Reference no: EM133695265

ASSIGNMENT:

Your client is an employer who has had a very poor record in health and safety with well above average loss time for their industry. The company has a history of non-compliance orders from the Ministry of Labour in the past 2 years. The safety coordinator is a young and newly graduated student with little experience but is eager and willing to work really hard to improve the safety performance of the company. The company does have a documented safety program that has been implemented over the last 2 years. The new safety coordinator was hired to create the safety program and to determine the appropriate training required to get the company back on track. Due to the company's increased incident rate their WCB premiums have been going up and up and the managers have been advised that it will take some time and effort for the company to see reductions in their premium rates. One option that has been discussed is the need to reduce lost time incidents at all costs. The controller of the company has all of the WCB experience reports for the past 4 years but is not comfortable analyzing the data and is concerned about releasing information to staff that might be considered confidential.

The CEO has determined that the new health and safety coordinator and the efforts over the past 2 years to implement the safety program has been satisfactory and further efforts to focus on the company's health and safety program are now in good hands and attention can be directed elsewhere, after all the company has experienced a significant reduction in lost time incidents and there are other needs.

The Safety Coordinator is very concerned that the OHS program progress made over the past 2 years, while on the right track, is too fragile at this point to really be considered sustainable. In addition, the metrics used by the company to measure and evaluate the OHS program are very much focused on WCB injury and frequency rate experiences.

Managers and Supervisors have provided some support for the implementation of the new OHS initiatives but see this as primarily the responsibility of the Safety Coordinator. They do not see OHS as being part of their job responsibilities, especially as they are not credited or recognized for these efforts as part of any job performance related through the company's Human Resources Department.

The Safety Coordinator has hired you to develop and implement a measurement and evaluation process that will give them a framework and benchmark for the next 3 years. Your contract is for 2 years and 15 hours per week only.

Employees seem upset and believe that the lack of safety initiatives success in the past is a result of a management team that does not care. They do not believe that anything will ever change. Your first visit to the plant was somewhat uncomfortable as you sensed reluctance from both managers and employees to engage in discussions related to underlying issues.

Your task is to assist the company to identify and implement an OHS Measurement and Evaluation component to the existing program and management process.

Background of the Company

Your client is a manufacturing plant with 200 non-unionized employees, a management and supervisory team of 30 and a senior management team of 7 people. The plant is divided into 4 operational units all which have unique responsibilities to the process.

The company is 21 years old and for many years has had an extremely poor health and safety record but in the last 2 years it has seen improvements. They did not have a safety program and a little over 2 years ago hired a safety coordinator to design and implement one.

Answer the following question related to the scenario:

1. Describe the activities that you would conduct in the first 2 months on this project. Clearly explain your reason for the initial approach.

2. Describe any assumptions you have made to answer these questions. The assumptions should be supported by evidence in the scenario.

3. Describe what health and safety measurements and/ or process that can be used to gather additional information. Clearly explain why you chose this approach and what you expect from the results. A sample of the tool should be included.

4. Describe in detail the pros and cons of your specific choice of method/process.

5. Describe in detail where you would expect to be by the end of the first year of your contract. Also provide what you would expect to work on in the second year and why.

6. Provide recent references and sources used.