The Effectiveness of Organizational Intervention to improve OHS. The case of Air New Zealand

Essai , 2022 , 15 Pages , Note: A+

Economie politique - Economie de la santé

In 2010, an estimated six hundred to nine hundred New Zealanders died of work-related diseases and a further 30,000 people develop serious but non-fatal work-related ill-health (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), 2013, p. 1). In the vast majority of cases, these events were preventable.

Through the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) 2015, mandatory duties are placed on persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) to ensure that potential work-related health and safety risks are being eliminated or minimised, so as far as is reasonably practicable (WorkSafe, 2016).

Therefore, executives (e.g., CEO) and board directors must exercise due diligence on health and safety by profiling the risk of an organisation's operations, understanding the key controls in place and setting a system providing data on whether these controls are working.

Beyond these mandatory duties, leaders need to demonstrate to their employees and other stakeholders (e.g., suppliers, customers, shareholders) that they mean it by recognising the benefits of supporting the general health and wellbeing of their workers(The Institute of Directors, 2021).

Table of contents

1. Introduction

2. Strategic planning and decision making processes

3. The evaluation of the effectiveness of a specific organisational intervention designed to improve OHS
3.1 The case of Air New Zealand

4. Conclusion

References

1. Introduction

In 2010, an estimated six hundred to nine hundred New Zealanders died of work-related diseases and a further 30,000 people develop serious but non-fatal work-related ill-health (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), 2013, p. 1). In the vast majority of cases, these events were preventable.

Through the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) 2015, mandatory duties are placed on persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) to ensure that potential work-related health and safety risks are being eliminated or minimised, so as far as is reasonably practicable (WorkSafe, 2016).

Therefore, executives (e.g., CEO) and board directors must exercise due diligence on health and safety by profiling the risk of an organisation's operations, understanding the key controls in place and setting a system providing data on whether these controls are working.

Beyond these mandatory duties, leaders need to demonstrate to their employees and other stakeholders (e.g., suppliers, customers, shareholders) that they mean it by recognising the benefits of supporting the general health and wellbeing of their workers(The Institute of Directors, 2021).

In 'figure 1', the importance of the well-being of the workers is reflected in a broad approach to protecting and supporting their health and safety at work.

Figure 1: A broad workplace health and wellbeing agenda (WorkSafe, 2016)

The PCBU should choose to carry out voluntary activities that aim to prevent or manage the risk related health conditions or to improve wellbeing within its workforce.

Moreover, the organisation must develop in collaboration with its workforce a framework aligned with its corporate strategic planning cycle to identify the key goals, prioritise targets and enable its workers.

2. Strategic planning and decision making processes

The Regulator admits the high level of underreporting of work-related ill-health (Pearce et al., 2004).

Therefore, WorkSafe (2016) encourages PCBUs to enable workers to identify and report work-related ill-health.

However, there are expectations that the organisation uses the results from workforce health and workplace exposure monitoring to continuously improve how risks are eliminated or minimised ('figure 2').

Figure 2: WorkSafe Intervention Model

A good leadership strategic plan is to give the workforce the tools and responsibility for making the workplace healthier and safer by not holding only executives accountable but also their workers.

Most people are visual learners meaning that a picture of the strategy of the organisation is understood better than a written narrative.

For example, Air New Zealand shares its health and safety strategy through an easily understandable analogy to a jet plane engine but similar to the Deming cycle ('figure 3').

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

LEARNING 4 DEVELOPMENT

Building safety capability by embedding mindful safety leadership into our learning and dereicpment programmes

Figure 4: Health and Safety framework (The Government Health and Safety Lead, 2019)

This collaborative approach allows the organisation to identify critical risks through lag indicators such as incident and near-miss event reporting, injury severity and weekly compensation costs, employee survey, and sickness absence.

Although they occur less frequently, critical risks have the potential for causing significant injury, illness, or fatality and the PCBU should focus on those risks.

Thus, the PCBU sets safety measures to be monitored and improved (i.e., continuous improvement) as recommended by the Regulator by developing a critical risk management improvement roadmap ('figure 5').

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Figure 5: Critical risk management improvement roadmap (The Government Health and Safety Lead, 2021)

3. The evaluation of the effectiveness of a specific organisational intervention designed to improve OHS

Lessons should be learned from high-reliability organisations (HRO) constantly evolving in adverse conditions in which safety-driven data lead the organisation.

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• Cours: Occupational Health and Safety Strategic Planning and Performance Measurement
• Note: A+
• Année de publication: 2022
• Pages: 15
• N° de catalogue: V1247258
• ISBN (PDF): 9783346735546
• Langue: anglais
• mots-clé: effectiveness, organizational, intervention, zealand