Report on safety culture and safety work practices at Bruno Smallgoods

Executive Summary

Bruno Smallgoods is facing a management crisis, where they are concerned about the non-compliance of work health and safety practices at their site of operations. Their higher management is committed and responsible towards positive safety culture, however the frontline workers are not committed to this culture and it concerns the organization as it might end up in fatal injury or death of any of the worker at plant. This concerns the employer because primarily it is dangerous for the workers to work with an attitude that might put their own lives in jeopardy, and secondly because it will bring in the bad name for the firm and they will end up being involved in a lawsuit. In order to avoid any of these anticipated events , Bruno Smallgoods requires to strategize their human resource policies by incorporating new methods of recruitment and selection , training and development, rewards and compensations and transforming their workplace for better and easier compliance of workplace safety practices. These activities might not pose to be effective in isolation but rather an integrated approach is required so that the idea is reinforced effectively and workforce realize that safety is as important of an objective as any other objective for the management.

Introduction

Human Resource Management is one of the foremost function for any type of organization. This can be said because the greatest asset for any business is their human resource. The main role of human resource management it to ensure a good relation between employer and employees. However, it is not easy to define what is good as it might turnout be subjective in nature. The good relation for employer might be different from good relation for employee. Human resource management ensure to align their perspective so that harmonious culture prevail in the organization. Culture for organizations simply means the overall norms and shared common value to which all the employees are committed and are determined to comply with (Bugalia et al, 2019). The overall organizational culture are made up of subsets of various cultures. For instance, concern of safety and health should be a common priority for everyone in the organization and hence safety culture is a culture that define shared and common values and priorities about safe workplace practices. Sometimes there can be a discrepancy about importance of safety culture between employer and employees and in such cases human resource management play an important role in mitigating this discrepancy and align positive safety culture at all levels of organization, by using different tools and techniques (Clay William et al, 2020). 

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Legal responsibilities about safety that employers have to ensure at their workplace

Employer’s foremost responsibility is to provide and sustain safe working conditions and environment, which can be practiced and adapted reasonably. These provisions for safety primarily include availability and maintenance of safe equipment and plants. Additionally it is imperative to provide work systems, which ensures safety. These systems may include limited and relevant access to high-risk zones at workplace and strict compliance of SOPs, which ensure prevention from hazards. For instance, limited access to cutting and mincing plants and compliance of wearing personal protective equipment at all times, during operations etc. Additionally the infrastructure and work layout should support safe practices, such as clear passage of fire and emergency exits, proper ventilation system and general cleanliness of overall premises etc. Furthermore necessary training, supervision and set of instructions must be provided to all the employees, enabling them to work in a safer and healthier environment (“Occupational Health and Safety Act and Regulations,” 2020).

Government also elaborates on what is “reasonably practicable.” According to “Occupational Health and Safety Act and Regulations” (2020), if any knowledge of likelihood or occurrence of harm due to possible hazard, availability of means to avoid or mitigate such hazards, and the cost of implementing the safety measures are known, then these measures are reasonably practicable and therefore comes under employer’s responsibility to implement them and make their compliance effective. 

Apart from these responsibilities, employers must also ensure management and removal of any asbestos or other residual toxins that might cause health concerns. Lastly in few cases where operations or equipment are of nature, which make workers increasingly vulnerable to the hazardous conditions,  employers might require license or permit to conduct such activities or operate such plants and equipment. 

Defining the term ‘safety culture’

