Develop a strong safety culture at workplace

TAN SRI LEE LAM THYE

NIOSH Chairman

TheStar Online

Published: Saturday June 6, 2015 MYT 12:00:00 AM 

Updated: Saturday June 6, 2015 MYT 8:02:47 AM

I AM in Seoul, Korea attending the 30th Asia Pacific Occupational Safety and Health Organisation Annual Conference.

The theme of the conference is “Harmony for Occupational Safety and Health (OSH)” and provides an ideal opportunity for OSH practitioners and experts from around the world to share their experiences and expertise on how to make the workplace safer and accident-free.

OSH or safety at the workplace must never be taken for granted.

Time and again it has been proven that failure to harmonise occupational safety and health and adopt good OSH practices will be detrimental to the employers and employees at the workplace.

In every workplace, workers and employers must have the commitment to feel safe and healthy. Developing a strong safety and health culture at the workplace has the greatest impact on accident reduction.

A culture is an environment that has a philosophy that permeates the daily activities of the organisation.

Safety and health do not exist in a vacuum. Other aspects of the organisation, including people and financial management, impact safety. Therefore, a safety culture must be a part of the overall corporate culture to be understood and accepted as a high priority.

For this to be developed and successful, it needs to be internalised and led from the top – i.e. safety needs to be embraced and practised by key decision makers within the organisation.

By developing a culture of trust and encouraging open and informed conversations about safety, leaders can create an environment where workers have a positive attitude toward safety and be empowered to challenge unsafe behaviour in others.

The commonly recognised elements required to create and nurture a safety culture are:

> Acceptance of safety as an investment, not a cost;

> Integration of safety into continuous process improvement;

> Education and training for all in respect of safety; and

> System for hazard prevention and control.

Culture is a combination of factors related to attitudes, behaviours, beliefs, values, way of doing things and other shared characteristics of a particular group of people.

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Master Plan for Malaysia 2015 (OSH-MP15), it is expected that by the end of 2015, the Malaysian workforce should be ready to enter the stage of preventive culture.

It is for this reason that fostering a OSH culture at the workplace is important.

Safety training for employees is the key to achieving a successful safety programme and management must be committed to invest in safety. The focal point of OSH training is the human being who needs protection in all aspects of his life.

To achieve the total promotion of safety and health at work and elsewhere organisational measures for accident prevention, motivation and behavioural change must be adopted.

It is therefore, their responsibility to ensure that safety is a culture at their organisation, not just a priority.

A total safety culture is the ultimate vision of a safety-improvement mission. In such a culture everyone feels responsible for safety and pursues it on a daily basis.

At work, employees go beyond “the call of duty” to identify environmental hazards and at-risk behaviours and intervene to correct them. In a total safety culture, safety is not a priority that gets shifted according to situational demands. Rather, safety is a value linked to all situational priorities.

In line with its objective to enhance and promote the good practices of Occupational Safety and Health at the workplace, NIOSH will host the 18th Conference of Occupational Safety and Health to be held from Oct 4-7at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC).

The theme for the 18th COSH is “Fostering An OSH Culture at the Workplace” emphasising on the need for greater joint efforts by the Government, employers and employees to reduce workplace accidents and work towards the goal of zero-accident at the work-place.

Additional reading: 
OSH articles
Occupational Safety and Health Act / OSHA (1994)
Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH)