SAFETY, HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT

SAFETY AND ACCIDENTS

Safety refers to the absence of accidents. In other words safety refers to the
protection of workers from the danger of accidents.
An accident is an unexpected and undesirable event usually resulting in damage or
harm.
An incident is a form of accident that may not necessarily result in injury to people.
Typical incidents include a minor fire, flooding of warehouse etc.
Incidents hurt the image of the company and major cost has to be incurred to restore
public confidence in the firm .

Accidents

Partial

Internal

External

Major

Minor

Fatal

Disability

Temporary

Permanent
Total

Partial

Total

NEED FOR SAFETY

Cost Saving
Direct Costs: Compensation, Medical expenses
Indirect Costs: Down time of operators, slowed up production rate , reduction in efficiency

Increased Productivity: A safe plant allows the employees to devote more time
towards improving quality and quantity than worry about their own safety
Moral: Minimizing pain and suffering to worker and family especially when the
worker is the only bread-winner of the house
Legal: Strong laws covering occupational health and safety with severe penalties for
non compliance

ROLE OF HR IN OSH
Understand the health and safety responsibilities of employers, managers,
supervisors and employees within the organization.
Implement personnel management policies to ensure that everyone in the workplace
is aware of his/her responsibilities.
Ensure that employees fulfill their health and safety responsibilities as outlined in the
organizational policies and programs.

SAFETY PROGRAMME
Safety programme deals with the prevention of accidents and minimizing the resulting
loss and damage to people and property
The root cause of the accidents has to be traced
Potential hazards have to be identified and effective facilities have to be provided to
take prompt remedial action
Safety policies should be determined by top management with continuous
monitoring
The management and supervision should be made fully accountable for safety
performance
All employees should be given thorough training in safe methods of work

SAFETY PROCESS
Strategic Choices

Development of
Safety Policy

Organization for
Safety

Evaluation of
Effectiveness

Implementation
of the
Programme

Analysis of
Causes for
Accidents

STRATEGIC CHOICES
Managers must determine the level of protection for employees.
Managers can decide whether a safety programme will be formal or informal.
Managers can also be proactive or reactive in developing plans for employee safety.
Managers can decide to use the safety of workers as a marketing tool for the
organisation.

SAFETY POLICY
The policy must emphasize on the following fundamentals:
The safety of employees and the public
Safety will take precedence over expediency
Involvement of the major stakeholders in the development and implementation of
safety procedures
Safety regulations should be in accordance with the law.

ORGANIZATION FOR SAFETY

Companies constitute safety committees to eliminate safety and health hazards.
Safety specialists are hired who work along with the top management on employee
safety.
Risk management assesses all risks and takes necessary steps to avoid or reduce the
potential losses.

CAUSE ANALYSIS

Accidents are classified into two groups:

1. Human failure
2. Machine failure

The occurrence of an accident that results in an injury is largely preventable.

The employees should be provided training in safety.

IMPLEMENTATION
Procedures for reporting accidents, hazards, fire precautions, first aid.
Safety inspections.
Arrangement for checking new materials and machinery.
The maintenance of equipment and the provision of proper testing arrangements.

PROGRAMME EVALUATION
The effectiveness of the safety programme can be assessed through organic or
systemic measures.
The three major techniques used to measure organic safety effectiveness include
safety inspection, safety audit and comparison.
The systemic safety effectiveness is measured using the incidence ratio, frequency
ratio and the severity ratio.

CASE STUDY
JOHNSON AND JOHNSON'S HEALTH AND WELLNESS PROGRAM

INTRODUCTION
Johnson and Johnson (J&J) was conferred the Corporate Health Achievement Award
in 1998, for having the healthiest employees and workplace environment in the US.
In 2000, it received the Psychologically Healthy Workplace Award for its
commitment to workplace well-being.
J&J received these awards as a recognition of its continuous efforts in creating a
healthy work environment, under the Health and Wellness Program the company
introduced in 1995.

BACKGROUND
The US industry spent approximately $200 billion pa on employee health insurance
claims, on-site accidents, burn out and absenteeism, lower productivity and
decreased employee morale due to health problems.
Workplace stress was one of the main reasons for this high expenditure.
In the late 1990s, there was a rising awareness about the link between employees
health and organizations productivity, and more companies in the US started
offering health and wellness programs.

BACKGROUND
PepsiCo invested $2 million in a fitness centre and realized a return of 3 times the money
invested.
DuPont introduced a program Health Horizons and realized savings of 5 times the amount
invested.
Tenneco invested $11 million to start a fitness centre, and found that annual medical claims of
employees who participated in its program went down by half.
GE cut down its health care costs by 38% in one and a half years through its employee
wellness program.
As per a study conducted by an insurance company, the medical claims of employees who
participated in health programs was 70% less than that of non participants.

HEALTH AND WELLNESS PROGRAM (HWP)

J&J has laid emphasis on providing proper care for its employees right from its
inception.
As a part of its HWP, J&J conducted a health-risk assessment of its employees.
In its first year of implementation, only 26% of the employees opted for this assessment.
To encourage more participation, they offered a $500 discount on medical insurance
costs.
This plan worked well and they saw a jump in participation from 26% to 93% by 1999.

HEALTH AND WELLNESS PROGRAM (HWP)

The HWP included the following 4 parts:
Employee Assistance Programs
Disability Management
Ergonomics Injury Prevention Program
Safe Fleet Program

BENEFITS
To find the impact of HWP, MEDSTAT group was asked to carry out an independent
evaluation.
Their findings were as follows:
J&J enjoyed financial benefits to the tune of $8.5 million in the form of annual
savings in medical care costs of employees.
The company saved $225 per employee annually due to decrease in number of
hospital admissions and number of mental health problems.
They also enjoyed reduced absenteeism and increased productivity.

OTHER INITIATIVES
Health Surveillance Program for its US employees in certain hazardous
jobs, in 2001.
Launched a Health and Benefits website in 2001, which provided health
and wellness information to its employees.
Introduced an initiative Healthy People 2005, to improve health of its
employees in the US.
Began Culture of Health programs, and by the end of 2012, nine of the 12
programs had been fully deployed to more than 88 percent of the
employee population worldwide.

CASE STUDY
IBM EMPLOYEE WELL BEING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

EMPLOYEE WELL-BEING MANAGEMENT

SYSTEM
Total health management framework
Ensures proactive planning, execution excellence, measurement and continuous
improvement in all areas of employee health and well-being.
Employee Well Being and Product Safety
Planning, implementation, evaluation and review cycle that monitors and audits
well-being requirements and improvements objectives

GLOBAL WORKPLACE SAFETY

Moved beyond compliance
Best practices in health and safety management globally to ensure the prevention of
work-related injuries and illness for employees
For contractors working on IBM premises information provided regarding working
safely , reviewing potentially high risk work activities
OSHA Voluntary Protection Program official recognition of excellent safety and
health programs

GLOBAL HEALTHCARE STRATEGY

Global strategy for improving the health of IBMers, while keeping costs in check, has
four core elements:
Investing in prevention and primary care
Supporting health system reform
Developing programs for healthy lifestyles among the employees and their families
Scaling programs and services through web-based healthcare tools in ways that
enable employees to be informed, activated and engaged partners in healthcare

CASE STUDY
UNITED BISCUITS MANAGES STRESS SUCCESSFULLY USING MANAGEMENT
STANDARDS

WHY DID THEY DO IT?

To address the increase in reported stress cases during the period
2003-2005.
To introduce preventive measures to tackle work related stress with
a view to reducing litigation.
To take responsibility and care for the well-being of employees.

HOW DID THEY DO IT?

HOW DID THEY DO IT?

The Management Standards implementation
The HSE Indicator Tool
It was administered in two departments.
United Biscuits incorporated questions into their annual staff survey
It was done to address all six HSE identified risk factors - Demands, Control,
Support (managers & peers), Relations, Role and Change.

HOW DID THEY DO IT?

Action plans
Results were communicated to all United Biscuits staff
Action plans were discussed in employee liaison groups
This led to a simplification of data collection and regular team meetings with
managers.
In addition, in-house training on stress management was introduced for managers.

MAIN CHALLENGES
Persuading the company to accept stress as an important business
issue.
Ensuring that all line managers received training on managing
stress.
In hindsight, greater benefits would have been achieved if trade
unions representatives had been involved in the development of
the policy at the beginning of the process.

One of the main challenges was for the company to accept that
stress was important - it is now accepted as a business issue that can
be managed."
Clive Harker - Occupational Physician

SUCCESS
Led to increased awareness in those line managers who have received training.
Since 2005, there is a decrease in stress cases for which work was the most
significant cause.
Led to better defence in claims/tribunals.
Led to reduced absence costs for stress.
For each case where absence is prevented, it is estimated the cost of 4 weeks wages
and other associated costs is saved. For the three years since the policy was
introduced this represents about 40 weeks of absence.

REPORT CASES SINCE 2004-2007