PREVENTION APPROACH OF INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS | DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT



     Okonkwo (2008) describes one of the methods employed in the prevention of industrial accidents as participation. Participation implies that all the persons involved in the work system (managers, workers, experts) participated in risk assessment and prevention activities, global participative approaches often have a positive impact on the whole work system and on all the factors and elements that can lead to work accidents. Participation in risk analysis during training has a positive impact on the attitude of employee which is often the bottleneck in accident prevention.

            Bullinger (1999), states that the cost-benefit analysis of prevention is not an easy task. It is accepted that rapidly changing risks at work can only be tackled effectively when everybody in the company from the management to every single worker, approaches them proactively. Prevention is being seen as a result of economic considerations and as an investment in industries innovative capacity and future prospects, management systems aim to integrate performance measurement of prevention to achieve a higher safety level.
             Van Aerle (2001) gave the following approaches as a means to preventing industrial accidents. There include;
(i)        Measurement of positive indicators of prevention-
(ii)       Measurement of prevention efforts instead of result
(iii)     Involvement of all personnel
(iv)     Application in different working environments
(v)       Application can be used as on individual encouragement prevention.
(vi)      Application can be used as a collective promotion of prevention.
(vii)    It has to lead to continuous improvement of the prevention level.
(vii)    Simple to follow and evaluate.
            Beeck (1998) describes that more transparency seems to be an important element of management in general and in management of change in particular. One argument is that one of a few persons within the company are not able to cover all the aspects any more and therefore information should be shared. Another argument is that well throughout information and communication campaigns can be very efficient in dealing with uncertainty, limiting the feeling of uncertainty amongst workers has a positive impact on job satisfaction and on risk behaviour.
            Jager and Sturk (200) review that safety and health prevention can no longer be controlled by merely learning from the past. Workers might be less experienced and organizations may lose their knowledge due to changes. Also Hierarchical structures are being broken down. Therefore, self-control and self steering are considered to be increasingly necessary in the field of prevention.
            Eboh (2010) suggested that life-long learning is becoming more important to sustain one’s employability, as well as to sustain health and safety. Temporary and fixed term employees and part-time employees have less access to training and often perform tasks that require fewer skills. The consequence is that they have fewer opportunities to learn on the job.
            Izundu (2007) suggested that Education and learning in the broad sense have become a never ending assignment. Keeping up with and anticipating new evolutions are the very elements in our changing society. Life long learning can help to anticipate changes and to cope with risks.
            Visser (1998) focused on the logistic approach to safety. In her review, a logistic approach integrates safety, health, environment and quality aspects. The accent should lie on conceptual prevention, not only concerning technical equipment and machines but also in the concept of work organization and task design. The holistic approach is based on a system approach where attention is given to all the constituent elements of the system and based on the understanding that changing one element can change the whole system, influencing hazards and risk occurrence.
            Anoke (2009) in his own theoretical literature infers that the holistic approach should be integrated from the early stages of development, design and planning. All products and services  should be inherently safe, sustainable workplaces, sustainable entrepreneurship. Indeed, holistic approaches can contribute to the efficiency as well as the profitability of safety, health and quality management.
            Ashford and Zwetshtloot (2000) stated that in order to make significant advances in industrial accident prevention, the focus of industrial forms must shift from assessing the risk of existing production and manufacturing systems to discovering technological alternatives that is from the identification of problems to the identification of solutions. In the change of working conditions and production systems, it is important to identify specific inherently safe options. This will advance the adoption of primary prevention strategies in production systems. Successful approaches to encourage inherently safer production require both technological and managerial changes, firms must have willingness, opportunity and the capacity to charge.
            Onyekaozulu (2010) states that preventing process accidents requires vigilance. The passing of time without a process accident is not necessarily an indication that all is well and may contribute to a dangerous and growing sense of complacency. When an employees lose an appreciation of how their safety systems were intended to work, safety systems and controls can deteriorate, lessons can be forgotten and hazards and deviations from safe operating procedures can be accepted. Employees and supervisors can increasingly rely on how things were done before, rather than rely on sound engineering principles and other controls. Employees can forget to be afraid. When systems and controls deteriorate, everything can come together in the worst possible way. Equipment malfunctions and controls lives or suffer horrible injuries and even communities becoming devastated.
            Fafunwa (2006) believes that leadership from the top of the industry, starting form the Board and going down, is essential. In his opinion, it is imperative that the company leadership set the process safety “tone at the top of the organization and establish appropriate expectations regarding process safety performance. Fafunwa further believed that any industry that has not provided effective process safety  leadership and has not adequately established process safety as a core value across its departments will be involved in industrial accidents, though industry may have an inspirational goal of “no accidents, no harm to employees”.
            Nwabueze (2007) describes that a good process safety culture requires a positive, trusting and open environment with effective lines of communication between management and the workforce, including employee representatives.
            Agha (2005) in his theoretical literature states that incorporation of process safety into management decision making will help to reduce industrial accidents of employee morale. Most industrial management are short-term focus and its decentralized management system and entrepreneurial culture have delegated substantial discretion to the industry managers without clearly defining process expectations, responsibilities or accountabilities. In addition, while accountability is a core concept in company’s  management framework for driving desired conduct, company has not demonstrated that it has effectively held executive management, managers and supervisors, both at the corporate  level and the industry level, accountable for process safety performance at its departments.
            Orji (2009), in his own review describes the rise of globalization as concept to industrial safety. According to him, the rise of globalization requires organizations to expand their vision of what “diversity” means in the workplace and cultures without any unitary meaning.
            Mgbeke (2009) defines Global diversity as any characteristic used to differentiate one person from another or, more narrowly, interns of demographic factors. Boarding the concept of global diversity is to increase its inclusiveness seems to be a trend in human resources. Many employers are using the terms diversity of thought to value the unique perspectives individuals bring to organizations.  Despite the broad strategic scope of diversity, a short-term focus can appear to be rather narrow.
            Okafor (2006) states that to make the global diversity the next competitive advantage, the management must develop the organization’s strategic diversity plan. Key factors essential for a solid diversity plan includes global mindsets, cross-border teams and projects, cultural learning programs and international assignment. Equally, the key elements of abroad strategic global diversity managements plan are
          Practitioner competencies (attributes necessary to complete a particular job).
          Strong business case (relevance to the mission, vision and      business objectives).
          Commitment from the top (active involvement of the
organization’s leadership).
          Vision, mission and strategy (i.e., the “where, what and how” of the plan).
          Recruitment and sourcing (companies recruit individuals with a collective mixture of differences and similarities that include individual characteristics, values and beliefs, experiences and backgrounds).
          Employee retention.
          Training and development.
          On boarding (process designed to welcome and educate new employees).
          Communications (internal transfer of knowledge and ideas related to diversity).
          Marketing, advertising and branding (external communication used by organizations to reach potential customers, clients, donors and stakeholders)
          Leveraging employee diversity (the end-state of the diversity management plan).
          Strategic alliances and partnerships (relationships to achieve a specific goal or meet the diversity initiatives strategy).
          Corporate social responsibility (ethical and socially responsible business behavior).
           Customer/member experience.
           Supplier/vendor diversity.
          Measurement and accountability (e.g., set clear diversity targets, establish metrics and track progress, and offer appropriate management incentives).
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