Monday, February 25, 2013

ByeBye Reading Week


Time is flying by so fast my Dears. 
We are now heading towards March as this being the last week in February 2013. 
I had a one week reading break which was quite nice and seemed too short.
I'm now back to school to finish the other half of the semester.
School wise, I have another Op-ed assignment to finish. I will be giving my opinion on how the grievance and arbitration system is a very good way of dealing with problems at the workplace.

Until next time,
xxx

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

A "village idiot"

Hey Dears,

As i said this semester alot will be going on, as all my courses are based on "Labour relations".
As for last week, I learnt another important work aspect on "Behaviour Based Safety Programs" by Cathy Walker. 

Workplace Behaviour is a very interesting topic to understand because you get to know:

  • Aspects like whether it is the employee to blame when incidents like injuries occur at the workplace
  • Employer's take on an incident?
  • Should Financial incentives at work be enhanced?
  • Whats good between internal responsibility system or external responsibility?
So such concepts are well covered by Cathy Walker concerning Behavior Based Safety Programs.
At most times when incidents happen, it is well known to be the employee's fault for being careless or a "village idiot" as referred by Robert Sass, the father of the three worker health and safety rights. Basically the theory assumes that workers are stupid and choose to make bad choices that could be prevented instead of hurting themselves.

Well, I could argue for the rest of my life but to pick a few : 
  • The nature or kind of work matters
  • Employer's supervision is necessary
  • Proper working equipment 
  • Proper training and enough knowledge
  • Unsafe acts--->unsafe working conditions
Such issues should be taken into consideration before pointing fingers to the employee as being the one at fault in workplace accidents.

With regard to financial incentives, organisations are rewarded for having less injuries. There has been criticism on organisations giving financial incentives to make them not report accidents which is why i asked earlier on should they be improved? is it necessary to have financial incentive?

Last but not least, health inspectors??? is it better for the organisation (internal responsibility) to have their own health and safety committee in the workplace instead of an external source like health inspectors having to monitor their working standards now and then?
Such cases are interesting to know as a worker you should know your right when to be safe.

What do you think of the video?