SAFETY, HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT

SAFETY AND ACCIDENTS▪ Safety refers to the absence of accidents. In other words safety refers to the

protection of workers from the danger of accidents.

▪ An accident is an unexpected and undesirable event usually resulting in damage or harm.

▪ An incident is a form of accident that may not necessarily result in injury to people. Typical incidents include a minor fire, flooding of warehouse etc.

▪ Incidents hurt the image of the company and major cost has to be incurred to restore public confidence in the firm .

Accidents

Internal External

Major Minor

Fatal Disability

PermanentTemporary

TotalPartial Total Partial

NEED FOR SAFETY▪ Cost Saving▪ Direct Costs: Compensation, Medical expenses

▪ Indirect Costs: Down time of operators, slowed up production rate , reduction in efficiency

▪ Increased Productivity: A safe plant allows the employees to devote more time towards improving quality and quantity than worry about their own safety

▪ Moral: Minimizing pain and suffering to worker and family especially when the worker is the only bread-winner of the house

▪ Legal: Strong laws covering occupational health and safety with severe penalties for non compliance

ROLE OF HR IN OSH

▪ Understand the health and safety responsibilities of employers, managers,

supervisors and employees within the organization.

▪ Implement personnel management policies to ensure that everyone in the workplace

is aware of his/her responsibilities.

▪ Ensure that employees fulfill their health and safety responsibilities as outlined in

the organizational policies and programs.

SAFETY PROGRAMMESafety programme deals with the prevention of accidents and minimizing the resulting loss and damage to people and property

▪ The root cause of the accidents has to be traced

▪ Potential hazards have to be identified and effective facilities have to be provided to take prompt remedial action

▪ Safety policies should be determined by top management with continuous monitoring

▪ The management and supervision should be made fully accountable for safety performance

▪ All employees should be given thorough training in safe methods of work

Strategic ChoicesDevelopment of

Safety PolicyOrganization for

Safety

Evaluation of Effectiveness

Implementation of the

Programme

Analysis of Causes for Accidents

SAFETY PROCESS

STRATEGIC CHOICES

▪ Managers must determine the level of protection for employees.

▪ Managers can decide whether a safety programme will be formal or informal.

▪ Managers can also be proactive or reactive in developing plans for employee safety.

▪ Managers can decide to use the safety of workers as a marketing tool for the

organisation.

SAFETY POLICY

The policy must emphasize on the following fundamentals:

▪ The safety of employees and the public

▪ Safety will take precedence over expediency

▪ Involvement of the major stakeholders in the development and implementation of

safety procedures

▪ Safety regulations should be in accordance with the law.

ORGANIZATION FOR SAFETY

▪ Companies constitute safety committees to eliminate safety and health hazards.

▪ Safety specialists are hired who work along with the top management on employee

safety.

▪ Risk management assesses all risks and takes necessary steps to avoid or reduce the

potential losses.

CAUSE ANALYSIS▪ Accidents are classified into two groups:

1. Human failure

2. Machine failure

▪ The occurrence of an accident that results in an injury is largely preventable.

▪ The employees should be provided training in safety.

IMPLEMENTATION

▪ Procedures for reporting accidents, hazards, fire precautions, first aid.

▪ Safety inspections.

▪ Arrangement for checking new materials and machinery.

▪ The maintenance of equipment and the provision of proper testing arrangements.

PROGRAMME EVALUATION

▪ The effectiveness of the safety programme can be assessed through organic or

systemic measures.

▪ The three major techniques used to measure organic safety effectiveness include

safety inspection, safety audit and comparison.

▪ The systemic safety effectiveness is measured using the incidence ratio, frequency

ratio and the severity ratio.

CASE STUDYJOHNSON AND JOHNSON'S HEALTH AND WELLNESS PROGRAM

INTRODUCTION

▪ Johnson and Johnson (J&J) was conferred the “Corporate Health Achievement Award”

in 1998, for having the healthiest employees and workplace environment in the US.

▪ In 2000, it received the “Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award” for its

commitment to workplace well-being.

▪ J&J received these awards as a recognition of it’s continuous efforts in creating a

healthy work environment, under the “Health and Wellness Program” the company

introduced in 1995.

BACKGROUND

▪ The US industry spent approximately $200 billion pa on employee health insurance

claims, on-site accidents, burn out and absenteeism, lower productivity and

decreased employee morale due to health problems.

▪ Workplace stress was one of the main reasons for this high expenditure.

▪ In the late 1990’s, there was a rising awareness about the link between employee’s

health and organization’s productivity, and more companies in the US started

offering health and wellness programs.

BACKGROUND

▪ PepsiCo invested $2 million in a fitness centre and realized a return of 3 times the money

invested.

▪ DuPont introduced a program ‘Health Horizons’ and realized savings of 5 times the amount

invested.

▪ Tenneco invested $11 million to start a fitness centre, and found that annual medical claims of

employee’s who participated in it’s program went down by half.

