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Protecting Safety and Health
The main purpose of this chapter is to explain how to prevent accidents at work. The main topics we cover include Employee Safety and Health: An Introduction, What Causes Accidents, How to Prevent Accidents, and Workplace Health Hazards: Problems and Remedies.
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2. Learning Objectives (1)
When you finish studying this chapter, you should be able to:
Discuss OSHA—What it is and how it operates
Describe the supervisor’s role in safety
Explain in detail three basic causes of accidents
When you finish studying this chapter, you should be able to:
Discuss OSHA—What it is and how it operates
Describe the supervisor’s role in safety
Explain in detail three basic causes of accidents
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

3. Learning Objectives (2)
Explain how to prevent accidents at work
Discuss major health problems at work and how employers remedy them
You also should be able to:
Explain how to prevent accidents at work
Discuss major health problems at work and how employers remedy them
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4. Employee Safety and Health: an Introduction
Why employee safety and health are important — Safety and accident prevention are a concern managers for several reasons, one of which is the staggering number of workplace accidents. The accident rate is falling, however in one recent year, 4,551 U.S. workers died in workplace incidents.
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5. Employee Safety and Health: an Introduction (1)
OSHA standards
OSHA record-keeping procedures
Inspections and citations
Voluntary consultation
The Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed and signed into law in 1970 to preserve the nation’s human resources by assuring as much as possible that every worker has safe and healthy working conditions.
OSHA operates under the “general duty clause” that each employer “shall furnish to each of his [or her] employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards.”
Under OSHA, employers with 11 or more employees must maintain records of, and report occupational injuries and occupational illnesses, which is any abnormal condition or disorder caused by exposure to environmental factors associated with employment.
Inspections and Citations are how OSHA enforces its standards. The agency has limited funds so it tries to encourage cooperative safety programs and apply “fair and effective” enforcement.
OSHA encourages voluntary consultation rather than rely strictly on inspections and citations.
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6. Employee Safety and Health: an Introduction (2)
Inspection priorities
The inspection
Penalties
Responsibilities and rights of employers and employees
Inspection Priorities — Inspections in order of priority are: 1) imminent danger situations; 2) catastrophes, fatalities, and accidents that have already occurred (employers must report within 48 hours); 3) valid employee complaints of alleged violation of standards; 4) periodic special-emphasis inspections aimed at high-hazard industries, occupations, or substances; and 5) random inspections and re-inspections.
The Inspection — An authorized employee representative can accompany the officer during the inspection, during which time the inspector can question workers about safety and health conditions. The inspector holds a closing conference with the employer’s representatives to discuss apparent violations for which OSHA may issue or recommend a citation and penalty.
Penalties — OSHA can impose penalties ranging from $5,000 up to $70,000 for willful or repeated serious violations, although in practice the penalties can be far higher.
Responsibilities and Rights of Employers and Employees — Employers are responsible for providing a hazard-free workplace, being familiar with mandatory OSHA standards, and examining workplace conditions to make sure they conform to applicable standards. Employers have the right to: seek advice and off-site consultation from OSHA, request and receive proper identification of the OSHA compliance officer before inspection, and be advised by the compliance officer of the reason for an inspection.
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What Causes Accidents?
Accidents occur for three main reasons: chance occurrences, unsafe working conditions, and unsafe acts by employees. Chance occurrences (e.g., getting hit by an automobile) contribute to accidents but are generally beyond management’s control; we will therefore focus on unsafe conditions and unsafe acts.
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What Causes Accidents?
Unsafe conditions
Other working condition–related causes of accidents
Unsafe acts
What traits characterize “accident-prone” people?
Unsafe Conditions and Other Work-Related Factors — Unsafe conditions are one main cause of accidents. These include improperly guarded or defective equipment, unsafe storage, improper illumination, and improper ventilation. There are three other work-related accident factors: the job itself, work schedules, and the psychological climate of the workplace.
Sometimes the workplace suffers from a toxic “safety climate;” in other words, from a set of mostly psychological factors that set the stage for employers to act unsafely.
Work schedules and fatigue also can affect accident rates.
Unsafe acts include throwing materials, operating or working at unsafe speeds, and lifting improperly.
What Traits Characterize “Accident-Prone” People? — Unfortunately, there are no easy or simplistic answers to the question of what causes unsafe acts. The consensus is that accident proneness is situational. Some accident repeaters are just unlucky, or may be more meticulous about reporting. Certain traits have been identified with accident proneness. There is evidence that people with specific traits may indeed be accident prone. For example, people who are impulsive, sensation seeking, extremely extroverted, and less conscientious (in terms of being less fastidious and dependable) are more likely to have accidents.
