Workplace Risk Control: Ensuring Safety and Health
**Risk Control Program**
**Fundamental Concepts**
Health: According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it is the state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being. Physical or organic health results from the proper functioning of the human body, which presupposes mental health, intellectual and emotional balance, and social well-being in the relational life of the individual.
Working Conditions: The body of factors in the work environment that act on the worker and result in behavior (conduct) and a series of consequences for the individual and the organization.
Risk Prevention: A set of activities aimed at preventing industrial accidents and occupational diseases. It is a technique that allows the recognition, evaluation, and control of environmental hazards that may cause accidents and/or diseases.
Industrial Safety: Its principal objective is to avoid or prevent accidents. Industrial Hygiene: To control and prevent diseases. Ergonomics: The study of biological and technological man-machine adaptation.
Incident: An unwanted event that could damage or impair the efficiency of business operations (may result in losses).
Any risk management system should prepare and dispose of:
- Organizational structure and job descriptions with the definition of responsibilities in matters of occupational health and safety.
- Internal and external regulatory documentation due for compliance, as well as the objectives set.
- Procedures and resources for the identification, evaluation, and reduction, to the extent reasonably possible, of risks in all activities and tasks, including production, maintenance, distribution, or others.
- Mechanisms for assessment, monitoring, and control activities to ensure the adequacy of the system, optimal evaluation, correction of existing deviations, and continuous improvement.
- Media and resources for communication, advocacy, education, and training to facilitate and ensure effective system implementation.
- Human, technical, and organizational resources to address and reduce the impact of potential adverse events that create emergencies.
- Human and organizational resources for personal health control.
The company recognizes that:
- Accidents directly threaten the physical integrity of workers and the material resources of the company, therefore reducing the efficiency of operations.
- All accidents occur because of identifiable and controllable causes.
- The causes of accidents are the same that also affect the production, quality, and cost of operations. Security is the result of a job well done.
Planning: Includes the description of the process by which objectives are set, methods to measure and assess them are established, and the necessary action is taken.
A systematic set of activities or measures in all phases of work for the company to avoid or reduce occupational hazards.
Factors Responsible for Occupational Safety and Health:
- Person: Possesses the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform a specific task.
- Environment: Includes equipment, tools, and machinery.
- Behavior: Meeting goals, training, recognition, and showing active interest.
Active Interest:
- Person: Trying to make the person feel better.
- Environment: Reorganization of resources for mutual benefit.
- Behavior: Influencing people in certain desired directions (feedback).
Reasons to deal with security:
- Statutory requirement: labor, Zip Health, Law 16744.
- To avoid losses caused by accidents, which injure the worker and damage machines and facilities.
- The company must meet the challenge of preventive management work.
Other Reasons: Moral duty, social responsibility, and economic coexistence for competitive advantage.
Risk Control Programs
Must align with the company policy, including diagnosis of the situation, defining objectives, allocating resources, assigning roles and responsibilities, and tracking and monitoring plan results.
The action plan consists of three stages:
- Analysis of the situation
- Definition of objectives and means
- Action Plan
Integrated Security Issues:
- Economic Objective: Minimizing the impact of occupational risk and impacts of all kinds on equity and dividends.
- Social Objective: Reducing the number and severity of worker injuries and minimizing the physical, mental, social, and human impacts.
Current Approaches to Risk Prevention in the Enterprise:
- Total Loss Control: An operational strategy, integrated into the normal management of the company, that allows for better protection and utilization of resources through efficient control of pure risks affecting people, property, and processes.
- Conditions or Quality of Life at Work: This includes updating the physical and mental fitness of the worker, rhythm, duration of the day, hours, job content, and even the organization of it.
Statistics and Evaluation of Accidents: Statistical analysis of the specific characteristics of accidents can provide useful information, with which a series of concrete actions within the program can be established, obtaining a meaningful assessment of its achievements in safety.
Management Audit: An instrument for checking measures and means developed in the form of a program, ultimately ensuring that the effort is truly effective for security within the company.
Who’s it done by: It can be addressed by the company’s own staff or outside services. External auditors are recommended to ensure the reliability of the outcome.
How often: Depends on the characteristics of the company and the evaluation program.
Who performs the audit: Based on the analysis of certain documents and information of a company’s internal operations, as well as the completion of a series of questionnaires, interviews, and visits to the premises of the workplace.
Risk Prevention Program
a) Diagnosis of the Situation: Accident statistics, management audits, hazard identification, risk assessment, risk mapping, and risk assessment methods for jobs.
b) Definition of Objectives: From the diagnosis, which is the starting point, the objectives should be realistic, achievable, clearly defined, with a deadline for implementation, and results-oriented (to know whether they were achieved).
c) Allocation of Means: The means allocated should respond to lowering the costs of accidents and take into account the degree of danger and the justification of the proposed actions.
d) Allocation of Functions and Responsibilities: The roles and responsibilities should be shared directly in the line of command of the company.
Characteristics of a Prevention Program
Must adjust to the peculiarities and/or realities of each company, surveying the following: standards, procedures, risk control, control of purchases of goods and services, education and training programs, information and participation, etc.
Education and Training: Human Factors in Risk Prevention
Training and safety education must be activities that accompany the human being throughout life and not just part of the work environment because it reduces the possibility of human error, resulting in positive behavior toward safety.
The Fundamental Objectives
The development of safety awareness, learning to overcome risk, and constant awareness of safety rules in all human activity.
Technical and Human Factor Elements
Risk, people, equipment, material, and environment. The first is the human factor, and the final three are technical elements. Any action on the key technical means, whatever it may be, involves the intervention and action of the human factor, as they are the ones who think, design, conduct, and implement the action.
Acting on the Technical Element
This type of action may answer the following questions: What? Who? How? and When?
What may relate to: Engineering, process, equipment, ergonomics, maintenance, inspection, etc. How: The type of action will depend on the kind of risk and the selected alternative solution, such as changing materials, machine control instrumentation and alarms, changing the frequency of inspection, etc. Who: Logically, actions correspond to the components of the technical department of the company or any external company or consultants. When: Depending on the valuation of risk and priorities, it might be immediate, short-term, or medium-term.
Acting on the Human Factor
A worker facing a situation not well known and without enough practice can easily make a mistake, believing they are acting properly.
Action on the human factor: This is due to a technical-scientific interdisciplinary field concerned with the capabilities and limitations of people in the design and use of equipment, machinery, systems, and media.
The main objective of this action: The optimization of work efficiency, taking into account capabilities and limitations in the following activities: assignment, design of the physical elements of the human-machine interface, process development, and staff training.
Human Error: In general, it can be considered to be because of: not knowing enough, not being able to, not wanting to, or believing that we are doing it correctly.
Therefore: It is necessary to change the behavior of workers through training and motivation. If they do not know, they need training. If they cannot, they need the means and training for their use. If they do not want to, they need reasons for understanding the importance of their mission, that is, awareness and motivation.