▪ GE cut down it’s health care costs by 38% in one and a half years through its employee

wellness program.

▪ As per a study conducted by an insurance company, the medical claims of employees who

participated in health programs was 70% less than that of non participants.

HEALTH AND WELLNESS PROGRAM (HWP)

▪ J&J has laid emphasis on providing proper care for its employees right from it’s

inception.

▪ As a part of it’s HWP, J&J conducted a health-risk assessment of it’s employees.

▪ In it’s first year of implementation, only 26% of the employees opted for this assessment.

▪ To encourage more participation, they offered a $500 discount on medical insurance

costs.

▪ This plan worked well and they saw a jump in participation from 26% to 93% by 1999.

HEALTH AND WELLNESS PROGRAM (HWP)

▪ The HWP included the following 4 parts:

▪ Employee Assistance Programs

▪ Disability Management

▪ Ergonomics Injury Prevention Program

▪ Safe Fleet Program

BENEFITS

▪ To find the impact of HWP, MEDSTAT group was asked to carry out an independent

evaluation.

▪ Their findings were as follows:

▪ J&J enjoyed financial benefits to the tune of $8.5 million in the form of annual

savings in medical care costs of employees.

▪ The company saved $225 per employee annually due to decrease in number of

hospital admissions and number of mental health problems.

▪ They also enjoyed reduced absenteeism and increased productivity.

OTHER INITIATIVES

▪ Health Surveillance Program for it’s US employees in certain hazardous jobs, in 2001.

▪ Launched a ‘Health and Benefits’ website in 2001, which provided health and wellness

information to it’s employees.

▪ Introduced an initiative ‘Healthy People 2005’, to improve health of it’s employees in the US.

▪ Began ‘Culture of Health’ programs, and by the end of 2012, nine of the 12 programs had

been fully deployed to more than 88 percent of the employee population worldwide.

▪ Established Healthy Future 2015 goals.

CASE STUDYIBM EMPLOYEE WELL BEING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

EMPLOYEE WELL-BEING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

▪ “Total health management framework”

▪ Ensures proactive planning, execution excellence, measurement and continuous

improvement in all areas of employee health and well-being.

▪ Employee Well Being and Product Safety

▪ “Planning, implementation, evaluation and review “ cycle that monitors and audits

well-being requirements and improvements objectives

GLOBAL WORKPLACE SAFETY

▪ Moved “beyond compliance”

▪ Best practices in health and safety management globally to ensure the prevention of

work-related injuries and illness for employees

▪ For contractors working on IBM premises – information provided regarding

working safely , reviewing potentially high risk work activities

▪ OSHA Voluntary Protection Program – official recognition of excellent safety and

health programs

GLOBAL HEALTHCARE STRATEGY

Global strategy for improving the health of IBMers, while keeping costs in check, has

four core elements:

▪ Investing in prevention and primary care

▪ Supporting health system reform

▪ Developing programs for healthy lifestyles among the employees and their families

▪ Scaling programs and services through web-based healthcare tools in ways that

enable employees to be informed, activated and engaged partners in healthcare

CASE STUDYUNITED BISCUITS MANAGES STRESS SUCCESSFULLY USING MANAGEMENT STANDARDS

WHY DID THEY DO IT?▪ To address the increase in reported ‘stress’ cases during the period 2003-2005.

▪ To introduce preventive measures to tackle work related stress with a view to reducing litigation.

▪ To take responsibility and care for the well-being of employees.

HOW DID THEY DO IT?

HOW DID THEY DO IT?The Management Standards implementation

▪ The HSE Indicator Tool

▪ It was administered in two departments.

▪ United Biscuits incorporated questions into their annual staff survey

▪ It was done to address all six HSE identified risk factors - Demands, Control, Support (managers & peers), Relations, Role and Change.

HOW DID THEY DO IT?Action plans

▪ Results were communicated to all United Biscuits staff

▪ Action plans were discussed in employee liaison groups

▪ This led to a simplification of data collection and regular team meetings with managers.

▪ In addition, in-house training on stress management was introduced for managers.

MAIN CHALLENGES▪ Persuading the company to accept stress as an important business issue.

▪ Ensuring that all line managers received training on managing stress.

▪ In hindsight, greater benefits would have been achieved if trade unions representatives had been involved in the development of the policy at the beginning of the process.

“One of the main challenges was for the company to accept that stress was important - it is now accepted as a business issue that can be managed."

Clive Harker - Occupational Physician

SUCCESS▪ Led to increased awareness in those line managers who have received training.

▪ Since 2005, there is a decrease in “stress cases” for which work was the most significant cause.

▪ Led to better defence in claims/tribunals.

▪ Led to reduced absence costs for stress.

▪ For each case where absence is prevented, it is estimated the cost of 4 weeks wages and other associated costs is saved. For the three years since the policy was introduced this represents about 40 weeks of absence.

REPORT CASES SINCE 2004-2007