Health and Safety in Business

One ethical consideration area for the employees in any organization is the way to balance the control of expenses with safety and health issues that affect the employees in the organization. It is the duty of every organization to ensure that their workforce is guarded against any danger that could befall them in the course of carrying out their duties. Workplaces where employees come into direct contact with dangerous tools of engagement and even chemical contact like the manufacturing and the processing plants are some of the most obvious examples of working environments where workers need protection and insurance of their lives and any possible dangers that may arise.

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Industrial laws and regulations provide for legal frameworks that protect the employees from exploitation by their employers and against any form of danger that may affect them during their working time CITATION Pro01 \l 1033 (Probst & Brubaker, 2001).

The company ought to provide protective clothing like earmuffs, nose caps, helmets, aprons, gloves, and goggles. If the employee is affected while working in the firm, it is the duty of the organization to cater for their medical expensesCITATION Jam13 \p 76 \l 1033 (Stewart, 2013, p. 76). Manufacturing industries and other types of workplaces need to put in place measures that eliminate accidents and that work towards bettering the conditions of working for the employees.

There are laws and regulations that protect the employees against any dangers that may accrue out of carrying out their duties. Insurance and Assurance of the employees against danger not only applies to the employees in the industrial workplace, standard offices and workplaces are also a possible danger to the health and the wellbeing of the employees in the organization (Greasley et al., 2006).

Employees who have a duty to sit or stand for long hours might end up hurting their spines and other infections. After years of serving in the organization, the employee might fall into the need for medical care and specialized attention. Unfortunately, some organizations do not carry out their duties to their employees, but instead, they try to evade the cost of keeping their workforce healthy and productive by paying bribes to the state officers that check for organization Health and safety standards (Greasley et al., 2006).

Some organizations choose to avoid the cost of extra safety equipment, and training of their employees to cut out the costs and maximize the profits CITATION Vre02 \l 1033 (Vredenburgh, 2002). Running away from protecting the employees against danger in the workplace is unethical behavior that might land the organization in legal battles with the employees if the employees are involved in an accident, and they are seriously wounded.

Workplace Health Safety and rules of the environment

When one opens up a business premise with the capacity to employ a workforce of any number, one automatically assumes responsibility for the health of the people in the workplace. It hence becomes the duty of the owner of the business to protect the lives and the health of the people working for him and to provide health care should they be affected by any of the processes in the organization.

The responsibility for the wellbeing and the safety of personnel extends to the permanent and temporary visitors to the business premises or anyone that is bordering the business premises. The business owner ought to take responsibility for any injuries that may occur in the workplace. This provision includes the natural resources like the rivers and the lakes that the industry might be bordering or even using as the dumping sites for their waste matter.

By extension, the law provides for the protection of the atmosphere around where it is located to shield the inhabitants from the polluted air CITATION Vre02 \l 1033 (Vredenburgh, 2002). The manufacturing industry or the processing industries in question ought to care for the way their actions affect the communities that live around the industries, and this is an extension of the policies of environmental conservation. The matter of complying with the law regarding regulations governing safety measures at the workplace is one that closely ties in with what is commonly regarded as common sense.

Business Registration and inspection

New employers need to get their premises inspected and registered by the safety and health executive and by the local authority from the geographical location of their business premises. Depending on where the business is located there are State and Federal Regulations that have to be followed (Greasley et al., 2006). Every state has their regulations that determine how healthy or unhealthy the state of the business premises.

If the business deals in such dangerous compounds as asbestos, it is against the law to go on conducting business without acquiring a special license that permits the proper handling of the material, as they may prove dangerous to the employees. When a business owner is not sure about the kind of potential risk that their company poses to the employees and the environment, there are guidelines that lead the procedure that can be used to classify the type of business (Greasley et al., 2006).

Safety and health risk assessment

The employer needs to work to safeguard the welfare of their employees at all times. The premises standards must meet the minimum safety and health standards. The employer must carry out an assessment of risk to ascertain the rate of potential risk the business premises hold towards the employees. Every component of the workplace environment ought to be modeled against all the facets of safety and good healthCITATION Jam13 \p 89 \l 1033 (Stewart, 2013, p. 89). The architecture of the business premises ought to be considerate of substances that might transmit illnesses of injury.

