Discuss about the Reflection on Hazardous Industries.
In this report I will share my experience after I enrolled for Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Safety, Health and Environmental Management (SHEM). I consider this experience as a crucial one as I can utilize this knowledge for managing the health and safety sector of hazardous industry. I am also able to share my learning from this academic session to showcase my understandings and ability for being a successful Safety and Health Practitioner in one of these industries. Moreover, Sousa et al. (2014) depict that hazardous industry nowadays are emphasized more on the legal aspects like consumer protection, products certifications, auditing and system certification. There are many government agencies also that are concerned more towards these standards. McKee (2014) also highlighted that there are some gender specific challenges in hazardous industries like a small proportion of female are recruited in this industry.
Moreover, it is also important to maintain occupational hygiene especially in the energy sectors. I am currently working as an Occupational Health Safety coordinator in oil and gas sector and I need to implement this knowledge for ensuring that the workplace is safe and follow all the current demand of the industry. In this assessment, I will reflect about the leaning I have learned from the course that are ‘hazards in construction industry’, ‘product safety’, ‘safety training in hazardous industries’, ‘gender specific challenges in hazardous industries’ and ‘occupational hygiene’ in relation with the job responsibility that I am currently performing. This repot also followed by the discussion of benefits and recommended improvements and a conclusion from the entire discussion.
As a professional Occupational Health and Safety coordinator, I have the responsibility to ensure the compliance of all the health and safety regulations. My target area is to evaluate the personnel and workspace exposure apart from ensuring that all the legal attributes of energy sectors. However, I want to succeed as an all rounder Inspector, who will also be responsible for handling the employee management practices to make certain that the recruited workforce are properly trained and they have proper knowledge to perform their work. Thus, this course will enhance my learning skills concerning safety training to the employees. Ismail, Doostdar and Harun (2012) also highlighted that maintaining workplace hygiene is important for maintaining good health of the employees and reducing accidental slips, falls and trips. Thus, I can expect that after this assessment I will be able to implement these training needs in my organizations for better outcomes. Moreover this SHEM course will also help me to perform my current occupation more proficiently and attain proper skills in the areas where I want to prosper in future.
Though my expertise is in the oil and gas sector but this module help in gaining in-sight concerning the construction industry. The one thing that I liked about this session is that it started with statistical data. I can relate with my job that when I present some presentation or report to the management, it is easier for me to impress them if numerical data is illustrated. The session also shows that in every 15 second a worker dies which makes the number in thousand per day. I also feel that in oil and gas sector there is risk of slips and explosion, where the daily occurrence of former aspect is more; while the probability of daily occurrence of the later scenario is less. However, in the construction industry, the workers have to deal with height along with the hazardous materials. Due to height, around 337 million workers are injured and the nation also has to loss a certain percentage of their GDP for the injury and illness purpose. I have also come to know that one has to take care of some severe health hazards like industrial dermatitis, checking whether or not all the employee are aware of handling storage and danger substances. In this course module, it is also highlighted that the hazard also occurred from lifting appliances and gears. This course makes us knowledgeable regarding the fact that in constructions site ignorance leads to accidents during excavations, grinding, cutting, welding, electrical shocks, electrical supply installation and machinery erection. This course also highlighted that construction company has safety tools and they invest in purchasing or developing safety tools but there are not proper human resource to utilize the same due to lack of knowledge and training. The course also highlighted that a safety culture can be built by maintaining effective communication, providing professional training, giving rewards if employee firm these sector obeys the safety regulations. It is also important for the managers of the health and safety department to conduct health and safety training and the organization should also develop some KPI that has to be fulfilled by the managers in order to maintain their merit points.
This specific module has given an in-depth overview about the significance of maintaining product safety for environmental and technological progress. As a responsible occupational health and safety coordinator I have observed that safety and sustainability drags customers’ attention. In order to gain customer loyalty I need to focus on providing environmental friendly products. The primary purpose of maintaining product safety is to render consumer protection and sustainable development of business (Hale, Borys and Adams 2015). After working for several years in the role of occupational health and safety coordinator I have observed that the primary objective of maintaining product safety is to protect consumers from risk factors and build customer loyalty. The most important sectors where we need to follow safety issue includes automotive and road safety sector, consumer products and food sectors, energy and processing sector, healthcare and medical device sector, industrial manufacturing sector real estate and infrastructure sector.
