Governments made it mandatory to have a dedicated
safety department in every plant/facility conforming to certain minimum
conditions considered as hazardous. Generally, the role of the safety officer specified
in the applicable legislations is to advice and assist the plant officials to
carryout –
hazard identification, job hazard studies, accident
investigation, procurement of safety devices, conduct of safety promotional
campaigns, safety competitions, etc.
Further, it should also conduct monitoring inspections
to evaluate safety performance, investigate select accidents/near misses,
maintain records, etc.
However, when we hear/read from media about occurrence
of accidents everyday at some plant or the other, it appears that the safety
departments in these facilities are not effective by themselves or concerned
plant managements are not heeding to their advice.
Having a separate safety department in every facility
along with other departments like production, maintenance, quality, HR,
administration, security, etc may be giving the impression to the other
departments that safety in the work area is not their job(work/headache). And these
departments may also be of the view that it is the safety department which
should identify the hazardous conditions and ALSO to rectify them WITHOUT
bothering them (i.e production, etc).
Such views are against the role specified by the
legislations and clearly the importance of safety department is lost when such
views are also supported by the top management. Clearly, safety department
cannot go hand in glove situation with other departments, they confrontation is
not the solution. Safety department should act tough with erring departments.
If the role of safety department is limited by not listening to their advice,
then the safety in the concerned facility is doomed and accidents will be just
waiting to happen.
One should realize that safety is a line function i.e
everybody in the organization should make it happen and not that of staff
function i.e it is not the duty of safety department staff alone. If any plant
management thinks it is staff function, then safety will not improve in that
plant and the expenditure on safety department staff (salaries) is waste. May
be they can only show to visitors that they are complying with legislations,
they are spending so much, etc and make them scapegoats in case of any
accident. This is true, as of late, filing cases on safety department officials
along with other department officials is on the rise. It is easy to tell that
the safety officer did not caution them about the hazards though clearly, it is
the responsibility of the work area in-charge.
The occurrence of accidents at work places that come
to our notice through media, and the possible reasons as above sometimes lead
to the conclusion that it is better to abolish the safety department by
legislation and to make concerned plant management responsible for ensuring
safety. Nobody should be designated as safety officer or person responsible for
safety, even within each department as the results will be same.
The responsibilities of every department in-charge
should include safety also, apart from other responsibilities. The issues to be
discussed in every review meeting
should include all issues like, production, quality, safety, maintenance,
developmental activities, projects, etc (need not be in that order, but all
issues should be reviewed without fail).
Such procedure will make the in-charges to give equal
time to all issues and ensure a safe work place for all.