Safety and risk management in workplace is important due to its effectiveness in terms of providing an appropriate working environment for workers. Based on the issues of different Australian organizations, this study has approached to bring a comparative analysis regarding health and safety provision of different organization as Criscon, Harris holdings and Kenoss Contractors. Breaching of health and safety regulations has made questions regarding responsibility of firms to their workers. It has overviewed in actual incidents with suggesting preventive measurement for ensuring health and safety of workers. A self-reflection has made with considering actual happenings in the selected case scenarios. Defining the process of controlling the adverse circumstances has suggested developing the safety risk managing measurements.
Kenoss Contractors is the Canberra construction company in given case scenario of workplace health and safety breach. As given in the scenario, load of material had delivered by a worker who was electrocuted. According to the magistrate, the venture had a poor corporate culture that is the main reason behind such an issue. Several consequences in this firm are not ethical according to safety regulation standard (Fang, Wu & Wu, 2015). For example, appointed safety officer in this firm is the son of general manager without having any standard qualification for safety management. Additionally, the firm tried to hinder the investigation related to the accident (abc.net.au, 2018).
The above mentioned incident is not the one as similar event has taken place again in the last month in Queensland Construction Company. Criscon is accused due to another death of worker at Brisbane’s Eagle Farm Racecourse. The worker became died by hitting down with a concrete slab. In this firm, there was no specific appointed person to maintain the health and safety roles at the time of construction. Additionally, two workers were playing the role of a safety coordinator. According to the type of this accident, it can be clearly said that those people were least careful about workers health and safety matters (news.com.au, 2018).
Harris Holdings is another example of workers died in the year 2017. Company and the director pleaded guilty as the venture was not properly maintaining the safety rules. Commencement of working with excavator was seriously harmful and risky whereas, there was no supervisor provided by the firm to look at and manage the work process (hcamag.com, 2018).
Based on the above incidents it can be suggested that working places, especially the risk oriented production, manufacturing and construction should be abided by strict rule and monitoring. In order to avoid these hazards, it is necessary to make employees involve in safety planning. In the viewpoint of Leveson (2015), if an employee’s concerns about own safety matters, it will automatically make the person to access safety measures as much as possible. Improper communication and misinterpretation often lead to serious health risks. Thus, it is important that all of the workers should have clear knowledge about workplace health and safety measures.
Creating a safe working environment is another important criterion to prevent injuries, death, and accidents. As suggested by Rodrigues, Coutinho & Cardoso (2015), employees should be active enough to compel the hierarchy about safety instructions and maintenance. It will be helpful to make people concerned about the management process of safety and risk avoidance. Employee’s performance is another criterion that is helpful to bring proper safety management in the workplace. Additionally, an appointment of safety management, as well as safety coordinator, should be done according to the qualification. In case of breaching such measures, a company should undergo serious health and safety breach with penalty and punishment (Li, Lu, Hsu, Gray & Huang, 2015).
In construction, production and manufacturing unit all pieces of machinery should be checked and monitored daily. In assuming any potential risk the area should be prohibited from employees. Additionally, it is necessary to provide risk management pieces of equipment in every place. Construction of workplace should be built according to the safety standard (Haas & Yorio, 2016).
An employee had given permission to conduct a party with huge number of invitees. In that party, the employee consumed large amount of alcohol and fell down from stairs. It had been interpreted as misconduct according to NSW workers compensation legislation. The commission in this case held that there was no connection between employee’s employment and the injury. Thus, employer (pcclawyers.com.au, 2018) cannot conduct it as a breach of safety duty.
As in the case of Canberra Construction Company, the worker Michael Booth electrocuted at the time when his tip truck touched low slung power lines on a work site. In this case the company found to be guilty as they had not followed the proper safety and risk management though there was high voltage power supply in the working area. It was guilty of safety breaches as there were no posters or signs of warning of attached flags and power lines. Under Workplace Health and safety Act category 2, failure to comply a health and safety duty or electrical safety that expose a person to risk of death, injury or illness. Such offenses will be prosecuted under Magistrates Court. In such case, the guilty may be punished with a penalty of $300,000 with 5 years imprisonment.