As emphasized by Beus, Dhanani and McCord (2015), medical and healthcare sector has to play one of the most responsible roles in following product safety. While delivering the products the service providers should have clear understanding and knowledge about the reliability and validity of that medicine so that it does not create any harm for an individual consumer. Manufacturing sector has to be very much concerned about product safety. At the time of product manufacturing and product packaging the professionals have to follow ethics and values (Beus, McCord and Zohar 2016). As technical expertise I have observed that product safety is constituted with five major steps. Before delivering the product to the hand of customers every business expert has to follow these principles. The procedure includes testing and certification. The research and development team has to test the product regarding its authenticity. Based on product reliability the R&D department provides certificate. Based on the certificate the business authority tends to make a systematic inspection for verifying the product certification. After auditing if the authority tends to provide confirmation certificate the entire process of product delivery is confirmed. Otherwise, the business authority suggests for giving training session to the employees.
From this very specific module I have received an in-depth knowledge on how to reduce workplace hazards by receiving effective safety training. Workplace hazard is the source of potential damage, harm or adverse health effects. While associated with a business organization the employees have to face different hazards at the workplace. However, this very module has provided me detailed understanding about the frequent reasons due to which workplace hazards take place.
However, the reasons include falling from heights, incorrect use of machine, sudden physical injuries and medical emergencies and so on. However, I have gone through some of the most significant topics due to which safety training needs to be conducted. Some of the most prominent topics include emergency evacuation procedures and routes, Smoking regulations and designated smoking areas, Safe lifting techniques and materials handling procedures, how to select, use, and care for personal protective equipment, the location of emergency equipment like fire extinguishers, eyewash stations, and first-aid supplies.
Based on these areas effective training and safety program is provided within business organization so that workplace hazard can be reduced (Hofmann, Burke and Zohar 2017). Employees should take professional guidance in using lifts and other technical equipments in order to avoid sudden crisis. Employees should show the gesture of using proper smoking zone for maintaining workplace safety. The primary responsibility of professional trainers is to give the employees detailed overview on how hazards take place within business sector (Brosseau et al. 2014). The trainers tend to identify which of the areas of hazards are most common within employees that occur so frequently. I have learnt that injuries and medical emergency is the most significant workplace hazard that the employees have to face very frequently. I have personally observed that the business experts focus on enhancing professional efficiency of the employees based on which they can easily overcome sudden injuries at the workplace.
However, I have gone through from this module that along with providing effective training and development session the business experts needs to implement health and safety act at the workplace strictly. With the help of implementing health and safety act employees can get immediate assistance due to any workplace hazards or injury faced within organization.
I have learnt deep insight on how oil and gas industry becomes gender specific for avoiding workplace hazards. As per the opinion of Khasawneh (2014), oil and gas industry is primarily constituted with human efforts. Employees have to follow rotational shifts in order to meet customers’ needs and demands. Therefore, business experts belonging to this specific industry intend to hire male employees within services in order to avoid workplace hazards. Automatically, the concept of gender specification or biasness is imposed within the industry of oil and gas. On the other hand this industry has to face geographic challenges as well. The infrastructure of oil and gas sectors is established on the areas of remote places. Employees have to face immense challenges for availing emergency hospital in order to get assistance for medical emergency (Curcuruto, Mearns and Mariani 2016).
I have observed that every oil and gas sector intends to implement effective survival training within business process for avoiding any kind of workplace hazards. The workers have to use necessary equipments as well based on which they can manage the situation as a safeguard. In order to avoid geographic challenges the employees can receive location specific training for combating emergency situations (Nielsen et al. 2016). I have learnt from the module that hostile environment awareness training is highly significant with the help of which the employees can gather professional skills for avoiding geographic challenges. However, the primary concern of this module is highlighting the fact that only 3% of women employees are associated with oil and gas industry.
