Development Of Health And Safety In The Workplace †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Development Of Health And Safety In The Workplace. Answer: Introduction Establishment of health and safety within the workplace is the basic requirement of each business organization. It is important for the organization to create a working environment where the health and safety of the employees will be valued, promoted and supported (Kossek et al. 2014). In order to ensure the health and safety in an organization, it is important to promote workplace health program, safety policies and bring environmental changes within this organization. To establish health and safety program in an organization changes in the organization and individuals behavior is crucial. It is important to increase the awareness among the individuals regarding the necessity of health and safety within the workplace. However, the establishment of a health culture in an organization can be achieved through changing the organizational structure, practices, and policies. Such organizational policies and practices need to align with the health and safety requirement of the employees. T his study deals with the individual and organizational changes to bring health and safety in the workplace. Critical evaluation of the approaches to organizational and individual change to promote health, safety and wellbeing performance in an organization Change is necessary to achieve some positive outcomes in an organization. In order to change the organization to promote health and safety implementation of the action model approach is beneficial. As commented by Edmondson et al. (2016), by following this model the human resource and health promotion professionals can work as a team. Such collaboration between thehuman resource management and the health promotion team is effective to maximize the performance of the well being as individuals can work together and share their idea. This approach also ensures the safety in a workplace. As criticized by Kim et al. (2016), understanding between the individuals is necessary while developing a collaborative work between the two departments otherwise; the organization may fail to meet the ultimate goal. Thus, for every organization, it is important to develop a clear understanding between the individuals while applying teamwork to maximize the performance of the wellbeing. Establishment of the new policy in an organization which meets the requirement of the international policy is effective to bring changes in an existing system. As for example, by following Occupational Health and Safety Act an organization is able to promote health and safety policy in their workplace. As for example, Singapore General Hospital follows such Act to ensure the workplace safety as well as the employees safety in the workplace. As argued by Kim et al. (2016), if the organization fails to comply with the legal norms while taking an approach to ensure workplace safety then it affects the entire operating process. Establishment of the education and training program to increase the awareness among the employees will be an effective approach to maximize the wellbeing performance. However, many organizations provide training to the employees to develop them professionally but the development of health safety-related training highlights the new change in an organization (McFadden et al. 2015). Such educational and training program helps the workplace parties to adopt the occupational health and safety policy. On the other hand, individual change refers to the role of the employees in an organization to bring changes. As for example, leaders of an organization play an important role in developing health and safety within the workplace. The leaders should be inspiring and confident. This type of leaders is able to increase the awareness among the employees regarding the importance of the safety in a workplace. Therefore, the senior level managers are involved in promoting health and safety at work ( Kossek et al. 2014). The managers can use their authority in order to comply with the occupational health and safety. This ensures the workplace safety. Individual change management to promote health and safety in workplace Individualchange management refers to the ability of a person to bring and manage the changes properly in an organization. However, individual changemanagement gives a primary framework to the people to give shape the changes in an organizational system (Cameron and Green 2015). Individual change allows an individual to go through a predictable path to an expected path. In an organization promotion of health and safety is vital, which can be done by maximizing the performance of the individuals. Managers of an organization play an important role in creating a positive health and safety culture by implementing change in an organization. However, senior managers of an organization are an integral part of promoting health and safety within the organization. Managers act as a media between the workforce and the board to manage the upward and downward communication to ensure the health and safety. Managers communicate with the health and safety executives and then share the information am ong the workforce. The managers are responsible to create a safety culture in the workplace. However, managers allocate resources and introduce training program to establish new changes and maximize the performance of the well being. As for example, in the Singapore Petroleum companymanagement has established a good monitoring and tracking process. They have reliable performance indicator to detect the hazards in the workplace (Spc.com.sg 2018). On the other hand, the managers recruit skilled staffs to work safely and identify any safety-related issues. Managers need to establish positive communication and staff engagement to give shape the organizational change. As for example, for the establishment of the no blame culture the managers have to show more concern to their staffs when things are genuinely going wrong. This insists the staffs to report any safety issue without any hesitation. This can be done through effective communication and staff engagement by the managers. As a result, the health and safety can be maintained along with increasing the performance of the individuals in an organization. Organizational change management to improve health, safety, and performance of the wellbeing Organizational change management refers to the management of the structural change and alternation of the existing business process. In order to achieve success and the business goal, organizational change management is necessary. Establishment of a safety culture or bringing changes in the existing safety culture is one kind of major organizational change (Kanaane et al. 2015). Vision, skill, action plan, resources, and value are the major components of the organizational change management. For an organization, it is important to develop a vision of what is the change and why the change is needed. Therefore, to maximize the performance of wellbeing skill is required. Skilled employees are also associated with the change management. In order to improve the safety in an organization allocation of the sufficient resources is required. To create a safety culture development of a positive value system is required. In order to bring changes in an organization, the change agents need to have a good knowledge of the current organizational culture. For a successful change management, the management needs to support the changes and empower the employees to involve in the change management process (Betancourt et al. 2017). A suitable communication strategy is required to establish safety culture in an organization. On the other hand, implementation of the new policy or legislation in the organization is crucial to manage change in an organizational safety process. According to the statistical data it has been found that in Singapore approx 9,261 people were injured in the workplace in 2006 (Mom.gov.sg 2018). Based on such injury rate different industries of Singapore have taken change management program to ensure their workplace safety. As for example, in Singapore General Hospital the authority has established workmens compensation program to ensure the occupational and workplace health and safety (Sgh.com.sg 2018). This program allows the employer to report all accidents regarding the workplace safety as well as an occupational disease to the ministry. As a result, the employees will get compensation for their any injury in the workplace. In order to manage such change in the safety program, Singapore General Hospital maintained a daily tracking process to record the workplace injury. They follow RIDDOR (Reporting Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations), which helps them to track the workplace injury. This change management is helpful for such organization to ensure health and safety in their organization. Discussion of the Prosci change management methodology Change management is essential for every organization to meet the organizational goal. Prosci change management methodology is focused on the individual change management in an organization. However, the prosci change management model is also known as ADKAR model and Prosci 3-phase model (Rosenbaum et al. 2018). It is important for any organization to understand how to bring changes in an organization along with the change of individuals. This process is called Prosci ADKAR model. Awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement are the five main components of ADKAR model. In order to implement a change in an organization, it is important to create awareness among the employees regarding the importance of such certain change. In the next step every staff of an organization needs to participate in the change management program. Therefore, in the next step, every employee needs to have sufficient knowledge how to implement and manage the change in an organization. Therefore eac h individual in an organization should be capable to utilize their skill to implement the new changes in an organization (Kazmi and Naarananoja 2017). Finally, reinforcement is necessary to sustain the change. As for example, Singapore General Hospital always focuses on the health and safety management in their workplace for this purpose they have established workmen's compensation planning. This is a new change in their organization. Hence, application of ADKAR prosci model will be beneficial for them to diagnose the gap and develop corrective actions to give shape this new change. On the other hand, this model allows the manager and supervisor to support this change through individual change management process. The 3-phase process of prosci methodology includes preparation for change, management the change and reinforcement of the change (Karambelkar and Bhattacharya 2017). However, it is crucial for an organization to develop a plan before implementing the change. Then after creating the plan managing of the change is crucial. For an organization, an effective communication is crucial to manage the change in an organization. This enhances the stakeholder engagement in the change management process. Therefore, the training plan is crucial in the change management as it makes the employees flexible with the new environment. Finally, it is important for an organization to take some activities to ensure that the implemented change is sustained. Health and Safety In order to maintain health and safety in the workplace, proactive approach and reactive approaches are used by the organizations. Proactive approach The proactive approach is a process through which an organization can eliminate