The workplace hazardous materials information system whmis
Ensuring Helth and Safety at the Workplace
Those who suffer (from work-related injuries) include not only the injured worker but his/her family and friends as well. Also, the impact of work injuries on human productivity researches well beyond the workplace and includes a worker's ability to contribute to family and community.
Each province as well as the federal jurisdiction has detailed legislation addressing health and safety, and most employers and employees are governed by provincial legislation. At a federal level, the Canada Labour Code (Part II) details elements of and industrial safety program and provides for regulations to deal with various types of occupational safety problems. The code establishes three fundamental employee rights (1) the right to know about hazard in the workplace, (2) the right to participate in correcting those hazards, and (3) the right to refuse dangerous work.
A key element of health and safety laws is the workplace health and safety committee, which is usually required in every workplace with 20 or more employees. Some of the powers and duties are (1) meeting at least 9 times a year, at regular intervals and during regular work hours, (2) considering and expeditiously disposing of health and safety complaints, (3) participating in all of the inquires, investigations, studies, and inspections pertaining to employee health and safety, (4) ensuring that adequate records are kept on workplace accidents, injuries, and health hazards, (5) participating in implementation of changes that might affect occupational health and safety, and (6) inspecting each month, all or part of the workplace, so that every part of the workplace is inspected at least once a year.
The administration of safety programs comes mainly under provincial jurisdiction. Each province has legislated specific programs for the various industries and occupations within it.
Safety Enforcement:
It should be emphasized that legal requirements must been seen as a minimum requirement for employers. A major purpose of occupational health and safety laws is to prevent injuries from happening. Historically it was believed that the responsibility for health and safety rested primarily with the employee. However, this view has changed. A number of jurisdictions have legislation requiring the establishment of joint health and safety committees or health and safety representatives. The requirement of establishing a committee varies among provinces.
No law by itself can make a workplace safe. It's far more effective – and less costly in the long run – if the responsibility becomes a concern for everyone, top management, supervisors, and employees. Many organizations neglect safety issues when designing operations programs. A comprehensive safety orientation program will address several issues. It's important that employees understand the various issues and know how to respond in a crisis situation.
Supervisors – as part of their management training, supervisors must become proficient in managing safety, which means knowing about health and safety laws, safety regulations, training in observing safety violations, and learning communication skills to convey the necessary information to employees. An issue that supervisors may have to deal with, but feel uncomfortable about, involves an employee's right to refuse unsafe work. It's important that the supervisor knows the provincial legislation relating to work refusals and recognizes the importance of taking every work refusal seriously.
Employees – while employers are responsible for providing a safe work environment, and supervisors are responsible for safety of their people in the workplace, employees are responsible for working safely. Employees must be trained to understand safety rules and how to operate equipment safely. It's also
Health and Safety Audit – some of these audits are voluntary and others are as result of being targeted by government health and safety officials. While they vary, they may include a review of employer's occupational health and safety documentation, a tour of the workplace, and interviews (or surveys) of front-line employees, supervisors, and senior management. Failing to complying may be a risk, consequently, a growing number of employers are being more proactive, and rather waiting for a provincial audit, they are either conducting internal audits or hiring consultants to assess the heath and safety system.
Neal and Griffin outline eight dimensions of a safety climate. In the organizational level (1) management commitment to safety, (2) HR management practices, (3) safety systems. On a local or group level (1) supervisor support for safety, (2) internal group processes, (3) boundary management, (4) risk, and (5) work pressure. The importance of top management commitment is critical.
The actual experience or the perceived threat of a corporate takeover, manager downsizing, or plan closing, can lead to a variety of symptoms of stress that can harm employees' job performance. These symptoms involve both mental and physical health. Persons who are stressed may become nervous, easily provoked to anger, and chronically worried about things.
Although there has been a lot of effort aimed at protecting employees from physical harm at work, experts are now calling for greater attention to phycological safety at work.
Stress and Job Performance – It can be either helpful or harmful to job performance. Where there is no stress, job challenges are absent and perform tends to be low. As stress increases, performance tends to increase because stress helps a
person call up resources to meet job requirements. Eventually it reaches a plateau that represents approximately a person's top day-to-day performance capability. At this point, additional stress tends to produce no more improvement. If stress become too great, performance begins to decline because stress interferes with it. An employee loses the ability to cope, becomes unable to make decisions, and is erratic in behaviour.
Mental Health - It's estimated that mental health problems and illnesses costs the Canadian economy more than 50 billion/year and 6 billion annually for lost productivity resulting from related absenteeism. HR professionals may need to develop a greater understanding of mental illness issues and diagnoses.
Fitness and Employee Wellness Programs – Fitness, wellness and lifestyle programs have become quite popular in organizations and have been shown to have a positive impact on reducing stress and absenteeism and increasing productivity. While most evaluations have come from large American corporations, with comprehensive programs, the evidence indicates that such programs (1) improve employee health, (2) decrease health care costs, (3) improve job satisfaction, (4) decrease absenteeism and turnover, (5) improve corporate image, and (6) reduce disability claims.
Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) - is used to describe situations in which employees experience actuate health and comfort effects that appear to be linked to the length of time spent in a building, but no specific illness or cause can be identified. The term is used when symptoms of diagnosable illness are identified and are related attributed directly to airborne contaminants in a building.
Workplace Violence – One area of safety management that has been neglected to some extent concerns workplace violence. In this era of restructuring and productivity improvement, there have been a number of accounts of terminated employees returning to the workplace and injuring or killing other employees. With the growth of internet and social media, one of the most recent threats at the workplace involves "cyberstalking" which is the use of electronic communication to harass or threaten another individual.
Occupational Health and Safety Strategy
Top management's involvement in setting health and safety policies is essential, clearly assigning responsibilities for plant safety and health programs to ensure that the company's policies are carried out, and an occupational health and safety committee with enforcement authority is very helpful.
