Occupational Health And Safety

What Is Occupational Health And Safety

What is it about people, an office, or a work scenario that causes accidents or any other kind of occupational hazards? According to research general categories of causes resulting in fatal work injuries: ·Transportation-43% ·Assaults & violent acts-16% ·Contacts with objects-17% ·Falls-12% ·Exposure to harmful substances or environment-8% ·Fires-3% ·Other-1%

Some other factors identified are those relating to management style, human resource policies, operational procedures, and storage of supplies and merchandise. Therefore in today's world of professional growth, Occupational health and safety have become a key issue for human resource department of an organization. But the question arises what is occupational health & safety.

It is about preventing injury,illness and occupational stress to employees while at the workplace. Therefore, it's about protecting the organization's most valuable asset, its workers. By protecting the employees' health, the organizations reduce the amount of money paid out in health insurance benefits, workers' compensation benefits and the cost of wages for temporary help. Also factor in saving the cost of lost-work hours i.e. days away from work or restricted hours or job transfer, time spent in orienting temporary help, and the programs and services that may suffer due to fewer workers, stress on those worker who are picking up the absent workers' share or, worse case, having to suspend or shut down a program due to lack of workers. To make the workplace safer and healthier, the organizations have to acknowledge the potential health and safety hazards present and address them with full sincerity. It starts with analyzing individual workstations and program areas for hazards-the potential for harm.

Depending on the nature of the organization and its programs, senior management may have to help workers manage and fight against the specific occupational hazards associated with their tasks. These tasks maybe related to chemicals, electricity, ergonomics, noise, radiation and many more. Any workplace safety program which aims to reduce work-related injury and illness should be concerned with three main areas:

·promoting and rewarding safe practices at work ·reducing injuries and illnesses at work ·eliminating fatalities at work

To develop a motivational and really beneficial safety practice, job hazard analysis is a must. It is a technique that focuses on job tasks to identify hazards before they occur. It also examines the relationship between the worker, the task, the tools and the work environment. Workplace safety initiatives can be as simple as closing and locking the front door, closing drawers before walking away from the desk or file cabinet, knowing and using proper lifting techniques, providing adjustable workstations to accommodate differences in people's stature and weight to eliminate repetitive motion causing injury. Even these small practices, if universally adopted can be of great help.

Workplace safety programs are important to all the organizations small or big. The best way to make any such safety program a success People need to be engaged in with the creation and implementation of the program.