Managing Occupational Health and Safety at Companies and Organizations in South Sudan
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Benefits and Motives for Managing Occupational Health and Safety at Companies and Organizations in South Sudan
By Deng Matur Malek, Juba, South Sudan
Thursday, January 27, 2022 (PW) — Managing is the skill or art of accomplishing a particular objective or goal that requires coordination and administration of tasks besides time, effort, and resources to achieve something. Often, when it comes to recourses or spending money on something, it raises a lot of questions about the reasons for the spending and returns in the minds of individuals that decide to invest in something.
Such questions would possibly come to mind. What are the advantages and reasons for any organization or corporation to invest in occupational health and safety? Why should it make investments loads of money in it? Is it well worth it for organizations or companies to spend money on health and safety at their place of work?
In this article, we are going to investigate the motives and benefits of any employer that chooses to spend money on occupational health and safety. There are sound economic reasons for decreasing work-related accidents and ill health, in addition to ethical and regulatory motives, as well as some powerful incentives associated with employers’ working on achieving high occupational health and safety standards. However, there are three essential reasons for managing health and safety, they’re moral, legal, and economic reasons.
Moral motives:
When occupational health and safety is not managed properly, people get killed and injured in gruesome ways or suffer a terrible disease that has a massive impact not only on them but also on their dependents, families, friends, and colleagues. These events are considered to be morally unacceptable by any society in the world, injury and ill health should not be a price that has to be paid in order for a worker to feed their family.
It is widely accepted that moral reasons should be the prime motivator for managing health and safety or hazards and risks mitigations at any workplace, however, the case is open to debate in some cases because it needs massive effort from Health and Safety experts to raise the awareness about health and safety in the community for to maintain a moral code within society, without it employers may be tempted to treat the health and safety of the workforce as being of less importance than financial profit instead of recognizing that health, safety, and production are all equal.
Essentially the moral reasons are based on the concept of an employer owing a duty of reasonable care to his employees also an obligation to protect other people whose health and safety may be affected by his undertaking, e.g. contractors or members of the public.
Legal motives:
This relates to the framework of international and national laws that govern the conduct of businesses and organizations. Most countries have laws that set standards for how organizations should conduct themselves with regard to health and safety. failure to achieve these standards can lead to legal action being taken by the authorities such as:
- Preventive – enforcement notices (improvement or prohibition) can be issued by enforcement inspectors.
- Punitive – where the criminal courts impose fines and imprisonment for breaches of legal duties, this punishment can be given to the company or to individuals within the company.
- Compensatory – where employees can sue in the civil courts for compensation.
Until now, there has been a vacuum in South Sudan, due to the absence of occupational health and safety laws, regulations, and enforcement bodies for enforcing laws. Currently, in the nation, most organizations and companies operate without clear health and safety laws, and some rely on International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention C155 and Recommendations R164, or other internal regulations, which apply to workplace health and safety standards.
However, the good news is that the Ministry of Labor, Public Service, and Human Resource Development is doing a great job regarding the matter and very soon this vacuum will disappear. I am humbly recommending that the ministry engage other occupational health and safety professionals in the country in the process of papering the laws.
Economic Benefits:
Simply that accidents and ill-health cost money when an accident occurs there will be direct and indirect costs associated with the event the direct cost is the measurable costs arising directly from the accident they include the hospital bills of the affected employee, costs of prescription medicines, and therapy compensation payment made to the injured employee, etc.
On the other hand, indirect costs, or hidden costs, arise indirectly as a consequence of the event. Some of the damages that indirect costs encompass include the downtime of the injured employee or employees, the cost of damage done to the machine, equipment, or materials that were involved in the accident, damage to the organization’s image or reputation, etc.
Often, indirect costs are difficult to quantify precisely and hard to identify. However, indirect costs are usually much greater than direct costs. Some studies were carried out to help with the lack of knowledge that companies have regarding the actual cost of occupational incidents and injuries. OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, claimed that there are $2–10 times as many indirect costs for every $1 of direct costs.
Therefore, all employers in the first world are required to have certain types of insurance against accidents, ill-health, or other problems, such as:
- Employers’ liability insurance.
- Public liability insurance.
- Motor vehicle insurance.
These insurances will cover some costs of accidents and ill-health, e.g. compensation claims from employees and damage to motor vehicles. However, many of the costs cannot be insured against such as
- Production delays or down time
- Loss of raw materials due to accidents
- Accident investigation time
- Criminal fines and legal costs
- Sick pay for injured workers
- Overtime to make up for lost production
- Hiring and training new employees
- Loss of business reputation
Conclusion
Accidents and ill health can significantly affect the profitability of an organization and, in some cases, can put an organization out of business. This article aims to raise health and safety awareness to the public and to encourage larger and small companies in South Sudan about the benefits of managing health and safety, besides integrating occupational safety and health management into the general management system of the company. It takes leadership and commitment to improve workplace health and safety.
References
- Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
- Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
- Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH).
- The South African Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (SAIOSH).
- International Institute of Risk Management (IIRSM).
- International Labor Organization (ILO).
The author, Deng Gabriel Matur Malek, TECHIOSH, TECH SAIOSH, AIIRSM, is a Health, Safety and Environment Expert & Consultant, who can be reached via his email address: Deng Gabriel Matur Malek <deng.matur88@gmail.com>
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