Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

BILL TAYLOR, CSP, is a safety professional whose diverse experience includes holding health and safety positions in both the public and private sectors and consulting in all types of industries. In addition to being an expert trainer and public speaker, Mr. Taylor has published and edited several textbook chapters and magazine articles on safety-related issues, including an award-winning article on managing ergonomic programs that appeared in Professional Safety in April of 1991.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

An important and highly actionable blueprint for optimum workplace safety

Health and safety management is an ongoing concern in today's workplace. Effective Environmental, Health, and Safety Management Using the Team Approach provides today's safety professionals with an excellent resource for protecting their organizations' most important resource their employees. The author, a seasoned health and safety professional, provides a blueprint for installing a system that's been proven to reduce illness and injury on any job, in any industry, with a simple, logical approach that compares safety management to production and quality control issues today's managers readily understand.

The system uses a team approach to get every level of an organization involved in the process of managing safety issues, with the ultimate goal being the development of a safety culture in which every employee has a personal interest in protecting their lives, their property, and their environment.

An ideal resource for industry managers as well as graduate-level courses in workplace safety and health, this text offers such special features as:

• Important checklists, including OSHA-required training, OSHA-required inspections, and OSHA-required postings and labeling
• Numerous health and safety resources, Web site addresses, and contact information for related organizations
• Real-world examples that illustrate important health and safety issues
• Helpful charts and forms to facilitate implementation of the team approach
• Frequently asked questions and answers for users of the system

Aus dem Klappentext

An important and highly actionable blueprint for optimum workplace safety

Health and safety management is an ongoing concern in today's workplace. Effective Environmental, Health, and Safety Management Using the Team Approach provides today's safety professionals with an excellent resource for protecting their organizations' most important resource—their employees. The author, a seasoned health and safety professional, provides a blueprint for installing a system that's been proven to reduce illness and injury on any job, in any industry, with a simple, logical approach that compares safety management to production and quality control—issues today's managers readily understand.

The system uses a team approach to get every level of an organization involved in the process of managing safety issues, with the ultimate goal being the development of a safety culture in which every employee has a personal interest in protecting their lives, their property, and their environment.

An ideal resource for industry managers as well as graduate-level courses in workplace safety and health, this text offers such special features as:

• Important checklists, including OSHA-required training, OSHA-required inspections, and OSHA-required postings and labeling
• Numerous health and safety resources, Web site addresses, and contact information for related organizations
• Real-world examples that illustrate important health and safety issues
• Helpful charts and forms to facilitate implementation of the team approach
• Frequently asked questions and answers for users of the system

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Effective Environmental, Health, and Safety Management Using the Team Approach

Jossey-Bass

Chapter One

When the plant manager sits down for the weekly staff meeting he/she is surrounded by those people with direct control and responsibility for all aspects of the business-department managers. If a problem comes up-say, for example, if costs are running too high-the manager does not turn to the finance manager, casting blame and dictateing that he/she work harder to cut costs. Instead, a good manager, knowing that cost overruns can occur anywhere, will try to pinpoint the problem so that efforts to resolve the problem can be properly focused. The manager knows that everyone sitting around that table has a responsibility to control costs and, likewise, is responsible for managing production or service, quality, people, and so on. These department managers in turn hold supervisors and employees accountable for the same charge. In other words, because any employee can damage product, affect quality, or run up costs, all employees must be held accountable for ensuring that production is met, quality is high, and costs are kept to a minimum. That is simply a part of the job; therefore, every employee makes up the production, service, quality, and cost organizations.

Why do we so often manage employee safety and health in different ways? At many facilities the safety-health manager is sometimes no more than a warm body. Often the ranking manager will assign responsibility for managing safety and health to an employee who is nearing retirement, or to a supervisor or middle manager who has little or no safety training as a collateral duty. Or perhaps the organization does go out and hire a bone fide safety professional; rarely is the individual a part of the manager's weekly staff meeting or agenda.