Organization wide conceptualization of safety culture is important for its effective implementation. Although safety culture is defined in similar aspects throughout initial literature, however keeping the current problem in perspective, the elaboration of safety culture by UK Health and Safety Commission seems highly relevant. They define it as a result of competencies, values and behavioural patterns that determine commitment towards  health and safety programs. It further defines that strong safety cultures are reflected through communications originated from mutual trust. This trust is based on realization of importance of safety, and having confidence in the effectiveness of preventive measures. In contrast, current literature refers safety culture as a subset of safety climate. Safety climate dictates a macro perspective where it includes industry, government and nation as a whole, in addition to organizations’ internal values and practices. The underlying rational is that employees switch jobs, usually in similar industry, therefore they bring some aspect of their previous cultures and might influence the existing culture to an extent, therefore over some time amalgamation of multiple safety cultures has evolved to at least industry-wide safety climate (Stemn et al, 2009). This brings in a challenge, where it will be even more challenging to modify safety behaviour if safety climate is predominant and reflects weak safety culture throughout industry and vice-versa (Petitta, et al, 2017). However, it also brings in an opportunity where organizations can set a precedence in term of safety culture by overriding the safety climate, only if climate pose threat to safe work practices. According to Aburumman et.al, (2017) individual process is also important as it makes up the social process, in the first place. It includes sense making (of the overall safety arrangements), motivation through expected actions, empowerment to practice these actions, self-determination and most importantly the social exchange among employees. This as a result decides organizational outcomes related to compliance of safe practices along with productivity and innovation. It is also important to note that with increasing competitive setting, businesses and employer’s needs transformation in safety cultures to keep productivity and innovation intact, which were previously considered to be compromised at the cost of stricter safety compliance (Griffin et al, 2015). 

 

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How a safety culture can improve safety behaviors of employees

The law is involved in workplace safety, to ensure the wellbeing of employees; therefore, it is a legal obligation for employers to inculcate safety behaviour through positive safety culture, being practiced, at all tiers across organization. Employers and employees are equally important in ensuring safety and health for each other and for the compliance of safety culture. However, it is commonly observed that all types of organization’s cultures are better complied at higher tiers, than on lower tiers of organization. For safety, culture this type of discrepancy between tiers might exist because at lower tiers the operations are being conducted under rigorous conditions while higher in the chain of command practice is under moderate setting. Nonetheless, it is essential to modify safety behaviours to abide by the laws and more importantly to ensure safety of the employees. The ways in which safety culture can ensure active safety behaviour are discussed below:

  • Safety culture is not only set of shared values, but also a framework that assist organization to start movement towards workplace safety. It helps organization in creation of goals, state these goals in black and white, communicate them to the employees and then measure results post-implementation. It means that safety culture can be used as a formal method to induce safety behaviour in workforce. Not only that but it can also be used to monitor compliance and need of improvisation, if results are not achieved (Mei et al, 2017). 
  • It is common that at workplace, with complex working environment, safety behaviour usually breakdown. However, if the organization has a recurring propagation of safety culture, it leaves a lasting impression on the workforce. Gradually, importance of safety behaviour prevails , workforce eventually start complying with the culture , as they witness employer attaching greater value to it (Kim, 2019).
  • When employer clearly establish the safety culture at workplace, they make it evident that among the competing priorities, safety concern of employees is always on top. Therefore in response to such value, workforce also attach higher value towards safety culture thus adopting safety behaviours. It can also be said that having such culture allows employees to focus better on work having positive safety behaviour, as now they do not have to push on profitability and productivity as much as they would have otherwise. (Hofmann et al, 2017)
  • A safety culture does not only help in fostering a safe and healthy working environment but it also promote identification of risk zones and ways to improve them for better future operations. This induces safety behaviour in a way where, risk can be averted before any fatal injury or accident takes place (Marshall, 2020). 
  • Safety culture also helps in devising a business-wide communication regarding safety-oriented operations. This sort of communication about safety can further help in enforcing safety behaviour and help in risk aversion (Alsabri et al, 2020). 
  • Additionally safety culture aids in fostering unified vision about safety behaviour, which motivates workforce towards safer working practices. More importantly, it helps in accomplishing a condition where entire workforce gets involved in achieving the vision, mitigating discrepancies about importance of culture between different tiers of organization. Moreover, greater participation from workforce always comes with feedbacks for improvement and therefore better results (Gandhi, 2018).
  • Safety culture is instrumental in creating an employer-employee relation, where both the stakeholders are comfortable in sharing concerns. As a result, workforce become more committed towards safety and show greater involvement through safety behaviour (Gandhi, 2018). 
  • Workplace with better safety culture foster workforce, which are more open to report any safety related concern to their bosses as they know that safety is equally important at all levels of organization. Furthermore is also means that employer places equal emphasis on safety, profitability and productivity, therefore if any changes affect productivity due to safer work practices, employees are rest assured that they would not be questioned for having a good safety behaviour (Donaghy et al, 2018).  
  • Rewards and recognition can be attached with safety culture as this will allow positive enforcement and hence will effectively boost safety behaviour amongst workforce. 
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Recommendations to improve safety culture in Bruno smallgoods

