Gemstone Co. Aligns with OSHA VPP, AIHA Z10 & Identifies Red Flags - Essay Sample

Introduction

Gemstone Fabricators Company has decided to become an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) site. There is a keen interest in aligning with the ANSI/AIHA Z10 standard when sending your application to OSHA. There were some red flags identified when going through the application submission materials. The managers, supervisors or executives were exempted from the performance evaluation document that frontline workers filled. Also, the employees were not familiar with what to do to help move the company’s safety program forward. The effort to implement a safety and health management systems approach appears to be somewhat piecemeal.

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All employees, including managers, supervisors, or executives, need to be held accountable for filling the performance evaluation documentation. Managers can enhance their employees' performance through their safety management and leadership qualities. They should ensure that their employees are provided with a healthy psychosocial environment and frequently conduct safety inspections. Employers are required to establish company policies, procedures, written plans, processes, job descriptions, and rules to convey their performance standards in safety and health to employees (Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 2020). Employees should also comply with the company's rules and regulations to improve their performance.

Moreover, frontline workers should also be involved in safety management formulation and implementation to maintain the safety program. The management team needs to organize a company safety training that each employee can take part in to understand safety rules. Employers should also supervise the work conditions to detect and correct hazards before any injury or illness occurs. Company safety meetings should also be held regularly so that employees can make suggestions to change or improve the safety program

The company also needs to establish a detailed procedure to collect and analyze data. It will ensure the establishment of a safety appraisal system. They should track how well rules have been implemented to prevent the occurrence of hazards and document risks that have happened. The employees can take part in a survey that will help review the current safety program, and information collected will help identify to which extent the program is implemented. Immediate measures should be taken when a program's shortcomings and problems are identified.

Never the less, a Plan-Do-Check-Act framework needs to be developed to resolve the safety deficiency. A continual improvement process requires that measurement systems be in place to observe progress toward achieving stated goals (Manuele, 2014). A safety committee made up of both frontline workers, and top-level management should be formed. This committee will be in charge of establishing safety accountability measures for every employee and safety appraisal. They will inspect the accountability system policies by dissecting and thoroughly studying each accountability system policy. An evaluation will also be done to compare and contrast each accountability system plan against benchmarks and best practices to judge their effectiveness (Occupational Safety and Health Administration, 2020). Quality performance monitoring of the program needs to be carried out to ensure it is working properly.

Conclusion

In conclusion, every employee, including the supervisors and frontline workers, is held accountable for their company's safety management program's best performance. The company also needs to ensure that their employees are familiar with their safety rules, and they are being implemented. Performance monitoring should also be regularly carried out to avoid redundancy of the safety system program.

References

Manuele, F. A. (2014). Advanced Safety Management: Focusing on Z10 and Serious Injury Prevention. John Wiley & Sons.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (2020). Voluntary protection programs (VPP): Policies and procedures manual. OSHA Directives, CSP: 03-01-005.