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9. How to Prevent Accidents
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10. How to Prevent Accidents (1)
Reduce unsafe conditions
Protecting vulnerable workers
Job hazard analysis
Operational safety reviews
Reducing Unsafe Conditions is always an employer’s first line of defense. Safety engineers should design jobs to remove hazards; additionally, supervisors and managers should help identify and remove potential hazards such as emergency stop devices, personal protective equipment and the like.
Protecting Vulnerable Workers — Employers need to pay special attention to vulnerable workers when designing safe environments. These include young workers, immigrant workers, aging workers, and women (much safety equipment, e.g., gloves, are designed in men’s sizes).
Job Hazard Analysis involves a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating hazards before they occur. The approach “focuses on the relationship between the worker, the task, the tools, and the work environment.” The questions to be asked are:
What can go wrong?
What are the consequences?
How could it happen?
What are other contributing factors?
Operational safety reviews are conducted by agencies to ascertain whether firms are complying with applicable safety laws and rules.
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11. How to Prevent Accidents (2)
Reducing unsafe acts
Use screening to reduce unsafe acts
Use posters
Provide safety training
Use incentives and positive reinforcement
Three caveats
Emphasize top-management commitment
Reducing Unsafe Acts — It’s the supervisor’s responsibility to set the tone so subordinates want to work safely. Misbehavior will short-circuit the best safety equipment and precautions.
Screening is one way to reduce unsafe acts. The basic aim is to isolate the trait that might predict accidents on the job in question, and then screen candidates for this trait.
Use Posters — Posters, combined with other techniques, have been successful at reducing workplace injuries.
Provide Safety Training — Such training is especially appropriate for new employees. OSHA has published two booklets: Training Requirements under OSHA and Teaching Safety and Health in the Workplace.
Use Incentives and Positive Reinforcement — Many employers stress positive reinforcement to improve safety. This segment discusses the experience of a wholesale bakery. The firm set and communicated a reasonable goal, trained the employees, then posted a graph with their pre-training safety record plotted and a list of safety rules. Observers walked through collecting safety data to provide workers with feedback on their safety performance as a form of positive reinforcement.
Three caveats:
Safety incentives are not substitutes for comprehensive programs.
Ensure your incentive program doesn’t encourage underreporting of accidents.
Such programs may have unforeseen consequences.
Emphasize Top-Management Commitment — Several companies cited beginning each morning briefing with safety first, then production. Top management was highly visible in communicating and supporting safety first.
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12. How to Prevent Accidents (3)
Supervisor’s role in safety
Culture
Policies
Loss control
Regular safety and health inspections
Safety awareness programs
Strategy and HR
The Supervisor’s Role in Safety — A daily walk through of your workplace, whether you are working inside or out-of-doors, is an essential part of every supervisor’s work.
Foster a Culture of Safety — A facility with a safety-oriented culture exhibits: an obvious management commitment, safety communications, a shared vision, assignment of critical safety functions to specific individuals and teams, and a continuous process of identifying and correcting workplace hazards .
The company’s written safety policy should emphasize that accident prevention is of the utmost importance at the firm.
Set specific loss control goals to be achieved.
Conduct Safety and Health Inspections Regularly on all premises for possible safety and health problems, using checklists as aids.
Safety awareness programs means that trained supervisors orient new workers regarding common safety hazards and simple prevention measures. The trend is moving away from safety being something a person has to do and making it a part of their life.
Strategy and HR — The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico clearly demonstrated a corporate strategy that emphasized cost-cutting and profits at the expense of human and environmental safety. Five years prior to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP was blamed for a huge blast at their Texas City, Texas oil refinery that ignored safety and emphasized cost-cutting and profits.
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13. Workplace Health Hazards: Problems and Remedies
Most workplace hazards aren’t obvious like unguarded equipment or slippery floors. Many are unseen hazards (like chemicals) that the company produces as part of its production processes. Other problems, like drug abuse, the employees may create for themselves.
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14. Workplace Health Hazards (1)
Chemicals and industrial hygiene
Asbestos exposure at work
Air quality
Alcoholism and substance abuse
Tools
Chemicals and Industrial Hygiene — OSHA standards list exposure limits for about 600 chemicals. Managing such hazards comes under the area of industrial hygiene and involves recognition, evaluation, and control.
OSHA standards require several actions with respect to asbestos. They require that companies monitor the air whenever an employer expects the level of asbestos to rise to one-half the allowable limit.
Air quality — “Green” office buildings create emissions from printers and other chemical pollutants that can dramatically impact air quality. The solution is to institute continuous monitoring systems.
Alcoholism and Substance Abuse are serious and widespread problems at work because they usually lead to declines in the quality and quantity of work.
Tools — Self-reporting screening instruments for alcoholism include the four-item CAGE and the 25-item MAST instruments. See Table 10-1.