It is essential for organizations to put all efforts in ensuring strong safety culture, otherwise if due to poor safety practices employees are injured or get into a fatal accident, it can become a legal concern for the organizations. The current safety behaviour at Bruno Smallgoods, especially of the frontline workers, calls upon for drastic modifications in the work practices before they cause anyone’s serious injury or death. Few steps that can allow management at Bruno Smallgoods to mend their safety cultures are discussed below: 

  • To begin with, the company should introduce serious changes to its present safety culture. They should examine their current position and learn on the gap, which exist between their current and desired condition. The company should map out the areas, where the problem exist, assess the reasons of failure to comply and then create the sense of urgency within organization.  By creating the sense of urgency in the organization, it will become easier to induce awareness into the workforce, where they would realize that they are not having safety behaviour and something needs to be done about it. The employer needs to identify change agents inside the organization, which would be useful in facilitating the overall changes. The employer should also analyse various operations and practices where lack of safety exist. Once all these concerned areas are mapped out, the employer can then opt for relevant change management tools. The most relevant ones may include Kotter’s change management model and Kurt Lewin’s 3 step model etc. Once the tool is selected , they can now implement the changes in the organization (Leitão et al, 2017)
  • Additionally, it should be vital for any business organization, especially those with high-risk work practices, to include tests related to health and safety, in their recruitment and selection process. Organization such as Bruno Smallgoods that operates in high-risk conditions can have accidents resulting in serious injuries and loss of life. The nature of work, usage of dangerous equipment and machinery and general behaviour of current workers demand that health and safety related terms and aptitude should be includes in the hiring process, right from the start. Employers should design screening tests, which ensure that only those recruits are passed on to the next stage, who pass the initial health and safety, related screening process. In addition to that, the selected candidates should also be made aware of the fact that safety behaviour and work practices are top most priority at Bruno. If the organization has multiple stages for recruitment they can also include case studies and group discussions to gauge the response of the recruits and assess whether they have awareness and knowledge about various safety precautions, which should be taken while operating machinery and using tools. Only those candidates who have sufficient awareness and sense of responsibility should be selected for such jobs. It will make it easier for the organization to make workers follow rules and regulations and foster promising safety culture at workplace as the workers at all levels will then already have awareness of importance of safe work practices (Goldstein et al, 2017). 
  • Thirdly, the employer can ensure better and more complaint safety culture by arranging training and development programs for their existing workforce. This will help them to learn essential tools and techniques, which will help them to become better aware regarding importance of safety at workplace. Additionally they will learn the value and methods of operating under high-risk environment. It should be emphasized in training that while operating heavy plants where cutting, mincing and slicing is being done, bacteria and germs prone surface is usual, the risk factor increases exponentially. Therefore, such employees cannot act casually while they are operating, as it might end up in a disaster for them. In few cases  it is not a deliberate act  by worker to not to comply with instruction but rather mere lack of training, therefore it is essential to train them so that they can develop better understanding about the risk and respond to it by conducting safer operations. The overall effect of training and development will simply be a better-informed employee. It will then be easier to foster safety culture amongst these trained employees, as now they will not only have sense of greater responsibility for themselves but also for the others at the workplace (Khan et al, 2018). 