their problems before these occur in the workplace. In the workplace proactive approach is used to maintain the safety by reducing the number of failures in a system (K?r?lmaz and Erol 2017). However, proactive approach has been taken to create a safety culture in the workplace. Due to lack of proper safety culture in the workplace workplace injury has been increasing rapidly. As per the statistical data in the year the rate of workplace injuries were 1, 2351 in the year 2015, which has increased to 1,3014 in the year 2016 (Wsh-institute.sg 2018). Thus, it is crucial for an organization to use the proactive approach to ensure the safety in an organization. However, by following the proactive approach an organization can take necessary activities to prevent the occurrence of workplace injury. It has been found that in the construction company the workplace injury rate is high. As per the statistical data in the year 2010 the injury rate was 58% and in the year 2015 and 2016 it was 41% and 36% in comparison to other industries. As for example, SEF Construction Pte Ltd is a popular construction company of Singapore. They have adopted the proactive approach to prevent any dangerous occurrence in their place of work. They have implemented in-house safety rules and regulations. Therefore, they carry out daily safety inspection under the guidance of workplace health and safety officer (Sef.sg 2018). This activity ensures their workplace safety approach. Reactive approach The reactive approach is a process, which is taken to mitigate a problem after it has taken place. In order to maintain a long-term safety management in an organization reactive approach is used by the organization. In the reactive maintenance process, quick action has been taken to ensure the safety of an organization. This approach allows an organization to resolve any issue quickly. Reactive approach more expensive in comparison to the proactive approach. The reactive approach has taken in the emergency situation as a result; an organization has to pay the additional cost to cure the damage (Rahmani 2017). Maximum organizations avoid reactive approach as it is costlier and a complex process. Discussion of strategies and approach Strategies should be taken by the organization to create a safety culture in the workplace. One of the major strategies to maintain the workplace safety is to communicate with the stakeholders regarding the safety. However, the organization should talk about the importance of the safety during the work at the employee level, supervisory level and management level (Loeppke et al. 2015). This will increase the awareness among the employees and the management takes the necessary step to maintain the safety. As for example, Singapore General Hospital follows effective communication process to share the health and safety information among the stakeholders. Establishment of health and safety training is a crucial strategy for every organization to develop a safety culture in the workplace. In order to provide safety training to the employees implementation of OSHA, training system is a good approach to ensure the safety in an organization (Loeppke et al. 2015). SEF Construction Pte Ltd focuses on the OSHA training approach to enhance the knowledge among the workers regarding their safety. This training program is an excellent health and safety training program. In order to ensure the workplace safety risk assessment is mandatory for every organization. Therefore, the management needs to encourage the workers to report any health and safety concern time to time. Therefore, implementation of the positive changes should be done to enhance the health and safety in the workplace. Participatory ergonomics on health promotion and health protection in the workplace Participatory ergonomics or PE is associated with health promotion and health protection in the workplace. In this process, the workers are involved to address their health concern. This process is supported by the multilevel steering committee (Yazdani et al. 2015). PE is a process to involve the people to control their own work activities and utilize the power of knowledge in promoting health awareness. PE reduces the failures and improves health outcomes in a workplace. This approach enhances the worker performance and safety in the workplace. This process allows an organization to employ a staff-centered approach. As for example, Singapore General Hospital follows PE and they have established a teamwork in order to share the safety-related knowledge among the employees. This is helpful for this organization to enhance the health promotion and protect the health of both internal and external stakeholders by undertaking healthy activities. Performance of wellbeing Change management is crucial to maximize the performance of the individuals in an organization. Many organizations offer reward and performance appraisal to the employees to improve their performance level (Loeppke et al. 2015). Singapore Petroleum Company includes the healthy activity of the employees as a part of their employee performance. They provide an award to the employees who are conscious about health and safety in the workplace. Therefore, they give performance appraisal to the employees those show healthy activities during their work. This approach is beneficial to enhance the performance of the wellbeing by influencing them to adopt healthy activities in the workplace. Conclusion The entire piece of work reveals the role of change management in promoting health and safety in the workplace. It is important for every organization to establish a safety culture in the workplace as health and safety is an integral part of the workplace. It is important for the organization to bring changes in the existing safety culture of the workplace. 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