Health and safety are workplace issues with considerable organizational and legal implications for HR and other managers. Naidoo and Wills (2000) identify a number of benefits to organizations from the promotion of health in the workplace:
1. 'Hard' benefits - such as improvements in productivity as a result of reduced sickness, absence and staff turnover.
2. 'Soft' benefits - including enhanced corporate image.
Changes away from large, labour-intensive manufacturing organizations towards more fragmented, technology-based industries have dramatically altered the nature of occupational health over the last few decades - in developed countries, at least. Boyd (2001) argues that health and safety (as a topic) occupies a somewhat rhetorical role in HRM literature. Boyd looked at HRM and the management of health and safety in the airline industry and found that airlines have adopted a short-term cost-cutting approach to both in response to increasingly competitive trading conditions. The focus has been on reducing operating costs, achieving immediate productivity gains and prioritising profit over employee health and safety.
The management of overall safety is governed by the Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP). In order to implement the campus Injury and Illness Prevention Program, each campus department or unit must have a written IIPP , and establish a safety plan with its own procedures, activities, and records.
Your department should also have an Emergency Action Plan.
Departments have different needs for their safety programs depending on the focus of the unit. As a supervisor, you need to be familiar with your department's programs. You are expected to know and understand safe work practices in your occupation. A comprehensive knowledge of job safety is as important as the ability to organize and carry out work assignments.
To arrange for safety training or consulation, contact your EH&S Department Safety Advisor (DSA).