Procedures are not enough to prevent injuries or accidents in the workplace. The best way to improve health and safety is to properly engage engineer safety into production machinery and processes.
According to a new study from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, more than eight out of 10 workers (85%) rate workplace safety – first in importance among labour standards, even ahead of family and maternity leave – the minimum wage, paid sick days, overtime pay and the right to join a union.
Most organizations can appreciate the significance of minimizing incidents or accidents in the workplace. In order to reduce or even eliminate accidents in the workplace – companies must develop safety cultures, optimize management systems, provide legal compliance for machinery, equipment, and processes – and deliver behavioural safety change programs that begin at the management level of any organization and cover all employees.
Attitudes and behaviour right across an organization will strongly influence the importance placed on health and safety. The goal of developing a safety culture is to instil the qualities that motivate management and workers to strive and achieve safety excellence which can be developed only if everyone works together. Within a safety culture, safety must come first taking into consideration everyone involved.
In addition, workers’ attitudes are extremely important, especially those of young employees. According to information published by Youth Canada, the following statements are held true by young workers, although the reality is different.
In my opinion, the best way to improve health and safety in the workplace is to properly engineer safety into production machinery and processes – because procedures may not be enough to prevent accidents, especially among young workers.
We are in modern times – safeguarding of machinery and equipment have come a long way – so we can bring the future into our factories now, by engineering safety solutions. The technology to safeguard plant equipment and machinery exists today.
We just need to improve our cultural attitude towards health and safety. The interest is already there.