Even in large companies, who supposedly have good safety and health management systems, an individual who may be well qualified to manage will often be given the responsibility of managing environmental, health and safety (EHS) without the benefit of a staff, or authority to delegate. The individual's hands are tied and management effort is restricted to chairing the safety committee and making recommendations.

At one large facility employing over 2,000 workers, the plant manager and safety manager got into a heated disagreement. The safety manager ended up quitting that evening only to be replaced the very next morning by a young man who only the day before was a sewing machine mechanic in the same facility.

Did this plant manager consider safety so unimportant that anyone could take over and manage safety and health? And how much authority would he be willing to give to this new young safety manager? He would not be likely to seek advice from the young novice, nor would department managers or supervisors be likely to entertain his suggestions regarding issues within their respective areas of responsibility.

If it had been the human resources manager or the finance director who had quit, it's a sure bet that this young man would not have been appointed to either of these two jobs. The jobs are too important. They require a special knowledge and understanding of things beyond the mechanic's present education and background.

The message that the plant manager is conveying is that employee safety and well-being are of less importance than other functions. He does not view safety and health as something that should require education or special knowledge. But like many people, this plant manager does not understand the complexities of an effective safety and health management system, nor the specialized training and knowledge needed to effectively manage these systems.

This is a true story that actually did happen, and sadly it is more the norm when it comes to EHS management. We simply do not manage EHS with the same emphasis and enthusiasm as we do other functions. Even when it comes to enforcement, we fail to hold employees to the same level of accountability for using hearing protection, safety glasses, and lockout procedures as we do punctuality and insubordination. We do not enforce safety and health rules and procedures with the same emphasis as we do other rules and procedures.

At one facility the safety manager complained that there was a particular employee who would hitch a ride on the forks of the first passing forklift whenever he wanted to go anywhere within the plant. "I have told him every day not to do that yet he still does it and I don't know how to get him to stop," complained the safety- health manager. When asked what would happen if the employee were late for work, the safety manager stated that any tardy employee would receive a verbal warning on the first offense, a written warning on the second offense, suspension without pay on the third offense, and termination on the fourth offense.

So, why does this company not manage safety and health rules in the same way that they manage rules for punctuality? Does this mean that safety is less important than getting to work on time? It would be foolish to expect an employee to change his/her behavior, knowing that the convenience of the free ride meant more to this employee than did the consequences. In other words, the company did not enforce safety and health rules in the same way that they did other rules. They did not manage the EHS system the same way or with the same emphasis as other issues. Until they do, they can continue to expect safety violations to result in injuries and illnesses.

In every organization, regardless of how safe the tasks and facilities may be, employees can be injured or even killed while on the job. Since any employee can be injured or killed, every employee is responsible for safety. Thus, every employee makes up the safety- health-environmental organization.

THE SAFETY COP

A department head says to the safety manager, "You should have been here last night. John was working on the packaging machine and didn't have it locked out." The response of the safety manager is, "I can't be here 24 hours a day to police everything that goes on inside this plant." What makes the department head think that he did not have a responsibility to take action to enforce the violation and possibly prevent an amputation or fatality? The safety manager in this true-case scenario has become the safety cop.

The safety cop is the one who goes around the workplace day after day reminding employees to don safety glasses and earplugs; lockout equipment; or clear access to eyewashes, exits, and fire extinguishers. This should not be the routine of the safety-health manager. These are issues for which employees and supervisors must be held accountable. The employee must be held responsible for the condition of his/her immediate work environment, including any safety and health issues. They and they alone are responsible for ensuring that they are prepared to begin work each day by having proper protective equipment and that the equipment is properly locked out using personal locks and following all lockout procedures. It is part of the job and cannot be delegated to other workers. Any company that has a safety cop does not have an effective safety management system.

Safety-health managers should not be safety cops any more than the finance director...