Question

How might you use exploration using internal sources if you were a human resources officer or a supervising manager trying to increase compliance with safety policies?

Research usually begins by asking a broad question. Use your imagination, and your work experience, to understand why someone in management would be concerned with safety training. Where would you begin to formulate a response? What kind of company information might you look for? What kind of obstacles could you imagine to a safety training program?

Answer 1

To explore compliance with safety policies in the organization with internal sources, these following areas are probed and related documents are assessed. To find the safety followed in work areas, data and records will be assessed and observation will be conducted. Employees and managers are asked to provide information regarding safety practices to gain insights about compliance with safety. A management person should be concerned with safety training because compliance with safety considers various areas and these areas are elaborated in the following section. Safety training is very important to comply with guidelines of government for safe workplace and avoid litigation from employees and government. Thus a manager is required to implement safety training to protect health of workers and avoid litigations. I will formulate a response in areas where lack of safety standard is found such as in health and safety of workers, use of protective equipments, disposing of hazardous materials and their management, and in general work environment. Information that I seek from company is from these following areas.

I will ask company to provide information about surface of working and walking facilities, placing signage of warning in hazardous places, functioning of emergency telephone numbers, exposure of employees towards harmful and hazardous materials, etc. I will also ask Form Company to provide Recordkeeping practices to know whether accidents are reported continuously or not. Medical records of employees will be assessed as well to ascertain compliance with safety. Training records of employees, as well as records related to lift and air pressure tanks will be checked. I will assess implications of health and safety program and person responsible to implement such program. Formation of safety committee and regular meetings between management and employees will also be checked to know safety compliance. Availability of first aid at workplace as well as medical services and available records will be assessed. Fire protection initiatives such as installation of fire alarm system and fire equipments availability will be checked. Organization whether using personal protective equipments at the workplace will also be checked. I will also assess general work environment such as clean workplace, orderly system, spilling on surface, slip and fall accidents to determine preparedness of workplace to avoid hazards and injuries to workers. Walkways will be checked to know whether they are clear and marked with warning signs or not. I will also check stairways to determine safety. Exit places whether they are illuminated and have exit sign and directions will be checked by observation and through internal records. I will ask employees and managers to provide data and feedback about management of confined spaces, and communication regarding hazards. Complaints of employees and records maintenance will also be checked to know whether a desired status to comply with safety is achieved by the organization or not. These areas consideration will help me to determine the level of compliance practiced by organization to enhance safety. I can find out any loopholes in managing these areas by assessment and provide recommendations to improve compliance with safety.

As far as issues in providing safety training are concerned, one big obstacle is attitude and work culture of organization. If careless attitude of employees is found towards safety and work culture also does not promote values for safety, offering safety training and realizing good results may be very difficult. Rigid approach of trainer to provide training and different perceptions of people attending training also acts as barrier for safety training. High costs associated with safety training are another barrier. Different topics covered in safety training make the training complex for trainees as well as time consuming. These obstacles need to be removed before offering safety training to the employees to realize optimum gain from training.