Context

Health and safety are one of the areas that modern organizations largely focus on. Early Risk identification and mitigation are some of the options that organizations have in dealing with health and safety at work. Health, safety, and environment risks can be costly to an organization if not sufficiently handled. These challenges faced by organizations range from employee exposure risks, human ecological risks, sustainability reporting risks, and business risks. These risks are often linked to negative outcomes witness through public areas such as public’s health and safety, occupational health and safety in daily activities, deterioration of the environment, employee wellness, pollution and destruction of natural resources. The unsafe working environment can pose different challenges for an organization.  A reduction of this health, safety and environment risks calls robust health, safety and environment strategy (Kimbrough & Componation, 2009). This report explores health, safety and environment scenario for ABZ Limited, discusses the identified HSE risk issue alongside associated risks from areas such as operational, legal, reputational and financial likely to arise from the core health, safety and environmental risk. All organizations need to have a risks management strategy in place irrespective of their size. For effective mitigation, these strategies need to be comprehensive. All risks need to be prioritized to facilitate swift execution of mitigation strategies.

ABZ is an Australian Organization employing over 2000 staff. Its range of employees includes executives, administration staff, and warehouse workers. The organization houses its employees in two buildings located adjacent to each other in the middle of Melbourne City. The CEO of the company is deeply concerned about increasing cases of accidents in the organization. Recently the organization compensated one of their employees who suffered an accident in the course of duty. The CEO is deeply concerned about these occurrences and focused on seeing an end to the trend to guard the reputation of the organization in the public eye avoid future litigations, conform to legal requirements and improve internal conditions for their employees and customers. The evaluation of the risk will fist include identification of risk hazard and an assessment of the parties likely to be affected and how they are likely to be affected (Corvellec, 2010). The identified risks will then be evaluated, and precautions decided upon. This will be followed by a recording and implementation of the findings. The methodology to be used will include identification of environmental aspects of the organizational activities, preliminary high-risk analysis and identification, screening and prioritization of risks, risk quantification, detailed risk assessment and a decision on the risk controls and communication of the same to stakeholders

Risk Assessment

Risk assessment refers to the process of identifying risk and hazard factors likely to result in negative outcomes, analyzing and evaluating the potential risks likely to result from the hazard. As part of maintaining workplace health and safety, organizations ought to take all the necessary precautions of dealing with workplace risks (Haimes, 2015). In order to effectively deal with organizational risks all possible cause of risks likely to cause harm to need to be identified. After possible risks have been identified, a decision is then arrived at on whether all reasonable steps are being taken to address the issue. This is what risk assessment refers to.

Risk identification is the process of identifying negative and positive risks affecting an organization. The organization will use some strategies to identify risks. The first method to be used in risk identification will be brainstorming (Reason, 2016). The organization will bring together different groups within the organization and engage them in a brainstorming activity to identify the potential risks, the cause of those risks, hazards associated with the risks and options for mitigating the risks. For this exercise to be effective, a conducive environment for free-flowing ideas will be established. All ideas will be treated equally with none being criticized or rewarded.

This process will start with the identification of all possible internal and external risks that the organization is facing. These risks will be categorized as hazard, operational, strategic and financial risks. The significance of the risks will be analyzed through brainstorming sessions and an analysis of the strengths, weakness, Opportunities, and Treats for the organization. This analysis will also include the possible impacts of the risks and how far the impact is likely to extend (Tideiksaar, 2010). Possible options to be considered include the impact of the identified risks to business operations, communication, workflow, impact on customers and other external shareholders.

A risk matrix will be used to analyze the significance of the risks. Through this method, risks will be ranked according to their probability of occurrence and impact upon occurrence. This will facilitate effective development of strategies to respond to the risk.

Risk mitigations the process of taking steps to reduce the potential impacts of risks. Various risk mitigation options are available for the organization.

Risk transfer refers to the process of transferring an identified risk to a third party. Through this approach, the organization will outsource the services of an external party specialized in the risk area especially if the risk will not be a core competency of the organization (Sharp & Brock, 2012). Adoption of this option will enable the organization to focus on other areas of competence.

Risk Identification

Risk limitation is a widely used approach. By adopting this approach, the company will take the necessary actions to limit its exposure to the identified risks(Sharp & Brock, 2012). Risk limitation may involve a combination of risk acceptance risk avoidance or a combination of the two.

