The health and safety policy of an organization exhibits the commitment of the management as well as workers towards safety and health. The lead aim of this policy is to reduce the health related risk and to ensure the welfare of all the people associated with the organization. It also ensures that whatever activities are happing within the organization, are happening, and conducting safely under legal compliance by an emlpoyer (Health & Safety Authority, 2018). In this context, it is the whole and sole responsibility of the management to provide and maintain a safe working environment and safe working systems to the employee.
Further, is is also the responsibility of an employer to provide information, supervision, and training to the associated people in order to ensure that there is no risk to their health within the organization. Similarly, it is the responsibility of the employees also to ensure their personal safety and good health at workplace in compliance to the reasonable manner prescribed by the employer such as wearing safety gears and safe working procedures. This essay will discuss about the development of health and safety policy in order to cop up with the legal requirements in addition to develop a secure working environment in the organisation.
Discussion
The tradition of health and safety regulation continues in the region from the last 150 years. The concept of health and safety at the workplace has been firstly introduced by Health and Safety at Work etc Act (HSW) in the year 1974 and further led by many of the amendments in the year 2008. The motive behind the development of this system is to provide a legal framework for health and safety regulation. An effective health and safety policy include four fundamental elements, which are a commitment of management and involvement of employees; analysis of worksite; hazard prevention and control and health and safety training (NI Businessinfo, 2018).
The commitment of management and involvement of employees are complementary to each other. On one side, management of an organization commits for managing all the activities safely in the organization whereas, on the other side, employees commit to develop their focus and involvement towards their health and safety. In this, manner a safe and healthy environment is a collective effort of employer and employee.
The worksite analysis includes a number of examinations of the workplace in order to identify not only the existing hazards but also the conditions and operations prone to risks and hazards. The effective management analyzes the working site to anticipate and prevent harmful incidents (British Council, 2018). The hazard prevention and control is triggered by a determination regarding the existence of a potential hazard. The hazards can also be prevented by effective designing of working site wherever possible. Responsibilities of all personnel regarding health and safety can easily be addressed through effective health and safety training. The level of complexity of training depends upon the size and complexity of the working site as well as the nature of hazards (HSE, 2011).
There should be a balance between the objectives and aims of a health and safety policy. Via implementation of Health and Safety policy, the relevant authorities remain committed to achieve certain objectives such as to provide a healthy and safe working environment along with health facilities and safe premises to all the associated people. The lead aim of the subjective policy is to create a working environment where significant working stresses can be reduced or eliminated with the help of effective staff development, human resources policies, and management practices.
The mentioned policy must ensure that all the associated people are aware of the assigned health and safety responsibilities and perform the same in an effective manner. (The British School of Lanzarote, 2018). It also strives to improve the performance of the organization continuously by measuring the progress against agreed performance standards and benchmarking. The organizations, on a timely basis, are advised to review, monitor, measure, and evaluate safety and health procedures. Further, the performance of the organization can be check and measured comparing with established standards to know that wherever the improvement is required (KZN Department of Health, 2018).
The active self-monitoring exhibits the effective functioning of the safety and health management system. In case of failure of controls, with the help of investigation of ill health incidents and accidents, (which could cause harms and danger to the organization as well as associated people), the reactive monitoring should find out the reason of failure. The focus and aim of active and reactive monitoring are to check the immediate reasons for substandard performance in addition to the identification of underlying causes. In addition to this, the other motive is to identify the implications for operation and design of health and safety management system (Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland, 2018).
The organization should review the effectiveness and success of the health and safety policy from time to time and should make efforts to improve the safety and health management system continuously. A systematic review of the performance should be there based on monitored data as well as independent audits of health and safety management system. It forms the grounds of compliance with the responsibilities of the organization under statutory provisions of the country (Hackitt, 2018). A strong commitment towards improvement including the development of policies, systems, and techniques of risk control is required.
The evaluation of the performance of the health and safety policy should be assessed to the key execution pointers (inner reference) and through outside comparison with the performance and work of other business competitors in addition to best practice in the sector of employment of the organization (HSE, 2018). As per the statutory provisions of the country, the employers of the organization possess greater responsibilities towards health and safety of all the people within the organization. In addition to this, the directors and Officers of an Undertaking also hold the responsibility to be proactive in managing the safety and health of the associated people positively (LSE, 2014).
