A safety officer’s main role in the organization to help in hazard identification and thus he will have a hawk’s eye for hazards. The conditions which are normal for the plant personnel will be hazards in the eyes of safety man and thus when he tells shop floor persons about hazard and need for elimination, the safety man will be seen as a negative minded person. He may be scolded, chided and will be at receiving end depending upon the safety culture of the organization. If the safety officer is having thick skin, then he will not bother and will continue his work. If not, after sometime he may stop cautioning about hazards. If some unusual incident occurs, then again same safety person will be blamed for not identifying the hazard and intimating the concerned. He will be come pessimistic and all his goals / objective in the beginning of a career in safety will lead to total frustration and he will be at cross roads to do what. He will be stressful and it is not possible for any person to be optimistic for ever. Though pessimistic attitude is good for a safety man in hazard identification, when this reach his mind and carried to home, it may spoil his home life also. Over a period of time, he will be at peace neither at work place nor at home and will be blamed all around.
Therefore, it is important for safety professional to stay positive and exercise like walking will help him to stay fit, physically and mentally. Listening to music, attending cultural programmes and book reading are some of the activities which can help the person to lead a peaceful life. Similarly, visiting new places, monumental or religious or others, will fresh up the life.
If it is not possible to continue in the safety department, he can think of change of job. However, I know some persons who left their organizations in frustration continue to be frustrated and are frequent job changers.
There are many programmes available to take care of different professionals, but professionals who help the organizations to identify hazards are helped in identifying their hazards. These safety professionals have to take care of themselves and safe guard their health and life beyond office.
Once the person overcomes his stressful life because of his profession, still keeping his pessimistic approach, he can be helpful to the organization in hazard identification. A safety officer in an organization will have the moral responsibility of ensuring a safe work place and also see that management will not take wrong decisions because of his work methods. He has to envisage what can go wrong and provide feed back to the management in the form of reports regularly. He has to convey hazards along with the statutory requirments under which these are seen as violations and for thick skinned persons, safety officer should not hesitate in telling about the penalties / punishments one deserves for the violations. Though, punishments or penalties are seen as last resort and people say they are not helpful in straightening the organization, as we see the occurrence of incidents in well advanced countries and the penalties imposed by the regulators in these countries, there is no other solution.
In fact, organizations should develop their own penalty structure in terms of cash fine or reduced pay or suspension of the employee from work and termination as last resort. Then, everybody will have the fear of following safety priniciples which the management wants to follow. Of course, nothing can be done, if the management it self pays only lip service to safety.
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