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Every manager and employee wants a healthy and safe work environment; the issue confronting contemporary organisations is cost. What are the trade-offs between eliminating risks at the work place and the costs involved?

It is important to differentiate between occupational safety hazards and health hazards. Safety hazards are aspects of the work environment that have the potential of causing immediate and some time violent harm or even death. Examples of safety hazards include poorly maintained equipment, unsafe machinery, exposure to hazardous chemicals, and so on. Potential injuries include loss of hearing, eyesight, or body parts; cuts, sprains, burns, bruises, and broken bones; and electric shock. Health hazards are aspects of the work environment that slowly and cumulatively lead to deterioration of health. The person may develop a chronic or life threatening illness or become permanently disabled. Typical causes are physical and biological hazards, toxic and carcinogenic dusts and chemicals and stressful working conditions; these can cause cancer, heavy metal and other poisoning; respiratory diseases and psychological disorders like depression.

Work-related accidents and illnesses have many causes. The major causes of occupational accidents are task, working conditions and nature of the employees. Examples of causes related to the task and working conditions include poorly designed or inadequately repaired machines, lack of protective equipment, and the presence of dangerous chemicals or gases.

Other working conditions that contribute lighting; boredom; and horseplay and fighting.

As with other HRM functions, the success of a safety and health program requires the support and cooperation of managers. But it is more complicated than that. In some organisations, safety is a separate function, though both managers and staff still have their parts to play to protect employees. Top management must support safety and health with an adequate budget. Managers must give it their personal support by talking about safety and health with everyone in the firm. Acting on reports about safety is another way top managers can be involved in these efforts. Without this support, the effort to ensure safety and health is hampered.

How to draw up a health and safety policy

Some work environments may be so bad that improvements are required by health and safety policy. A heath and safety policy can be a highly relevant and constantly evolving document that helps to reduce the number of injuries and health problems within the organizations. But, as with anything that an organization does the priority that it gives to health and safety matters will depend on the commitment of senior managers or in the case of a small business, its owners. It is formalised in the creation of a safety committee consisting of the safety specialist representative employees and managers. The following five steps have to be taken into consideration to draw up a health and Safety policy.

(i) Involve key decision-makers The First step in drawing up an effective health and safety policy is to discuss the issue with the organization's top decision-makers. Decide who will champion the policy and consider whether there is a need to set some hard targets for health and safety improvements. It is important to agree how often the policy will be reviewed. The Health and Safety Executives in Western countries recommend that this should be done at least once a year.

(ii) Address the key issues Health and Safety policy will be unique to every organization. But it is recommeded that it should always address the following two issues.

* Who has overall responsibility for health and safety? The legal answer is straightforward: the employer does.

* What are your health and safety management arrangements? For example who ensures that employees are properly trained in health and safety? Who checks that training is given and that it remains current? What are the arrangements for reporting incidents - not just first aid treatment and accidents, but "near misses" and illness absences as well.

(iii) Consult employees Employers are legally obliged to consult employees on health and safety issues. Once the policy statement has been drawn up with the active involvement of employees' representative, drawn up policy statement must be told to the rest of the workforce to make aware about it.

This will ensure that all employees know about employers health and safety responsibilities. Employees and their representatives probably know more about what really happens in the work place. This will build on their knowledge and experience.

(iv) Assess the risks

The policy statement will detail how it is intended to tackle health and safety issues. But how are these problems identified in the first place? This is where risk assessment comes in.

In many cases, risk assessment is straightforward, requiring only common sense and reference to relevant health and safety guidance. managers need to carry out risk assessments and the views of employees and their representatives will be invaluable.

Carrying out a risk assessment involves five steps:

* Identify the hazards: Ask what could reasonably be expected to cause harm in work place.

* Identify the people who might be harmed: Establish how they could be affected by those hazards.

* Evaluate the risk: Decide whether or not existing control measures address each hazards identified. Consider whether risk can be removed by eliminating the hazard or by doing something that is intrinsically safer. If it can't be got rid of a hazard, decide if additional control measures are needed.

* Record findings: This will provide managers and workers with a useful source of information when they come to review the issues. Employees must be told about the findings of the assessment.

* Review the assessment regularly. Work process might change or new knowledge about particular hazards might become available. Advances in technology could also result in more effective ways of controlling risks.

(v) Be aware that size matters

In principle, small firms will have much the same policy statement as larger firms, and their risk assessments will cover much the same ground. But there will be differences. The policy statement is likely to show that there is less scope for delegation in a small firm, where many responsibilities are exercised directly by the owner. Equally, small firms may have relatively few, or simple, hazards, meaning that risk assessments will be less complex.

These are the five steps, which are considered in health and safety policy formulation. All policies should be clear to prevent people from being harmed at work. Employers can help themselves by preparing policy statements and risk assessments. The success of the Safety program rests primarily on how well employees and managers follow and comply with safety rules and regulations.

When it is concerned in Sri Lanka, almost all large organizations and many small ones provide a medical unit to serve the needs of employees. These units are available to deal with illnesses or injuries incurred by workers on the job. Additionally, they often provide physical examinations for new employees, and they work closely with those directly responsible for safety in the organization to advise of potential work related hazards.

Protective legislation for workers at workplace was introduced for the first time in Sri Lanka, with the Promulgation of the Mines and Machinery Protection Ordinance No. 2 of 1896. Four decades or social and political change and industrial development had rendered the 1896 ordinance obsolete. In 1934 a special committee was appointed to submit proposals for the introduction of new legislation.

The result was the Factories Ordinance No. 45 of 1942. This Ordinance together with Ordinance No. 22 of 1946 by which certain amendments were introduced, became operative from 1st January 1950.

These two Ordinances were consolidated and included in the Factories Ordinance Chapter 128 Volume V of the Revised Legislative Enactment of 1956. This together with the Factories Amendment Act. No. 54 of 1961 constituted Sri Lanka's legislative provisions for ensuring the Safety, Health and Welfare of the factory workers until 1976 when further amendments were introduced by the Factories Amendment. Law No. 12 of 1976 this Ordinance makes provision for the Safety, Health and Welfare of Workers in premises that are considered Factories as defined under the Ordinance.

This Ordinance envisages the provision of the basic minium safety standards at the industry level and the responsibility to provide such minimum standards is cast on the employer or occupier as stipulated in the Ordinance. In addition to this there is a duty cast on the employee to the extent of using such means of appliance and without reasonable cause do wilfully anything likely to endanger himself or others. As the rules and regulations for health, safety and welfare are in black and white, proper implementation of them is still questionable.

Most companies now publish employee handbooks with formal rules and regulations, that stipulate what employees can and cannot do in the workplace. Unfortunately, many of these rules and regulations are too general to be effective. The most effective employee safety handbooks are those that carefully describe the steps to be taken on the job to ensure maximum safety.

Therefore, the employees should be provided a safe and healthful environment. Health is a general state of physical, mental and emotional well-being. Safety is protection of a persons's physical health. The main purpose of health and safety policies is the safe interaction of people and the work environment.

Industrial health is essential to promote and maintain the highest degree of physical, social and mental well-being of workers, improve productivity and quality of work, reduce accidents, injuries, absenteeism and labour turnover and protect workers against any health hazard arising out of work or condition in which it is carried on. Health and safety policies must be put into practice and it should be periodically evaluated to be sure it is providing both service to employees and payback to the organization's bottom line.

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