WORKING WITH RISK: Employers play big role in fostering culture of safety
New Straits Times Online, 1 Sept 2013
ESTABLISHING a safe and healthy work environment requires fundamental changes in the way work is designed, personnel are deployed and how an organisation understands and acts on safety.
These changes require a leadership capable of transforming not just a physical environment, but also the beliefs and practices of those who create risk and work with risk.
Management can change the attitude of employees on safety and health by ensuring an annual budget for safety training to prevent work-related accidents and diseases. Accidents do not just happen; they can be prevented.
Although the industrial accident rate in the country has halved over the last 10 years, the challenge now is to foster an occupational safety and health (OSH) culture and strive towards an accident-free workplace.
An accident prevention regime, coupled with an OSH management strategy, should be adopted by all companies.
To achieve the promotion of safety and health at work and elsewhere, organisational measures for accident prevention, motivation and behavioural change must be adopted.
OSH sloganeering is not the answer. We must avoid a situation where behind all the OSH banners and signs, workplace hazards are not addressed and controlled.
Priorities change, but cultures stand the test of time. Safety must be a culture and core value at the workplace.
Certainly, managing OSH ensures business competitiveness, as well.
Employers must recognise the safety of employees as an integral part of business management.
Concerns about the bottom line and issues that relate to OSH at the workplace must be viewed with equal gravity.