As a result, the organization is facing challenges in maintaining anti-discrimination act and gender equality act at the workplace. The business experts believe that physical strength, accommodation and environment are three primary reasons due to which women employee are not selected within business services (Glendon, Clarke and McKenna 2016). From this module I have received a lesson on how effective training and development session is helpful in enabling female employees within services.
The knowledge that I have regarding the occupational hygiene is that it improves the life expectancy of the employee and reduce the rate of employee attrition. Moreover, according to my knowledge, occupational hygiene lowers the healthcare costs and it also maximizes the power of the competency of the workers. Especially in the oil and gas energy sectors, there is high risk of mixed hydrocarbon vapor that includes butanes, hexanes, pentanes, and single ring aromatics that causes severe illness like nervous system depression and cardiac arrhythmia (Yoon et al. 2013). The worst thing in this context is that the overexposure of these gases results in death of the employees. However, after this course, I have learned that workers, who are recruited for maintaining the workplace hygiene, have to segregate the total job roles in several days. The lecturer makes me aware of the duties of a typical day like preparing for monitoring the site, arriving the site and check for all the calibrate equipment, starting the observation and after all the assessment and evaluations, they need to prepare the report. In my job role, I also have to prepare reports based on the health and safety regulations that my company follows. After this module I have realized that there in my organization the occupational hygiene is not followed properly and this might be the reason that the rate of slips and trips are high. I have also learn that the person needs to monitor the equipments at regular interval of time and the time interval can vary between 30 minutes to 2 hours. Schilling (2013) also portrays that and I have also learnt that professionals need to collect the sample if they find any discrepancies, properly label the collected samples, sometimes clean the equipment and pack necessary tool needed for further investigation. Thus, from now I will also be able to make report on equipment investigation for ensuring the health and safety of the employees.
After the session I have attended on the safety, health and environmental management, I have learnt more specific knowledge for managing the handling safety system in hazardous industry like oil and gas sector and construction industry. Prior to this session I have a general perception regarding the health and safety management in construction site and less knowledge on the occupational hygiene. But now I can manage all the aspects of health and safety factor in the concerned industry.
In the first session, I have learned about the hazards in construction industry. Though the numbers of hazards have decreased compared to the previous years but still the risk from such hazards can take a human life. The main hazards from the construction site are get hit by falling objects, transportation of hazardous materials, falling from top, greater workface in limited or restricted space, swollen body parts, electric shocks and others. The ways suggested in order to overcome the same are taking proactive actions, communicate with the people, giving training and make people recognized in front of others if they adhere to all the safety policies. I will also implement the suggestion highlighted in this session that is to reduce the occupancy injury rates by implementing effective management system and giving training to all the employees for utilizing the safety tools. I have also acquired the knowledge for obtaining safety and health aspects as an integral part of the business through the measures of proactive actions, communication, training and rewarding employees.
The second class is about products safety and I have learned that organization nowadays focused more on consumer protection, sustainable development and digital transformation. Howells and Weatherill (2017) stated that the importance of the products safety should be maintained in every sector. Ergonul (2013) furthermore depicted that in order to marinating the quality of the products, company do products testing, follow the standards and audit the value chain compliances and regulatory requirements. My reporting on regulation was limited to health and safety but now I have also gathered the knowledge that in order to ensure the health of the employees, maintaining the quality of the products is also important. I have also learned about the different type of hazards occurred from products which includes electrical hazard, radiation hazard, thermal hazard, chemical hazard and mechanical hazard.
The third session that I have attended is about the safety training in the hazardous industry. My knowledge was limited to giving the training for handling the equipments that is used for daily purpose. However, this session helped me to gather the knowledge about material handling training, industrial hygiene training, fall prevention training, ergonomics training, job safety analysis, fire safety training and training on forklift. I have learned the order of the training according to the priority. I am also maintaining a checklist to assure that all the existing safety measures is being followed in my company but in addition to that I am now more aware about some extra measures like training programs sponsored from other company, objectives for training topic, best format/delivery mode of the training system, measuring KPIs of the training.