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15. Workplace Health Hazards (2)
Dealing with substance abuse
The problems of job stress and burnout
Consequences
Reducing your own job stress
What the employer can do
Burnout
Depression
Dealing with Substance Abuse — Various techniques can be used to deal with these problems, which start with testing, and include: a drug-free workplace policy, supervisor training, employee education, employee assistance, and drug testing.
The Problem of Job Stress and Burnout can sometimes lead to problems such as alcoholism and drug abuse, which are problematic for the employee and employer. A variety of external environmental factors can lead to job stress. Personal factors also influence stress.
Consequences — Stress has serious consequences for the employer: diminished performance, increased absenteeism, turnover and grievances.
Reducing Your Own Job Stress can range from getting more sleep and eating better to negotiating with your boss for realistic deadlines on important projects to reducing the amount of trivia to which you give your attention. The three-step stress-reduction technique involves developing awareness; adjusting attitudes; and taking action. The HR department can take a positive role in reducing stress.
What the Employer Can Do — The employer can focus on primary prevention, which means ensuring that things like job designs and workflows are correct. They can also intervene by understanding the employees’ attitudes and sources of stress at work.
Burnout is the total depletion of physical and mental resources caused by excessive striving to reach an unrealistic work-related goal. Some suggestions for alleviating burnout include breaking your patterns; getting away from it all periodically; reassessing your goals in terms of their intrinsic worth; and thinking about your work.
Depression — One survey found that about two-thirds of large firms offered employee assistance programs covering depression. Training managers to recognize signs of depression and then making assistance more readily available can help.
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16. Workplace Health Hazards (3)
Infectious diseases
Workplace smoking
What you can and cannot do
Wellness programs
Computer monitor health problems and how to avoid them
Infectious Diseases — With many employees traveling to and from international destinations, monitoring and controlling infectious diseases is an important safety issue. Companies should closely monitor the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention travel alerts.
Workplace Smoking — The nature of the problem is serious for employees and employers. Smokers have significantly greater risk of occupational accidents and higher absenteeism rates than nonsmokers. They increase the cost of health and fire insurance.
What You Can and Cannot Do — Your actions depends on the state in which you are located, whether or not your firm is unionized, and the details of the situation. A Michigan firm gave employees warning, offered smoking cessation programs, and then fired those who still smoked, even in the privacy of their own homes.
Wellness Programs — Wellness is part of employers’ safety and health initiatives.
Computer Monitor Health Problems and How to Avoid Them — Short-term eye problems (like burning, itching, tearing, eyestrain, and eye soreness), backaches, and neck aches are common complaints among video display operators.
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17. Workplace Health Hazards (4)
Dealing with violence at work
Adopt a workplace violence policy
Heighten security measures
Improve employee screening
Steps to take
Use workplace violence training
Violence toward women at work
Dealing with Violence at Work — Violence against employees has become an enormous problem at work, including homicide and robbery.
Adopt a Workplace Violence Policy — Start with adopting a workplace violence policy that outlines unacceptable employee behavior and a zero-tolerance policy toward workplace violence.
Heightening Security Measures includes the following steps: improve external lighting; use drop safes to minimize cash on hand, and post signs noting that only a limited amount of cash is on hand; install silent alarms and surveillance cameras; increase the number of staff on duty; provide staff training in conflict resolution and nonviolent response; close establishments during high-risk hours late at night and early in the morning; and issue a weapons policy.
Steps to Take — Obtain a detailed employment application and solicit an applicant’s employment history, educational background, and references. There are several red flags listed to help the process such as unexplained employment gaps, a history of drug or alcohol abuse, and the like.
Use Workplace Violence Training — Supervisors can be trained to identify the clues that typify potentially violent employees.
Violence toward Women at Work — Although men have more fatal occupational injuries than women, the proportion of women who are victims of assault is much higher.
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18. Workplace Health Hazards (5)
Terrorism
Enterprise risk management
Setting up a basic security program
Terrorism — Protecting the organization and its employees from terrorism includes instituting policies to check mail carefully; identifying in advance a lean crisis organization that can temporarily run the organization; determining under what conditions you will close the company, what the shutdown process will be, and who can order it; instituting a process to put the crisis management team together; preparing evacuation plans; designating an employee who will communicate with families; identifying a staging area for evacuating employees; and, designating employees in advance who will conduct headcounts in the staging areas.
Enterprise Risk Management — Identifying security and other corporate risks falls within the domain of enterprise risk management, which means identifying risks, and planning to and actually mitigating these risks.
Setting Up a Basic Security Program — In its simplest terms, instituting a basic security program requires analyzing the current level of risk, and then installing mechanical, natural, and organizational security systems. Security programs often start with an analysis of the facility’s current level of risk. The employer then turns its attention to assessing and improving three basic sources of security: natural security, mechanical security, and organizational security.
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19. Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall
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