The term critical success factors or CSF refers to a typical set of factors which helps with fulfilling the demands and goals of an organization, a business or even teamwork. All the critical success factors are crucial to help a particular team or a particular business organization to decide for the certain area of matter they should put focus on and make a proper comparison of the progress in order to achieve the goals and objectives that might help the teams or organizations to reach out for the desired success (Naveed et al., 2017). These goals and objectives are most often called deliverables of the organization.
The topic discusses the health and safety management which can be achieved through various kinds of critical success factors in an organization. For any kind of small or large organization, the presence of a healthy and safe system is very much important to establish as well as maintain the culture of all kinds of safety parameters for the entire organization. Proper establishment of the set of health and safety management can be useful in minimizing all kinds of risks and provides protection for all kinds of unforeseeable accidents in a workplace. Reduction Of the harm and accidents can help in implementing the work culture, improve the production and lastly boost up the morale of the organization.
To make all these possible the presence of critical success factors are very necessary to achieve the same. There are various kinds of CSFs existing in an organization, among which three crucial ones: support of the management, communication and training and development will be discussed in the following with proper outline and justification for the better understanding. All kinds of secondary data will be collected from various research papers, journals to critically evaluate the CSFs for the health and safety management and how it affects the progress of the operation of the organization.
Outline of the Critical success factors of the health and safety management
There are several kinds of critical success factors such as workers participation for motivation and meetings, suitable supervision, allocation of the authority and many more, that are helping the organizations in achieving the goals and objectives for the future scope.
Figure 1: Critical success factors for the health and safety management in a workplace
(Source: https://www.researchgate.net)
Among those critical success factors, managerial support, communication and training-development will be evaluated in the following:
A manager is always responsible to guide and lead the employees of an organization to progress. Their decision making and analyzing skills help them to determine the certain set of factors that can be implied for the betterment of the process in an organization. Similarly, for the health and safety management, the managers play a huge role in monitoring risks and hazards that have potential to harm the employees. With the help of this, the managers can provide guidance advice; minimize the hazards which reduce the risks for the employee and the corporation as well.
Managers main support include proper allocation of the resources for the deliverance of safety management, make a formulation of all kinds of safety and security policies, and ensuring the safety from all kinds of management activities.
Communication is one of the most crucial foundations for any kind of small or large organization. It helps in keeping a good flow of information across the organization. Proper communication provides a space for problem solving, decision making and also avoids conflicts to enrich the work culture.
For the health and safety management, communication plays a vital role to help the employees to reach out to the managers and vice versa. By the help of the communication the employees can let each other and the hierarchy knows about the predicted and assumed risks. Organizations always need the right kind of communication for identification for health and safety measurement in the workplace (Chen et al., 2020). Thus, the managers can easily make proper decisions for the prevention of risks. As for the employees, they can always report to the managers about the hazards occurring on site or at the workplaces so that managers can perform proper measurements about the hazards and risks.
For any kind of small or large organization, the training and development is one of the processes that engages the employees in learning new skills or brushing up the skills they already have. In this way, they get to learn about new things and enhance their competencies to achieve the desired goals and objectives as well as work effectively in a team.
For the health and safety management, there is a huge importance of training and development which are equipped with all kinds of rules and regulations about safety management, organizational policies about the health and safety management of a workplace (osha.gov. 2022). Through the help of the training and development, the employees can also learn about the risks and hazards, and enhance skills for the implementation to mitigate the risks as well as policies. There are several steps and factors that can be included in the training and development program for the employees.
For every single operation in an organization, the managers are one of the most vital parts who not only plan but also execute the planning for the effective results which will benefit the organization. Among all the other operations, the health and safety management is also operated by some of the managers who decide about the actions, objectives that shall help the organizations in applying the effective safe workplaces for the employees and the workers (Otago.ac.nz. 2022). Regardless of the size or type of the organization, the main roles and responsibilities of the managers are to ensure that all the employees are working in a very safe environment, on the other hand increasing the productivity and employee engagement as well. For the effectiveness of the safe workplace environment, the immense support from the management to undertake the operations.
