Work Health & Safety Legislation Assignment Sample

• Subject Name : Work Health and Safety

Work Safety Assignment

Introduction

Health and safety at work provides protection against risk and exposure to work-related risks for all stakeholders (Wu et al., 2016). Occupational health and safety – also known as occupational health and security offers any employee a safety workplace, regardless of industry. Safety and health are intended to safeguard your staff, subcontractors, clients, and the public when they participate in your business. Contractors have duties to work for health and safety in accordance with the Health and Safety Act 1974.Moreover, health and safety are good business practice. An individual, company or organization providing goods or services in a written contract or or a verbal contract is an in-dependent contractor.Independent contractors, unlike workers, are not employer-specific; they per-form as necessary or subject to agency regulation.Contractors must maintain control of certain op-erations and safety regulations (Wu et al., 2016). This essay would identify the main problems and challenges for contractor construction projects under the Work Health & Safety legislation. Fur-thermore, recommendations for resolving these issues and obstacles along with description will be addressed.

In compliance with work safety & welfare regulations on their building sites, developers encounter numerous difficulties and obstacles.Construction workplaces are considered to be potentially the riskiest and most common in any working environment. Workers are also face injury, death if their access to buildings is not regulated, in serious situations. In order to avoid their accidents, construc-tion contractors must recognize certain threats and potential dangers that may arise during building operations (Pirzadeh& Lingard, 2017). The most fatal accidents and occurrences are contained in the building sector. Theoretically, most on-the-spot construction accidents should be prevented or managed. Risk reduction and avoidance in the building industry is a global persistent problem, with architecture being one of the economic sectors' worst health records. In addition to loss of life and a deterioration in building workers' standard of life, accidents in construction contribute to project failures, higher maintenance expenses, medical pressures and other adverse effects. Australia expe-riences around one-tenth of the world's occupational injuries and fatalities and roughly 7.5% of the world's population, according to the World Health Organization. The challenges faced by contrac-tors in the work Health & Safety legislation are complex (Oswald et al., 2019).

To begin with, the risk perception is skewed. On a building site, the largest and most serious hazards rarely cause the most injury(Mohammadi et al., 2018). This is because staff are happiest when concentrating on the danger and risk consciousness is strongest in complex tasks or when dangers become visible. Sec-ondly, environmental dangers are possible and keeping this in mind building workers must confront a changing environment constantly as during a building project new threats may appear and old hazards that take on a different shape, as the weather changes or the landscape changes(Mushayi et al., 2017).

Third is the communication deficiency, which mens that although they can insure that jobs are done properly, they often lack the skills needed to deliver a successfulcommunication on important safety issues. Failure to communicate makes the tasks more risky and along the line will lead to safety-related issues of workers. Finally, the state of mind, that is each building contract has a deadline and a budget and in addition to these pressures there are concerns of employees them-selves, such as being tensed or depressed due to family issues or being tired of a family trip on a weekend. All this can produce a powerful incentive to hurry or cause people too exhausted to ne-glect the risks at the construction site.

Recommendations involves various safety and health measures. Firstly, always emphasize protec-tion and wellbeing, which ensures the employers will advise their employees to insure the they complete the day and go home safely by making an agenda of work for each and every day.. Make sure you communicate with them to recognise and mitigate any threats that could hurt them or cause them sickness by educating them and communicating with them on the prevention of threats on the project site (Lim& Loosemore, 2017).

Secondly, lead by example, which means practicing your safe behaviour and ensuring safety in your daily discussions with your employees by follow-ing the safe work instructions yourself that will help the workers follow the instructions they are provided with. Thirdly, establish, and converse a straightforward method of monitoring injuries , diseases, events, threats, security and health issues to employeeswithout fear of repression, includ-ing close calls so that you have an up to date information of the workers daily jobs and possible work related treated involved with it. Fourthly,include an forum for disclosing concerns (López et al., 2020).

Train staff on the detection and tracking of threats using the OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) Risk Detection Learning program , for example.OSHA offers 10-hour 30-hour awareness courses on OSHA rules and standards for the different employment at work. OSHA is a regulatory and compliance authority on health and safety. Fifthly, inspect the workplace with employees and allow them to report any operations, equipment or items which affect them by providing a helpline number to all the employees.

Sixthly, the workplace should be checked for any hazards and to aid in identifying problems, use control lists and other resources, like the OSHA Construction Industry Digest. Also, gain input into danger management that implies negotiate pro-tection measures with workers during the project by conducting a feedback session so that workers are able to input their feedback. Additionally, all work platforms must be stable, properly fitted, not overcharged and safe for the employees.There should always be no waste or debris or obstructed material in all working areas or passageways(Choudhry, 2017). Deal with emergencies, define pre- determined situations for emergencies and establish guidance for each situation. Meet and post these procedures in a visible place at the workplace. Lastly,create changes to insure that the protec-tion and health issues are reviewed periodically and how the services can be strengthened is estab-lished, which will be accomplished with the help of auditing.

Conclusion

It is concluded that construction of buildings is known to be the riskiest and most dangerous in any working environment. In compliance with occupational health & wellbeing laws on their job site, developers encounter various challenges and hurdles.Workers also experience injury and death in serious situations, unless their access to buildings is regulated.Health and safety are designed to protect the workers, subcontractors, customers and the public in constructions projects.Depending on the Health and Safety Act 1974, companies have the responsibility to operate for health and safe-ty and Workplace health and safety safeguards all stakeholders from danger and vulnerability to labor risks. The recommendations provided will help the contractors to comply with the health and safety of the workers at the construction project sites.

References

Choudhry, R. M. (2017). Achieving safety and productivity in construction projects. Journal of Civ-il Engineering and Management, 23(2), 311-318.

López-Arquillos, A., & Rubio-Romero, J. C. (2020). Proposed indicators of prevention through de-sign in construction projects. Journal of Construction, 14(2), 58-64.

Lim, B. T., & Loosemore, M. (2017). The effect of inter-organizational justice perceptions on or-ganizational citizenship behaviors in construction projects. International Journal of Project Man-agement, 35(2), 95-106.

Mushayi, T., Deacon, C., & Smallwood, J. (2017, September). The effectiveness of health and safe-ty training and its impact on construction workers’ attitudes, and perceptions. In International Con-ference on Engineering, Project, and Product Management (pp. 235-244). Cham, Springer.

Mohammadi, A., Tavakolan, M., & Khosravi, Y. (2018). Factors influencing safety performance on construction projects: A review. Safety science, 109, 382-397.

Oswald, D., Wade, F., Sherratt, F., & Smith, S. D. (2019). Communicating health and safety on a multinational construction project: Challenges and strategies. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 145(4), 04019017.

Pirzadeh, P., & Lingard, H. (2017). Understanding the dynamics of construction decision making and the impact on work health and safety. Journal of Management in Engineering, 33(5), 05017003.

Wu, C., Wang, F., Zou, P. X., & Fang, D. (2016). How safety leadership works among owners, con-tractors and subcontractors in construction projects. International journal of project management, 34(5), 789-805.

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