The fourth session I have attended is about the gender specific challenges in the energy sector. It has been found that the existing challenges in the oil and gas industry are environmental problems, accommodation and physical strengths. I have also faced in my occupation that there are no female candidates opted for any post which is a result of perception. The traditional thinking is that women cannot perform technical jobs; they cannot go offshore and handle tough tasks. Thus, I can relate this session more with my present career. However, it is highlighted that females are recruited especially for the catering job and management of health and safety department.
The last session was about organizational hygiene. This module has helped me to follow the equipment maintenance at a regular interval of time. I can very well understand the importance of these regular evaluations. I have witnessed some deaths of employee due to slips and trips and there are many oil rigs explosion cases in other oil and gas sectors. The main reasons of such accidents are poor maintenance of the equipment and not using the modern technology. The regular clearing of the equipments are also important but in my industry it is done only for the new machineries but after some days management people started ignoring the maintenance. Thus, from now on I will ensure all the necessary aspects suggested in this session will be followed while preparing maintenance reports.
Conclusion
Thus, I can conclude that the overall experience of this session is an exciting and promising for me. This session helped me to assess what is required and what I have followed in my occupation regarding health and safety management. The skills of the employee mentioned in the session helped me to understand the importance of the giving training to the employees working in construction industry and oil and gas sector. Thus, I can say that the knowledge I possessed earlier and the knowledge that I gather through this session combined together will help me to prosper in my career.
Reference List
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Beus, J.M., McCord, M.A. and Zohar, D., 2016. Workplace safety: A review and research synthesis. Organizational psychology review, 6(4), pp.352-381.
Brosseau, L.M., Bejan, A., Parker, D.L., Skan, M. and Xi, M., 2014. Workplace safety and health programs, practices, and conditions in auto collision repair businesses. Journal of occupational and environmental hygiene, 11(6), pp.354-365.
Construction News., 2018. A man’s world: How can construction attract more women?. [online] Available at: https://www.constructionnews.co.uk/analysis/news-analysis/a-mans-world-how-can-construction-attract-more-women/8659470.article [Accessed 21 Jul 2018].
Curcuruto, M., Mearns, K.J. and Mariani, M.G., 2016. Proactive role-orientation toward workplace safety: Psychological dimensions, nomological network and external validity. Safety science, 87, pp.144-155.
Ergönül, B., 2013. Consumer awareness and perception to food safety: a consumer analysis. Food control, 32(2), pp.461-471.
Glendon, A.I., Clarke, S. and McKenna, E., 2016. Human safety and risk management. Crc Press.
Hale, A., Borys, D. and Adams, M., 2015. Safety regulation: the lessons of workplace safety rule management for managing the regulatory burden. Safety science, 71, pp.112-122.
Hofmann, D.A., Burke, M.J. and Zohar, D., 2017. 100 years of occupational safety research: From basic protections and work analysis to a multilevel view of workplace safety and risk. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), p.375.
Howells, G. and Weatherill, S., 2017. Consumer protection law. Routledge.
Ismail, Z., Doostdar, S. and Harun, Z., 2012. Factors influencing the implementation of a safety management system for construction sites. Safety science, 50(3), pp.418-423.
Khasawneh, A., 2014. Improving occupational health and workplace safety in Saudi Arabia. International J Development and Sustainability, 3(2), pp.261-7.
McKee, L.E., 2014. Women in American energy: De-feminizing poverty in the oil and gas industries. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 15(1), pp.167-178.
Nielsen, M.B., Skogstad, A., Matthiesen, S.B. and Einarsen, S., 2016. The importance of a multidimensional and temporal design in research on leadership and workplace safety. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(1), pp.142-155.
Schilling, R.S.F. ed., 2013. Occupational health practice. Butterworth-Heinemann.
Sousa, V., Almeida, N.M. and Dias, L.A., 2014. Risk-based management of occupational safety and health in the construction industry–Part 1: Background knowledge. Safety science, 66, pp.75-86.
Yoon, S.J., Lin, H.K., Chen, G., Yi, S., Choi, J. and Rui, Z., 2013. Effect of occupational health and safety management system on work-related accident rate and differences of occupational health and safety management system awareness between managers in South Korea’s construction industry. Safety and health at work, 4(4), pp.201-209.
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