Orientation And Alignment Essay

The assigned readings for Unit 2 (Chapters 2, 3 and 6) cover the effects of workplace accidents, accident theories, and workers’ compensation. In professional safety practice, the topics covered in this unit generally include a discussion of “safety metrics”. Measuring safety performance is a mixed bag of calculating and reviewing data associated with “lagging indicators” and “leading indicators”. By definition, lagging indicators are “output” oriented, easy to measure and calculate, but not improvable since they are measures of what already occurred (i.e., losses in the form of accidents, property damage, or loss of life). In contrast, leading indicators are “input” oriented and represent preventative measures taken to improve overall safety and reduce the occurrence of incidents and injuries.

|Explain how to create a safe and suitable environment for practitioners and clients | |Every organisation should have specific safety policies and plans tailored to their business and work environment, depending on| |what type of safety issues are relevant. By training all employees thoroughly in the safety policies, the organisation can | |ensure that an environment or situation is safe for all. Additionally, seeking the involvement of staff in drawing up plans or | |adding to them is an excellent way to obtain “buy in” and maintain compliance. | |When practitioners meet

Safety is an important function of our daily lives and requires the same attention we give other functions and processes within our daily job routines. Over the years as we continue to do our jobs and the same processes we can become less safe by using short cuts to make a process easier for ourselves. Also, the equipment we use begins to age and breakdown and cause unsafe conditions. Safety professionals use many different types of safety programs to combat safety related issues or problems one may encounter on a job site. Employee involvement is the most important part of any safety program. Without employee involvement safety programs are not as successful, because employees are sometimes not aware of the process and steps in place to protect them.

Safety culture is the enduring value and priority placed on worker and public safety by everyone in every group at every level of an organization. It refers to the extent to which individuals and groups will commit to personal responsibility for safety, act to preserve, enhance and communicate safety concerns, strive to actively learn, adapt and modify (both individual and organizational) behavior based on lessons learned from mistakes, and be rewarded in a manner consistent with these values (Wiegmann et al., 2002: 8)

Safety is the most important detail on any given work site. No matter what the task may be or the conditions of your surroundings, safety takes precedents. We need to consider that taking caution means knowing our routine, developing an action plan, using proper tools, understand personal and team limitations, and always pursue high awareness. We want to know our job inside and out so that we can prevent a bad day. We need to be proactive!

People engage in behavior to get reinforced. Just because one event works for one person doesn’t mean it will work for another. Many kinds of reinforcers influence people’s behavior.

Having a safety professional within the organization assist with the development of a health and safety protection plan, used by the organization, to create safety measures in conformity to standard guidelines OSHA. The criticality of strong safety leadership within an organization creates a circle for safety minimizing the possibilities of losses through health programs. This is to mean that when safety leadership is strong within the organization, output of staffs increases because they realize that their lives are held at high esteem. Subsequently, this leads to efficiency in their practice through the understanding created by the safety leader. Through this discussion, the focus will be on the advantages, of having a strongly, led safety department within an organization, and how it helps in the setting up of health programs to reduce losses.

Every day a person must wake up, get ready in a certain order, drive to work in a certain direction, and go to sleep in a certain position. People of every age begin habits every day, even when they do not know it. This is a routine which is difficult to break. But once a person breaks that routine, it could make the mind go crazy. The mind does wonders as to what steps a person will use when creating or abandoning a habit.

Subconscious practices in which the brain reacts and performs tasks without much thought is the clear definition of a habit. Each of us develops various habits throughout our life and it is the subconscious acts we incorporate into daily life over time, often due to their effectiveness at accomplishing particular tasks. While a habit is not categorized as positive or negative, it is the harmful actions that should be altered to ensure a more productive life. Charles Duhigg explains the theories behind habits in The Power of Habit and how we form them in order to save us from the trite tasks of everyday life. Due to constant methods of performing tasks or simple urges our brain connects the three factors cue, routine, and reward, to

A comprehensive safety culture present at all levels within an organization, with transparent and dependable leadership can make a significant contribution to the Defense-in-Depth principal. This can promote the vigilance necessary to recognize both the potential and/or actual safety issues as well as the dedication and communication required to address them.

First, there needs to be top management support, lead, and buy-in to enforce a safe and healthy work environment. Next, the front line workers need to emphasize the stress of protecting all individuals from hazards. Safety-first organizations can also be seen celebrating safety and health milestones resulting from such high expectations. In addition, a safety-first organization will also focus on customer safety as related to their products. The organization will also stress the importance of safety to the suppliers that help make the product. Informal rules of behaviour while employees are on the job will be seen from a safety-first culture. Finally, employee’s attitude and behaviours that promote safety and health reveal that the organization has achieved a safety-first culture.

Great strides towards a safe workplace environment have been made in the construction industry. Hinze (1997) assume that the written safety plans have the potential to be very effective, but companies ought to go ahead of the safety plan and build a suitable “safety culture”. The construction industry offers a thrilling and dynamic atmosphere. The flow of exclusive projects, the on-site operational environment, and the inventiveness and innovation required to solve one-off troubles require a creative approach to work which is seldom found elsewhere. The problem of safety culture - What is it and how do you become one? - is probably the main issue in modern thinking about safety (Turner and Pidgeon, 1997). Most attention has been paid to the issue of safety climate (Zohar, 1980), a concept easier to measure, but the underlying expectation is that the best and safest organizations have a safety culture, and safety climate which is an indirect measure of how close an organisation approximates to that.

We are creatures of habit. Whether they are good or bad, habits shape our actions and help us get through our days. As Charles Duhigg describes in his book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, habits “emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort.” They are routines that automate parts of our behavior. Habits can be so firmly ingrained into our neural networks that we aren’t actually conscious of them, and we don’t need to put much thought to follow through them.

Habits form by constant repetition over time. The more we repeat an action the easier it becomes to do and we are therefore

Peter Kiewit said, in 1965, “I cannot stress too strongly that a safety program in itself cannot save lives or prevent injury. In the final analysis, results are determined by the manner in which everyone carries out their assignments … I expect each of you to exercise a high degree of safety awareness. I expect each of you to recognize an unsafe condition quickly and correct it immediately. I hope you will never behave impulsively and without regard for your safety or the safety of others.”