Risk acceptance is also an option that can be used by the organization. This strategy will however not minimize the effects of the identified risks. Risk acceptance approach will be most viable in a situation where the most likely to be incurred through the adoption of other strategies will have a higher cost than the risk itself(Sharp & Brock, 2012). Risk acceptance will save the organization from spending so much money on risks that do not have a high possibility of occurring.

Hierarchy control is used to reduce exposure to hazards or eliminate it. Hierarchy of control is advocated for by multiple safety organizations. It is promoted as the standard organizational practice and taught to managers to facilitate its adoption. The hierarchy of controls commences with the most effective controls and concludes with the least effective controls. The first control, Elimination is concerned with the physical removal of the hazard. A substitution which is the second one focuses on replacement of the hazard (Manuj & Mentzer,2008). The third control, engineering controls centers on isolation of people from the hazard. Fourthly, Administrative controls center on changing the way people work. Finally, the focus is on protecting the worker with personal protective equipment.

Accidents at the workplace can arise as a result of the failure of the organization or the employees. Effective management of this risk, therefore, calls adoption of a comprehensive approach (Lave, 2013). This section presents my recommendations to the organization on effective management of the risks.

The bulk of effective risk management should start here. Some of the possible hazards at the workplace include heavy objects likely to strain the backs of employees, object obstruction on paths and wet floors (Sodhi, Son & Tang, 2012) After all possible scenarios of injury have been explored; a list should then be prepared to contain all potential organizational risks.

The organization may also label all the dangerous areas to notify employees of the potential risks. Signage used should conform to the requirements of Occupation Safety and Health Administration(Manuj & Mentzer,2008). The use of Signage will be beneficial in safeguarding against workplace accidents and potential complaints.

After all potential risks likely to be faced by employees have been identified; a plan detailing the steps that they will take to avoid any harm should be devised.

Analyzing the significance of the risks

Organizational accidents and injuries may also arise as a result of the lack of adequate safety training for employees. The organization will also have to train its employees on safety management after all procedures of avoiding injury have been established(Manuj & Mentzer,2008). Safety training should be made available to both new and existing employees.

These will be communicated will be communicated to workers through some strategies. Face to face communication will highly be used. Meetings will facilitate face to face communication. Meetings will facilitate immediate feedback and enable any clarifications as the need may arise (Lundgren & McMakin, 2018).

Written communication will also be used to communicate the recommendations. Written communication mediums to be used include, emails, Memos and internet content (Lundgren & McMakin, 2018). 

Social media will be an effective medium of reaching to the vast clients of the organization(Lundgren & McMakin, 2018). The recommendations will be posted on the company’s social media pages such as Facebook. Social media communication will also allow real-time feedback.

Monitoring and review

Monitoring of the new Strategies

This strategy will involve monitoring of all organization activities, processes, monitoring individual employees to identify how well the suggestions are being implemented as well as identification of what else needs to be done to aid the implementation (Aven, 2016).  

The implementation will be carried out in phases. Regular status and progress reports will be prepared for different stages to identify any deviations from the initial targets so that such can be rectified. These reports will identify what has been achieved and what needs to be achieved (Moon & Rutgers University,2016). The reports will also enable identification of existing issues and facilitate the making of timely adjustments.

Monitoring will also involve estimation of the percentage of failure or success in the implementation. This estimation will facilitate corrective actions and improve the success of the implementation.

They will be reviewed through a comparison of the previous situation at the organization with the current situation. A reduction in workplace accidents will signal the success of the strategies(Moon & Rutgers University,2016). In a situation where accidents continue to occur at the organization, the strategies will have failed to achieve the intended objectives

Monitoring is important in that it ensures that the implementation is carried out as intended. It facilitates the identification of any deviations from the initial implementation for early corrective actions. Monitoring ensures successful implementation. The process will ensure that implementation is kept on track and facilitate the realization of intended results (Purdy, 2010). Monitoring will enable consolidation of information about the progress of the project. It will also reveal implementation mistakes and provide an opportunity for learning and improvement.

Conclusion

In conclusion, ABZ Limited is faced with imminent risks demonstrated by increased accidents at the organization. The evaluation of the risks will include identification of risk hazard and an assessment of the parties likely to be affected and how they are likely to be affected. Identification of the organizational risks will be carried out through brainstorming and an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the organization. Management of the identified will require and adoption of a comprehensive risk mitigation approach. Possible strategies that can be used by the organization in dealing with the risks include risk acceptance, risk avoidance, risk limitation, and risk transfer. possible strategies for dealing with identified organization risks will include safety training, labeling of dangerous spots within the organization  and formulation of plans to avoid injury at the organization 

References

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