Bruke

Bruke (2011) state that safety and health at work involves emergent of policies and procedures that facilitate employees by averting them from being injured or ill owing to exposure in the workplace. Further clarifying, health refers to general state of well being including physical, emotional and mental well being. When considering safety, is where shielding the physical welfare of the worker from risks such as accidents which may occur from machinery, fire, diseases and other injuries while they are working. Accidents can be happened everywhere and anywhere, including workplace. There are around 2.3 millions death and 137 millions injuries are reported per year due to workplace accidents according to the findings. Why does safety and health have been enforced but there are still have accidents? What are the causes for such adversities? What are the effect of causes towards the workers?
80 of every 100 accidents that happen in the workplace are ultimately the fault of the person involved in the incident. One of the causes of accidents happened in workplace is shortcuts. Timothy C. Healey, director of safety at the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Co. in Hartford, CT said that most of the time, the shortcut is because somebody has the perception that they’re in a hurry for something. The phrase “shortcuts can cut life short” really appropriate to humans that are notoriously lazy and taking shortcuts is a rather common practice in all walks of life, not necessarily work alone. Lazy workers are not as effective and they are not as safe as their aware and focused counterparts. On top of this, lazy workers immediately become a direct threat to everyone around them. There needs to be a conscious effort each and every day in the workplace to make sure that these causes don’t happen. When workers take shortcuts at work, especially when they are working around dangerous machinery or lethal chemicals, they are only exposing themselves to a potential catastrophe. Simply put, shortcuts that are taken on the job are not actually shortcuts. They are simply increasing your risk of injury, or worse, death.
Besides, overconfidence is also one of the cause of accidents happened. Confidence is always a great thing to have, but there is also such a thing as too much confidence. When workers walk into work everyday with the attitude that, “It will never happen to me”, they are setting an attitude that leads to incorrect procedures, methods, and tools while working. Be confident, but remember that you are not invincible. Workers also always neglecting safety procedures. This is probably the worst thing that any employee at any level in the organization can do. Deliberately neglecting set safety procedures in the workplace doesn’t just endanger yourself, but it endangers the workers around you as well as the company as a whole. Casually following safety procedures doesn’t work either. You are paid to follow workplace safety procedures, not your own.
Furthermore, poor or lack of housekeeping. Whenever someone walks through your workplace, they can get a pretty good idea of your attitude towards workplace safety by just looking at how well you’ve kept up your area. Housekeeping is one of the most accurate indicators of the company’s attitude towards production, quality, and worker safety. A poorly kept up area leads to hazards and threats everywhere. Not only does good housekeeping lead to heightened safety, but it also sets a good standard for everyone else in the workplace to follow.
When accidents happened, it brings lots of effects towards employer and employee. For all the employees, each accident had personal consequences and they all endured pain and suffering to various degrees. Although the amount of pain suffered cannot be measured objectively, sixteen of the twenty employees suffered what can be described as very painful injuries. For ten employees the negative physical consequences of the accident are permanent. The amount of time off work provides an idea of the range of severity of the injuries. Two employees had no time off, ten employees had between one month and one year off work. Two employees had more than a year off work.
Over half the employees reported suffering anxiety and over half reported their close family and friends were affected; a quarter reported suffering depression. A multiplicity of psychological effects were reported with over half of these employees reporting two or more negative psychological consequences; five employees have received counselling. The overall impact of the accidents on the employees was high. Seventeen employees rated the overall impact of the accident as significant or large. Furthermore the impact of the accident was “felt” much more by the employee that by the employer. It was found that the employee had to bear the negative financial, physical and psychological consequences of the accident far more and for far longer, than his or her employer. In this sense, the moral imperative on the employer as well as his legal and financial obligations to prevent workplace accidents is clear.
The case study findings demonstrate that a wide range of negative costs and effects resulted from the accidents. In terms of financial costs to employers, the amounts varied greatly from RM0 to over RM18.47 million. Excluding the highest and lowest costs to arrive at twelve more “illustrative” case studies, the average cost per accident came to approximately €52,000. At the very least, the accidents resulted in production losses. Further losses included salary costs for replacement staff or overtime payments, retraining costs, personal injury claim compensation, repair bills medical & travel expenses and increased supervision. The largest cost employers encountered as a result of workplace accidents was salary costs which came to nearly half (45%) of total losses. For some of these employers, the costs are set to increase further due to personal injury claims.
In a conclusions, safety and healthy plays an important part in work environment. In order to carry out operations efficiently, organizations needs to make sure the safety and health of their employees. Hence the workplace ought to increase the welfare of employees and should be risk free.