Measuring Safety's Return on Investment Essay

"Measuring safety's return on the investment" is an academic journal which has been written by the authors, Terry, Collins, Jervis and Susan and was published in the year 2001. The article examines the type of elements in safety program of the "United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Voluntary Protection Programs (VPP)," that offers the highest return on investment. The article also involves; definition of the seven elements of VPP, steps engaged in the process of logical hierarchy and the discussion of the results of analytical hierarchy process.

The article defines all the seven elements of VPP and examines all of them except accident. The safety programs elements that are more focused in this article are health and safety training, hazard control and prevention, documentation review, leadership in management and involvement of employee and correspondence of bargain agent. In the leadership in management and involvement of employee element, a firm is required to have a written health and safety program for both industry and size appropriate. The policy of health and safety must assign health and safety responsibilities. However, the employees must be involved in the aspects of health and safety program. In wart site analysis element, there are requirements for an organization to qualify there like a survey of the industrial survey and comprehensive safety to help in identifying potential or existing workplace hazards. Noise and toxic substances should be regularly monitored, and the organization must have a written report of risks (Jervis & Collins, 2001).

In hazard control and prevention, an organization must access the services of the professional who are certified in health and safety. They must use the administrative and engineering controls to address the specific site hazards and make an effort to correct those hazards. Employees to must follow the written rules for safety issues. In safety and health training, all workers in an organization, supervisors, managers, and employees must be trained on their responsibilities of a safety. There should be conduction of drills on emergency preparedness. Documentation review is another element, and for an organization to take part in VPP, it must give OSHA representatives review of its written health and safety documentation program. Lastly is bargaining agents concurrence element where an organization looking for recognition by VPP must get the signed statements from a combined bargaining agents at the point before it is accepted in the program. However, there are several steps required in the evaluation of the VPP elements using the analytical hierarchy process (Jervis & Collins, 2001).

Moreover, in this article, the author mentions that there is difficulty decision making for the safety managers concerning the most efficient way to implement an effective safety program and maintain it within limited resources. They require a decision tool in determining the kind of elements that would provide the necessary return on investment. There is a model that is based on experience and judgment that can be used in the development of a tool using the process of analytical hierarchy. The safety managers can also use Data collection that would give them a common baseline amongst the respondent and authors. They can also apply the TD VPP process. Use of the results is also a valuable tool for the safety managers who target maximum impact while using limited resources (Jervis & Collins, 2001).

Conclusion

In conclusion, health and safety are crucial for every organization, and there have to be ways established to maintain them. The safety management in every organization needs to develop some tools that would be used in modeling some safety management program that would be recognized as both comprehensive and effective safety maintenance. Apart from the safety management getting safety tools all workers in whichever organization, these are the supervisors, employees and managers must be trained on ways to maintain safety and health meaning it is necessary for everyone.

References

Jervis, S., & Collins, T. R. (2001). Measuring safety's return on investment. Professional Safety, 46(9), 18-18.