As a manager, it is their responsibility to be able to maintain a very safe place for the workers with fewer hazards. This is one of the most crucial success factors in a workplace that helps in improving the health and safety measurement in the work environment (Kannan, 2018). Analysis of the situation, predicting the foreseeable risks and hazards helps in making a unique system that can ensure the safety of the employees and thus it helps in increasing the productivity and the work culture. The safe and healthy work environment creates a strong positive motivation for better performances and leads to less absenteeism.
According to Banihashemi et al., 2017 for any kind of projects which are being undertaken by some of the project managers, it is necessary for them to be skillful and competent enough to conduct and lead the workers for the safe and secure working process. Apart from that they are also responsible to build up a great communication among the workers and management where they can share their concern about safety and play a huge role in problem solving processes (OSHCR. 2022). The managers with lack of skills and competencies often fail in understanding the necessity of proper communication, engaging the rules and regulations for the establishment of the workplace.
Figure 2: Roles of project managers in risk assessment
(Source: https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/59672)
Moeuf et al., 2020 stated about the certain factors that specify the roles and responsibilities that can be undertaken by the managers. One of the biggest management supports from the managers is their monitoring process for the health and safety risks as well as the hazards in any kind of workplace. They are also responsible for the advice which helps the employees to avoid all kinds of risks and hazards that can cause mental or physical harm to the employees. One of the main success factors of managerial support is the training and development (OSHCR. 2022). The skilled and competent managers play a huge role in managing by training all the members, monitoring their progress and taking initiative for the health as well as the safety standards in the workplace.
The high degree of the health and safety management and its effectiveness ultimately depends on the managers in every small or large size company or industry (researchgate.net. 2022). From the construction sites to agricultural industries, with the help of the managers the workers can manage emergency situations, learn about the steps to mitigate the risks and be always prepared for the unforeseeable hazards to prevent the massive accidents while conducting tasks (Zaman et al., 2022). Regardless of the genre of the industry, all the roles and responsibilities are similar for all the health and safety managers to maintain the safety in the workplaces.
Communication is a very healthy practice and one of the most critical components to make leadership successful. In most of the cases, communication helps the managers to lead and manage small and large groups of people or networks (Workplacesafetynorth.ca. 2022.). One small wrong step in the communication can lead to misunderstanding or ignorance of various kinds of effective communication in the network and team. For proper employee management, it is very necessary to have effective communication that helps in high employee engagement (Newnam and Goode, 2019). This employee engagement enables the team effectiveness and the collaboration for the desired achievement.
As for the safety culture and the health management in a workplace, the effective employee engagement shares the value and motive to mitigate all the risks and hazards. This can only be possible if everyone from the workplace and the layers of management are united for the same value and contribute their best in maintaining the high value for health and safety management in a workplace (Health & Safety Training Ltd. 2022). Previously due to poor safety practices, lack of attention for the health management has been the main reason behind all the failure in safety and health management which caused severe risk to bad safety and health.
Communication always helps for being the main key of effective health and safety management in a workplace. Through the application of effective communication, the managers can ensure the roles and directions are properly understood, the flow of information is properly followed and employees are properly following the safe culture (Gianfredi et al., 2018). In any kind of workplaces from different industries, there is always a need for a good communication process to warn against the danger, to avoid all kinds of dangers and to train the employees for the unforeseeable dangers hazards.
According to Mohammad et al. 2017 to achieve a huge success in the health and safety management, communication is one of the most crucial components that helps the managers to deliver instructions, understand the risks and problems about the site or the tasks, or to make proper decisions about the implementation for the health and safety management.
In every organization, there is a safety and health management which is constantly working for the organization in order to mitigate the risks and maintain the health and safety protocols in order to keep harmony within the organization. For the managers of an organization, communication helps with the decision making process and problem solving as well. This communication helps in gathering all kinds of information about the risks and hazards that are occurring in every layer of the organization (Pereira et al., 2020). As for the safety protocols and rules, the communication and flow of information helps in informing all the employees about the same.
