Safety in many corporate meetings is considered as a less important topic and does not adhere enough space on the papers. Although, subordinating safety is same as subordinating production efficiency and cost factors. A mutual balance between safety and production is vital in the manufacturing industry. Giving more importance will not only hamper the efforts of the employees but may also create collateral damages in the other sections of the organization.
One might be achieving small gains by looking over the safety measures. However, a single accident due to lack of safety measures is enough to create a ruckus and compensate the gains. Sometimes, the numbers also roll downhill and the company might incur losses as well. Lacks in safety measures are also responsible for the spike in costs. Moreover, the medical care, insurance policies and indirect costs such as less production and low morale of the employees are some other factors that bring s additional load on the firm and bring a very bad PR among the agencies.
Obviously, there are some occupational hazards that cannot be completely removed. However, for such systems, a certain control with a considerable tolerance level can be introduced to keep it in check and provide assistance to safety systems on a parallel notion.
- Safety Vs. Production
There is a feeling that inducts the mind of employees of many organizations that safety will hinder their efficiency and will reduce their production abilities. This hindrance usually arises from either one of the following sources:
- Lack of Strategy:
Strategies direct the flow of work and decide the methods to deal with a problem. Lack of strategies is bound to create confusion and distress in the entire system. Without strategies, even the manpower would fail to sync the resemblance between the parallel boats of safety and productivity.
- Conflicting organizational and safety strategies:
Safety strategies are usually designed and implemented by the safety department while the corporate leaders build the business with business strategies. The whole system lacks the simple concept of coordination and creates a situation of conflict and confusion at certain instances. If anyone of the two is given preference, the other is bound to suffer which will ultimately strike the business. Hence, a proper balance and coordination must be maintained while introducing the safety and business strategies at the workplace.
- The disconnect between strategy and practice in the workplace:
It is very rarely seen in organizations that a safety and business strategies are implemented and aligned in a proper way. However, such kind of organization faces a different problem i.e. improper or negligible practice of strategies by workers in the workplace. This problem can arise from many sources like poor communication and lack of accountability.
- Safe Production
Among all the strategies and plans, the idea of safe production must not be left out. There are only few organizations who precisely define the roles. Responsibilities and results (RRRs) when it comes to production and safety. This is what makes them excellent and rare at the same time. Other organizations either do not take these RRRs into consideration or enforce them poorly. Many organizations nowadays, start believing that their safety system is full-proof due to lack of accidents for some months. Although this can mislead the leaders and might confuse them in adding and utilizing the leading metrics of safety.
Leaders should interact with the manpower and try to know their perceptions of importance between production and safety. At the same time, they must also keep this in mind that the workplace is already giving them some performance now and in order to change the numbers, they must also change the factors that revolve around safety and production.
Written & Compiled By Faber Kishlay & Faber Mayuri
