Every employer, every executive and every manager is responsible for safety and health in their enterprise. The quality of leadership not only determines how safety and health are practiced in the enterprise, but also how attractive, successful and sustainable it will be. Leadership demands open communication and a clear management culture. Good leadership is exhibited for example by predictability, consistency and attentiveness.
You are smart, you use risk assessment that helps you to identify hazards and risks before accidents and production downtimes occur, and it assists you with evaluating the risk potential as well as establishing and documenting the required protective measures. That is why this tool is used around the world today.
Occupational safety and health has many facets. Prioritize, establishing clear goals for OSH in your enterprise and striving to implement them over the medium term – for example in a three-year programme. There are several options for a goal-oriented, programme-based approach: Either you set a goal to continuously reduce the number of accidents, or you establish themes to focus on – such as the operation of machines.
With well-organized occupational safety and health, every enterprise runs more smoothly because disruptions, production downtime and quality problems are reduced. These are all good reasons for you to make sure your OSH organization is effective – it pays off!
Effective occupational safety and health strategies include technical, organizational and personal measures. Technical measures should take precedence. Therefore it is essential to keep machines, facilities, equipment and also the workplaces up to current OSH standards, and to also exclude or minimize detrimental effects on health. Naturally, it is not always possible to use the latest technology.
After an accident one often asks: How could this happen? Technical facilities and production machines are becoming increasingly productive and faster, but also more complex and prone to malfunctions. This makes it all the more important to systematically deploy well qualified and trained persons at the workplaces. It is a top management responsibility to make sure that a detailed description of the qualification requirements for every position in your enterprise has been made and that every worker is able to perform the duties of his or her position.
Motivating your employees to act in a safe and healthy manner is one of your most important leadership responsibilities. Enterprises that show appreciation for their employees and also actively involve them in safety and health within the enterprise are tapping into important potential: their knowledge, abilities and ideas.