However, the main challenge in legal compliance is the variances in the health and safety regulations among various states in the UK. In conjunction with this, certain areas of danger and risk are there which relates to work activity in direct as well as in an indirect manner and included under legislation other than the HSW Act. In this manner, they are not proceeded by the HSE. It includes aviation safety, environmental protection, railway, food safety marine and such others.
The HSW Act functions based on a principle that those who create risks for the employees while performing work-related activities, will be responsible to control the same. The Act, as well as the associated legislation, imposes specific responsibilities and duties on the employers, employees, manufacturers, suppliers, designers and importers, licensees and landlords and all those associated with the performance of activities, equipment as well as premises.
There is a legal responsibility of the employers to ensure the health and safety of all the associated people including employees, who might be exposed to risks and get affected in a negative manner by the same. Similarly, employees too held legally responsible to take reasonable care of their as well as others regarding health and safety. The HSW Act and other relevant regulations are beneficial for a clear description of fundamental duties and responsibilities in respect to the health and safety in the organization.
Majority of these duties are mentioned in the form of targets, objectives or goals which are required to be fulfilled in a reasonably practical manner or by exercising control or by taking appropriate steps. It assists in taking decisions and in making judgments regarding what else should be done to reduce or mitigate the risks or hazardous situations within the workplace. The concept of reasonable practicality refers to balance the level of danger against the measures which are required to control the risk from the point of view of money, suffering and time.
It is essential to adopt the control measures unless they are clearly inconsistent with the risk. The judgment is an essential element of risk assessment process, which is addressed through the published standards, established codes of practice, and HSE or other industry guidelines regarding health and safety, and it is essential to be achieved by the organization regardless of its size or financial strength.
Conclusion
The health and safety policy should be an essential component of every organization. It is the duty of every organization to frame health and safety policy to comply with legal and provisions and requirements of the country. It provides relaxation to the employer in case of legal responsibilities regarding the occurrence of risks or hazards within the workplace. However, to be legally binding, there should be explicit and clear policy and should be informed or communicated to all the associated people. All the associated people should be provided with sufficient training and information regarding health and safety policy prepared by the employer employees of the organization is responsible to follow the instructions and regulations regarding health and safety system religiously.
Along with the responsibility of the organization and relevant authorities, associated people are also responsible to be aware of the aspects of health and safety of others. Therefore, the commitment of management of the organization towards health and safety system and involvement of the employees are contemporary to each other for effective implementation of health and safety system.
References
British Council, 2018. Health and safety policy. [Online] Available at: https://www.britishcouncil.org/organisation/transparency/policies/health-and-safety [Accessed 9 November 2018].
Hackitt, J., 2018. A guide to health and safety regulation in Great Britain. [Online] Available at: https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/hse49.pdf [Accessed 9 November 2018].
Health & Safety Authority, 2018. Safety and Health Management System. [Online] Available at: https://www.hsa.ie/eng/Topics/Managing_Health_and_Safety/Safety_and_Health_Management_Systems/ [Accessed 9 November 2018].
Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland, 2018. Health and safety policy. [Online] Available at: https://www.hseni.gov.uk/articles/health-and-safety-policy [Accessed 9 November 2018].
HSE, 2011. Leadership and worker involvement toolkit. [Online] Available at: https://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/lwit/assets/downloads/health-and-safety-policy.pdf [Accessed 9 November 2018].
HSE, 2018. Writing a health and safety policy. [Online] Available at: https://www.hse.gov.uk/toolbox/managing/writing.htm [Accessed 9 November 2018].
KZN Department of Health, 2018. Elements of an Effective Health and Safety Program. [Online] Available at: https://www.kznhealth.gov.za/occhealth/effective.pdf [Accessed 9 November 2018].
LSE, 2014. Health and Safety Policy. [Online] Available at: https://www.lse.ac.uk/intranet/LSEServices/healthAndSafety/pdf/SafetyPolicy.pdf [Accessed 9 November 2018].
NI Businessinfo, 2018. Write a health and safety policy for your business. [Online] Available at: https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/implementing-your-health-and-safety-policy [Accessed 9 November 2018].
The British School of Lanzarote, 2018. Health & Safety Policy. [Online] Available at: https://thebritishschoollanzarote.es/Health%20and%20Safety%20Policy.pdf [Accessed 9 November 2018].
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