On several occasions, any organization needs the help of communication to put forward all the operations to achieve a certain set of desired goals and objectives. In general the term “health and safety” management at any workplace defines a simple means of having an objective to reduce the higher chances of all kinds of accidents that might occur while pursuing tasks or operations. This reduction helps the organizations to provide utmost safety to the employees or the workers and maintain a good work culture with less number of risks or hazards in the organization (Health & Safety Training Ltd. 2022). To achieve a particular operation or even a safe workplace, where the risks about mental and physical health and hazard will be less, the managers try their best to brainstorm and come up with detailed plans, health and safety policies which will be undertaken by the organization (Vrchota et al., 2020). From construction sites to business entrepreneurship, each and every sector has their own objectives such as “decrease the workplace risk by 10%” or to “to establish a good work culture within 3 months by reducing the accidents”. These objectives require plans to make them more effective and fruitful for the workplace. However, for the same the managers require effective communication for the demonstration of the objectives and the motive. Here communication in both formal and informal ways helps the managers to deliver the planning and help the co workers understand about the same to make it work and establish a safe workplace (Alqahtani and Rajkhan, 2020). On the other hand, with the help of communication in both formal and informal ways the workers can always inform their supervisors about their unsafe working areas or the task they have been assigned to. In this, the organization can be engaged in the decision making and problem solving process for the emergency services or the mitigation of the risks.
There are several tools and techniques that are used for the training purposes in order to help the managers with the prevention of the risks and help in increasing the productivity of the organization (Hse.gov.uk. 2022). Apart from this, the training and development program helps in providing education about the risks or hazards that might occur in any kind of operation in the business sector.
Education and training provides the employees with the following skills and techniques that are necessary for any kind of organization.
However, the additional training for the health and safety measurement are the major and critical success factors in an organization that can only be possible by the help of effective leadership of the managers which has been previously discussed. The enormous support from the manager’s side and the proper establishment of the communication helps in providing the effective training and understanding where the employees are lacking in skills.
According to the authors, Udo, Usip and Asuquo, 2016 the construction industry is one of the most risky areas for the workers where the workers can have severe health issues. The main causes of the hazards come from physical, mechanical, electrical and chemical. In the research paper the author has specified the causes of the injuries are from human and physical factors from the construction site. The main or the leading problems are from the lack of training and educational development among the employees. The lack of knowledge about the first aid, no trained skills about the equipment, or the improper safety management that are taking place in the construction sites. So it can be easily observed that for a successful health and safety management at the construction sites, it is very important to train the workers and make them aware about the health and safety such as proper usage of PPE or training about the first aid that might reduce the health risk of the workers.
According to the author, Ammad et al., 2020 the research on Great Britain accident has been categorized into different sections which clearly shows the fatal injuries that have occurred to the workers. Among all 38% was because of the construction, and 29% for the agricultural risks. The rest of the categories were related to manufacturing, waste and other. The data easily described the lack of health and safety management.
Figure 3: Injuries faced by the workers in Great britain by the main industry
(Source: https://www.researchgate.net)
The lack in the training about the tools and techniques that is necessary for the risk prone workplaces are the reason behind all kinds of mental and physical hazards to the workers (Li, Ning. and Chen, 2018). Proper identification of the risks about the lack of knowledge or the usage of PPE is proven as the effective solution for the establishment of the health and safety management.
The training and development for the health and safety management can include the followings such as emergency procedures comprising the first aid and evacuation process, making proper reports for the injuries and the unsafe practices as well. With the help of these measurements, a proper and healthy workplace can be promoted by following all the possible guidelines for the risk and safety measurement (Aquilani et al., 2017). From agriculture, transportation or construction each of the workplaces and the organization should be helping the workers with the deep and thorough knowledge about risk and safety under the supervision of potential managers. Communication and managerial support would play a vital role in training development to make it more effective for the workers.
Conclusion
The entire report has attempted to learn and identify the critical success factors for the health and safety management in a workplace which helps in ensuring the reduction of risks and hazards for the employees. The discussion mainly focused on the three among all the critical success factors that are always practiced for the betterment of the safe work environment. While reviewing the papers and the online articles, it was misunderstood that almost every single organization regardless of their genre of the industry or organization type, there is always a high tendency of risks for an employee’s mental and physical health. The main reason behind the rise of accidents or mental hazards are the lack of support and training about the regulations as well as the lack of awareness about the safety measurements for the job profiles, the allocated tasks or even from the entire work culture. Although the three CSF por critical success factors: managerial support, communication factors and training-development enables the space for the organization to educate and train the workers about the safe and healthy management process along with minimizing all sorts of occupational risks. The report has comprised all the aspects of these three critical success factors that make an organization successful in achieving a good risk management.
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