The organization ought to consider cables, loose wiring in the building, floor tiles that are lost, and oil or any other types of spillages that might cause accidents at the workplace. The organization can opt for an independent audit, or it can invite a private or the state practitioner to carry out their audit for themCITATION Jam13 \p 57 \l 1033 (Stewart, 2013, p. 57).

Services of risk assessment officers

Bigger organizations that have an elaborate system and that have an adequate infrastructure to support a department committed to safeguarding the health and safety of members of the organization can set aside funds to cater to the department. Smaller organizations can do with the services of the state or independent health risk assessment officers. Although the private health and risk assessment officers are more costly to reach out to and to maintain their services, they are more efficient due to the many cases they have handled and are therefore more experienced. Companies with a department for risk assessment department can also make use of the services of the private risk assessment officers by combining their services with the services of the independent practitioners, and this is called the hybrid model.

The organization also ought to ensure against excessive noise, fire risks, and moving vehicles as a way of keeping the employees safe in the workplace. Safety at the workplace is a measure that begins with the architecture of the building. For example, the way the staircase is made will ensure minimization of the rate of accidents in the building. The building the company makes use of is also a great determinant for whether they will be able to avoid the accidents that might occur in the workplace.

The health and safety rights of the employees

Before taking in the first employees of the company the employer ought to ensure that their companys premises have all that is required of them with regards to health and safety of the employee. Not only should the company premises cater for the prevention of the accidents from happening CITATION Vre02 \l 1033 (Vredenburgh, 2002). However if accidents have already occurred, the company ought to also ensure that there are set procedures and a distinctive mechanism that caters for the healthcare costs of the employees or any other people that may be caught up in any unfortunate incidences in the organization.

Under the state and the universal industrial laws, the employer is liable to the employees of the organization or any other person that is accidentally wounded by any of the chemicals or the machinery of the organization due to the situation, the architecture or any factor that might surround the organization CITATION San09 \l 1033 (Dawson, 2009). Employees can, therefore, sue the organization and be compensated for the loss suffered. Some of the people that any organization needs to have in mind while carrying out their inspection include pregnant women, young children, and customers to the business, employees, and persons with disability.

Whether the organization has a department of health and safety within it or not, it is paramount that it has a person that is directly responsible for the health and wellness of the people within is identified. Having a person that is answerable to the conditions of the organization works well to ease things and make it possible to track accountability. As one of the millennial goals how well a company can respond to natural disasters is a clear indication of how to fit the company is to operate CITATION Pro01 \l 1033 (Probst & Brubaker, 2001). The organization ought to carry out an operation to train all the employees to see to it that they may be adequately prepared for any accident that might happen at the workplace. Failure to train the employees means that in the event of fire outbreak they may not be able to deal with it, and they might be caught up in the flames.

Ways of involving the employees and other stakeholders in the safety programs

Suggestion boxes

Every organization ought to encourage their employees to participate actively in providing ideas for safety that could be adapted by the organization to make their work easier and to make the workplace environment safer for their habitation. Every organization has got safety challenges that are specific to that particular organization. Because the employees may be more familiar with the tools and the infrastructure of the business premises, they might come up with suggestions that may be more qualified to deal with the problems of safety as compared to when an outsider designs all the safety measures CITATION Pro01 \l 1033 (Probst & Brubaker, 2001).

The organization, therefore, ought to put out a suggestion box that allows the employees to communicate with their seniors. The nature of some safety challenges is such that they arise as time goes by and therefore cannot be realized from the onset. The employees can be very instrumental in taking note of these types of challenges and voicing them some of their suggestions.

The organization could also resort to an online platform that can give the employees space to voice their concerns without fear, and the online platforms could help the organization to reach out to the people in the market and the consumers of the companys products CITATION Vre02 \l 1033 (Vredenburgh, 2002). The emergence of the social networking platforms makes it easier to reach out to the masses and to make the fears and the anxieties of the stakeholders to be addressed.

Forums

If the organization is big enough, it can bring together their employees from different locations and different department to talk about issues of safety and health of the workplace. Striking a conversation between the workers can help to brighten their perspective about the dangers that lurk in the workplace and the ways t...