The well-founded dogmas of moral ethics have supported the
embodiment of occupational health and safety standards in various
organizations. Every employee in an organization suffers the risk of
injury at work, and has strong arguments favoring the issue. Their
health and safety should be a matter of concerns for the employers.
Essentially
occupational health and safety is considered as interdisciplinary area,
which is associated with safety, health and welfare of occupied people
or employees. On the other side, this phenomenon may also help to save
the family members, co-workers, customers, employers, suppliers, nearby
communities, and other such people who are affected directly or
indirectly by the environment of workplace.
An important
factor contributing to establishment of occupational health and safety
measures is government’s realization that if the standards of
occupational safety and health are poor this would affect their
performance and ultimately cost the State. For instance making social
security payments to the incapacitated and costs for medical treatment.
Occupational
health and safety also ensures that the employing organizations bears
the expenses like fines, legal fees, lost goodwill from the workforce,
compensation for damages, in the event of an incident at work.
What is actually occupational health and safety?
Well
the terminology differs in meaning from state to state. However, in
general there are three elements which comes under consideration while
conceptualizing the standards of health and safety:
Hazard
– A thing that can harm if not controlled on time. It normally
represents the direct as well as indirect degradation, permanent or
volatile, of the mental, physical, or social wellness of an employee.
Risk – The probability that the hazard would cause harm. This is either
estimated mathematically or expressed as high, medium, or low.
Outcome – The impact of the uncontrolled hazard. It is considered to be the musculoskeletal disorders.
Legislations
The
occupational health and safety standards are generally incorporated in
civil law and criminal law. Moreover, it has been well-accepted fact
that in absence of necessary commendation of potential regulatory
action or legal action, most of the organizations would avoid this
moral obligation.
The contemporary legislations for safety
and health in an organization typically necessitate assessment of risk,
which is carried out before committing an intervention. Nevertheless it
is imperative to record and review it occasionally and most importantly
when there is an evident change in the working patterns.