In the second issue of Criscon firm, a construction worker crushed to death by a concrete slab at Brisbane’s Eagle Farm Racecourse. In this case, Criscon pleaded guilty for failure to comply with the health and safety duty for the death. This company faced $3 million fine as there was no specific planning in this workplace. Major guilt, in this case, was that there was no proper responsible person to monitor on the work process. Under Category 1 of Health and safety act, serious breaches occur when a duty holder reckless engaging a person to risk of death (business.qld.gov.au, 2018). In the above mentioned incident, Criscon had committed same offence. Even after knowing the risk issues they reckless entrusted safety duty on two workers.
The case of Harris Holdings happened when an excavator used to sort waste moved backwards and it immediately caught the workers foot. The employees fall on the ground and died instantly within second. Responsible management had endangered the lives of employees without any risk sign or warning. They had not provided any supervisor who can instruct people about safety measures during working time.
There is number of different ideas and concepts that can be accessed to prevent health and safety. Additionally, workplace health and safety regulations are equally applicable to ensure the safety standard in Australian firms. Though all of the above measures have done correctly yet employees are not a bit less exposed to risks.
In order to mitigate such unlawful behavior of Australian firms, it is necessary to make employees concern enough about health and safety concept. As suggested by Favaro & Saleh (2015), employee education and awareness is the most helpful tool to bring considerable changes in workplace injuries and accidents. It is the right of every employee to maintain safety measures and they should demand it to the higher authority. On the other hand, Tsao, Hsieh & Chen (2017) said that, overwork, sleep deprivation and using of cell phones are among the major issues behind such accidents.
In order to avoid such practices, every employee should be clearly instructed about using and managing different equipments. Data and information must be filled up according to the workplace risks every week. Installation of security camera and early checking in every day can help to overcome the massive accidents (Zohar & Polachek, 2014).
Additionally, its defined in above two cases there was no supervisor or monitoring persons who can provide safety instructions to the employees. As opined by Ehlers, Lafortune, Tripakis & Vardi (2014), it is necessary to engage or appoint an actual safety instructor, manager or supervisor in order to avoid the issues related to accidents.
Falls, slips are very common incident in industries of construction, manufacturing department. Training employees with accurate safety procedures and periodical evaluation can assist to plan health and safety measures. Providing types of equipment such as safety shoes, safety goggles, mask, and gloves can reduce the chances of slips and falls.
As defined in the assessment criteria, the responsibility to control and manage the work system is based on safety rules. Being a safety manager and responsible person in the Canberra construction company, I will inquire the safety observer for such commencement. It is the responsibility of the safety observer to manage and instruct the people to follow the proper safety rules. As suggested by Qin, Feng & Zhu (2018), it is important to manage people with care and monitoring. Failing to observe the duty can provide serious impact on the employee’s health and management.
In the case of Criscon, as the duty breached by the company itself there was no place left to bring the fault of safety observation. In this case, the company itself had not provided a safety observer in the construction site. The same has happened in the Harris Holdings case, there was no person to be observed the situation. Being a safety coordinator I will bring the responsibility for such commencement on company itself. As they were least careful after knowing the issues and potential risks in these type of work.
Conclusion:
It can be concluded from the above study that safety and risk management are two major components in workplace of an organisation. Based on the Australian Workplace health and safety issues, the study has overviewed on the provision of safety breaching in different construction companies. The reported events took places in construction sites which indicate that ventures are least careful event after knowing the dangers, risks and health damage. In defining the actual events and proposed measures of preventing risks are helpful to provide the idea about workplace health and safety rules, there are brief comments over actual laws and regulations in accordance with breaching punishment, penalties and imprisonment. In the above mentioned cases, the study has brought some different ideas and concepts that may help the safety standard maintenance. Self reflection part is helpful to generate own idea about describing and controlling such events with own knowledge and risk prevention ability.
Reference:
Journals:
Ehlers, R., Lafortune, S., Tripakis, S., & Vardi, M. (2014). Bridging the gap between supervisory control and reactive synthesis: Case of full observation and centralized control. IFAC Proceedings Volumes, 47(2), 222-227. Retrieved from: https://excape.cis.upenn.edu/documents/gap-wodes14-final-published.pdf
Fang, D., Wu, C., & Wu, H. (2015). Impact of the supervisor on worker safety behavior in construction projects. Journal of Management in Engineering, 31(6), 04015001. Retrieved from: https://or.nsfc.gov.cn/bitstream/00001903-5/286894/1/1000014159383.pdf
Favaro, F. M., & Saleh, J. H. (2015, December). Temporal logic for system safety properties and hazard monitoring. In PSAM13 International Conference on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management. Retrieved from: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9f3b/45306a61e2df1ed17455fae7f0ac1b6e37a5.pdf
Leveson, N. (2015). A systems approach to risk management through leading safety indicators. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 136, 17-34. Retrieved from: https://dspace.mit.edu/openaccess-disseminate/1721.1/108601
Li, H., Lu, M., Hsu, S. C., Gray, M., & Huang, T. (2015). Proactive behavior-based safety management for construction safety improvement. Safety science, 75, 107-117. Retrieved from: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/84137/1/84137.pdf
Qin, L., Feng, S., & Zhu, H. (2018). Research on the technological architectural design of geological hazard monitoring and rescue-after-disaster system based on cloud computing and Internet of things. International Journal of System Assurance Engineering and Management, 1-12. Retrieved from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13198-017-0638-0
Rodrigues, F., Coutinho, A., & Cardoso, C. (2015). Correlation of causal factors that influence construction safety performance: a model. Work, 51(4), 721-730. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maria_Fernanda_Rodrigues/publication/300807553_Factors_that_influence_the_construction_safety_performance/links/5a3420680f7e9b10d842abf7/Factors-that-influence-the-construction-safety-performance.pdf
Tsao, M. L., Hsieh, C. J., & Chen, L. Y. (2017). THE ROLE OF MANAGEMENT COMMITMENT AND EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT IN SAFETY MANAGEMENT. International Journal of Organizational Innovation, 10(2). Retrieved from: https://www.ijoi-online.org/attachments/article/54/FINAL%20ISSUE%20VOL%2010%20NUM%202%20OCTOBER%202017%20-%20SECTION%20A.pdf#page=52
Zohar, D., & Polachek, T. (2014). Discourse-based intervention for modifying supervisory communication as leverage for safety climate and performance improvement: A randomized field study. Journal of applied psychology, 99(1), 113. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dov_Zohar/publication/255788042_Discourse-Based_Intervention_for_Modifying_Supervisory_Communication_as_Leverage_for_Safety_Climate_and_Performance_Improvement_A_Randomized_Field_Study/links/55bf62a108ae092e96663af4/Discourse-Based-Intervention-for-Modifying-Supervisory-Communication-as-Leverage-for-Safety-Climate-and-Performance-Improvement-A-Randomized-Field-Study.pdf
Online articles:
Haas, E. J., & Yorio, P. (2016). Exploring the state of health and safety management system performance measurement in mining organizations. Safety science [Online]83, 48-58. Retrieved on 1st October 2018 Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4725603
Websites:
business.qld.gov.au (2018) BUSINESS.QLD.GOV.AU Retrieved on 1st October 2018 Retrieved from: https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/whs/whs-laws/penalties
pcclawyers.com.au (2018). PCCLAWYERS.COM.AU Retrieved on 1st October 2018 Retrieved from:https://www.pcclawyers.com.au/workplace-health-safety/94-workers-compensation-for-injury-at-private-party
abc.net.au (2018). ABC.NET.AU Retrieved on 1st October 2018 Retrieved from: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-19/construction-company-fined-1-million-over-workplace-death/6708032
news.com.au (2018). NEWS.COM.AU Retrieved on 1st October 2018 Retrieved from: https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/qld-company-fined-405k-for-worker-deaths/news-story/b54dc67221b3f3969c0681b7fb620eae
hcamag.com (2018). HCAMAG.COM Retrieved on 1st October 2018 Retrieved from: https://www.hcamag.com/hr-news/company-fined-300000-over-death-of-employee-243573.aspx
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