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  • Another way of reviving a positive safety culture is by introducing a relevant and connected performance management program. It will help Bruno Smallgoods to ensure a positive and a better safety culture. The performance management system may incorporate multiple key performance indicators, such as frequency of safety inspections, number of safety concerns reported, number of safety concerns resolved, number of hazards and risks averted due to resolution, total time spent in training and development programs related to health etc. By making right use of these key performance indicators, the employer can rationally rate the workers or even the departments based on their capability and commitment to abide by the standard operation procedure and safety rules and regulations.  It will not only be useful to identify committed and complying workers but it will also allow the organization to identify those workers, who are not committed to safety culture and demonstrate irresponsible and noncompliant behaviour and thus severe safety risk, not only for themselves but also for those who are committed to the safety culture. In order to distinguish the two opposing attitudes of the workforce, Bruno Smallgoods can attach and introduce some benefits, recognitions and rewards in order to enforce safety behaviour between workforce and concerning departments. Those employees and departments who show compliance and better commitment should be rewarded, both financially and non-financially so that it motivates them to further improve and allow them being inspiration and motivation for other employees, who are lacking in one aspect or another (Nævestad et al, 2018). 
  • Lastly, apart from trying to change the attitude of the workforce it is also important for the employer to create a physical setup, which is appropriate and aligned to support safe work practices. Bruno Smallgoods is involved high-risk operations therefore it is even more important for them to keep reminding their workers about areas and plants, which are high, risk in nature. This can be done by placing appropriate warnings and signs around the workplace, which clearly specific the danger of the intended area or machinery under use. This will make the workforce even more cautious as they will be constantly exposed to the reminder about risk that is involved while working. These placements of signs and warnings are important because while the concentration is on work, even those employees who are highly responsible and complaint might forget about taking precautions and end up getting into an accident causing injury or even fatality. Bruno Smallgoods should post signs, which may include warnings and instructions such as “restricted access”, “operate only when covered” , “start when the green light is on” and “do not operate without safety equipment” etc. This will also increase the aesthetic of the workplace making it alluring workforce to follow the procedure and hence creating positive safety culture. Furthermore, this will also increase the focus of the employees towards better and safer workplace practices (Amyotte, 2017). 

Further Recommendations

Bruno Smallgoods needs to reinforce positive safety culture. If front line workers are not complying with the culture that means noncompliance is not being dealt with any sort of reinforcement or motivation. In few cases employees are might not be allured with benefits and rewards, they might dislike work, hesitate to take responsibility and have less or no motivation at all. In such case McGregor’s theory X must come into action, where directive should be strictly reinforced in authoritarian style rather than being participative. If no effective action is not taken soon, there might be a day, not very far, when their will be a major accident resulting in serious injury or even death on an employee. This will undermine the organization and will get the firm into a serious and socially and financially damaging lawsuit. Therefore, it is highly recommended that Bruno Smallgoods must take immediate step by using guidelines, actions and methods, which are discussed and recommended in this report. There is no single change, which can work wonders for Bruno Smallgoods. It is rather a collective effect where synergy between different methods, tools and techniques can be created to infuse positive safety culture in the organization. If after all the efforts and actions, any of the workforce repeatedly fails to comply, it is highly recommended to give formal warnings to these employees and later if they turn out to be ineffective than such employees should be terminated on any relevant and reasonable grounds. 

Conclusion

Organizations such as Bruno Smallgoods, which are involved in business that is high risk in nature, should put as much priority on the goal of safety and health as much as they do towards productivity and profitability. The role of human resource department is pivotal in such scenarios. Whether it is about training and development, appraisal and rewards or hiring the compatible workforce, human resource is involved on each step of ensuring positive safety culture and hence fostering safety and health compliance in all departments of the organization. The present conditions, which were revealed through independent investigation, are very alarming for the management of Bruno Smallgoods. It is about time for them to bring in drastic and immediate reforms in their polices and human resource strategies to counter this issue before it cause serious injury or fatality. As the employer stated, they already investigated issues and invested in commitment to improve health and safety issues. However, the current tactics seem to fail, as the workforce is not yet ready to comply. It clearly shows an intervention through effective trainings, financial and non-financial motivation and creating better physical and aesthetic ambiance, where practicing safety behaviour is easier. However, senior management is committed to safety culture but with that, it is also their job to ensure culture being fostered amongst the lower tier, so it is their foremost task to instil these values and methods. 

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