surveys, focus groups, observations, and audits. These methods can help measure progress toward a more safety-conscious workplace by assessing employees' perceptions of safety and identifying cultural strengths and weaknesses.

The Safety Culture Ladder (SCL) is all about safety at work and making sure everyone is able to go home safe and sound every day. The SCL shows how good safety awareness is in your organization.

Who is responsible and accountable for safety?

Employers hold most of the responsibility for workplace health and safety, although no one person is solely accountable. In fact, The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 defines the general duties of everyone from employers and employees to business owners, managers and more (eg. maintainers of work premises) as maintaining health and safety within the workplace. In short, everybody is responsible in some part for workplace health and safety.

Creating a health and safety policy to make all staff aware of the relevant procedures is a legal requirement for all businesses. Health Safety Committee is an advisory body that includes representatives of both the employer and the employees in the workplace. Such a body identifies and makes recommendations to minimize any workplace hazards that the employees might face while performing their jobs.

The role and responsibilities of such a committee is below:

Identifying Hazards:?

Analyze and establish any and all hazards to the employees in the workplace before it results in a workplace injury or illness.?

Developing safety conduct:?

Developing a code of conduct or safety rules for a workplace and decide the procedure to be followed in the case of a fire in the workplace.?

Follow up on enquiries and complaints:

This committee must ensure that any complaint made by the workers are investigated and addressed on time to ensure that no further workplace injuries or accidents may occur.?

Maintain records:

Maintains a record of any accident that might have occurred. They also keep a record of any compensation that needs to be made to employees who have been injured or harmed in the line of work.

Safety training:

Prepare educational course to help employees understand and practice safety rules, regulations and conduct in the workplace.?

Recommending Safety Equipment:

Based on the workplace environment this committee must also recommend and arrange for the procurement of safety equipment.?

We will see what are different aspects of HSW in companies:

Few aspects where safety is needed is when employees are working at heights, working underground, dealing with electricity, working on streets or underground, handling explosive, sensitive or valuable material and driving home after work or traveling to office.?

When employees are working at heights, few guidelines should be followed created as per the policy by the committee:

When working at height you should do as much work as possible from the ground and ensure workers can get safely to and from where they work at height. Ensure that equipment is suitable, stable and strong enough for the job, maintained and checked regularly. Precautions should be when working on or near fragile surfaces. Also, there should be protection available from falling objects. Emergency evacuation and rescue procedures should be readily available and defined properly. Accidents and injuries can be prevented if we don't overload ladders and consider the weight of equipment or materials also which workers are carrying before working at height.?

Working underground creates another risks for humans.?

For any such work, there should be mandatory and statutory approvals. The working persons should have approved work permit for such work. Barricading and traffic management should be done properly. In such cases, supervision by experienced and knowledgeable authority is mandatory for giving guidelines.?Taking care of safety, on the other hand, means accepting responsibility at every level for the workers on the ground and in the tunnel. It means identifying the hazards workers will face, training them for effectiveness, equipping them properly, and ensuring that they will be taken care of in emergencies. Follow excavation standards. Always verify the estimated location. Prioritize safe trenching practices. Ensure safety equipment is easily available. Pay attention to weather. Use technology to monitor safety.?

When employees are dealing with electricity, few guidelines should be followed created as per the policy by the committee:

High risk activities should be governed through permit to work system. Only qualified and trained persons are allowed to do this work. All personal protective equipment's should be provided. Annual thermography checks should be done.?Ensure workers know how to use the electrical equipment safely. Stop using equipment immediately if it appears to be faulty – have it checked by a competent person. Make sure enough sockets are available. Check that socket outlets are not overloaded by using unfused adaptors as this can cause fires. Ensure there are no trailing cables that can cause people to trip or fall. Switch off and unplug appliances before cleaning or adjusting them. Ensure everyone looks for electrical wires, cables or equipment near where they are going to work and check for signs warning of dangers from electricity, or any other hazard

What are the safety precautions while handling explosives?

There are three fundamental types of explosives: mechanical, nuclear, and chemical. A mechanical explosive is one that depends on a physical reaction, such as overloading a container with compressed air.

Always wear appropriate PPE, including the correct gloves, lab coat or apron, safety goggles used in conjunction with a face shield, and explosion-proof shields when working with potentially explosive chemicals. Basic rule of explosive safety says that, always expose the minimum number of people to the minimum quantity of explosives for the minimum period of time. This provides the maximum protection possible to people and property. Prevent the formation of an explosive atmosphere, including by ventilation. Collect, contain and remove any releases to a safe place. Avoid ignition sources. Avoid adverse conditions (such as exceeding pressure/temperature limits) that could lead to danger.?Many States use rules based upon the explosives, their quantity, and the distance from the explosive to where people are at risk. These rules are known as Quantity-Distance (Q-D) criteria, and are based on the approach derived from the Hopkinson-Cranz Scaling Law, which is further amended by a range of coefficients.

What are the rules of safety while travelling?

We should never exceed speed limits. All occupants should wear retractable seat belts. Never use mobile phones while driving. Always wear ISI marked full helmet with chin strap while driving. The pillion rider should also wear helmet. Allow only one pillion rider. Never drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The driver should not be fatigues, intoxicated or under medication. Medicines can cause the driver fall asleep. Always follow traffic lights and signs. Observe lane discipline. Driver should keep license and identity card with him always. Horns and brakes should be in working condition. Avoid overtaking. Make way for ambulances. Give correct indicators while turning. While driving a bike, beware of parked cars at roadside as someone must be sitting inside and can open the door suddenly and it may hit you and can cause accident. Also, respect pedestrians while they are crossing the roads on zebra crossing.?

Fire safety of employees is a very vast topic which will need a separate article which we will cover some day in future.?