Example Answer

Financial arguments to improve health and safety (Element 1)

Below are the arguments to convince the directors to improve the health and
safety at organization,
1. According to the scenario, the management is not committed towards
improvement of health and safety because management is not willing to provide
the budget to cope up with incidents occurring at the organization for a long
time. After the provision of a handsome budget to H&S, the worker’s moral will
rise and they will be able to work in a safer environment which will result in the
form of good production ultimately the financial benefit in the form of production
gains.
2. If inspection of machines log would have been available of the, it would have
provided information to plan preventive maintenance and should have indicated
that the Preventive maintenance is needed instead of corrective maintenance
which was ongoing during incident costing organization a loss of lives and hefty
amount in penalties etc.
3. As per scenario no any H&S representative was present within the
organization which could have help eliminate or reduce malpractices and
improve health and safety of workers and safety culture of the organization.
Hiring competent Health and safety representatives can prevent such horrible
incidents and boost morale of workers as well as reduce incident/accident giving
organization high profits in term of low downtime and production gains.
4. The insurance premium will be increased because of such severe incidents at
the organization which is an indirect cost to be borne by employer as an after
effect or indirect financial losses. If health and safety culture improve
organization reputation will be increased and can prevent such indirect financial
losses in term of increased insurance premiums.
5. The workers who were performing the assigned task were not fully aware of
the hazards associated with the task and neither were they guided by shift
manager, which shows the lack of competency of the workforce leading to
unfortunate event of fatality. Deputing competent workers or increasing number
of trainings to different categories of workers can perform such tasks safely and
efficiently and can boost profits of the organization in term of reduction of down
time.
6. Workers who were available at the scenario were not trained enough to
provide the first aid to the workers stuck inside the oven after rescuing them.
The availability of the trained first aiders with proper rescue plan can be helpful
to reduce the severity of the incident which took place at the organization and
can be prevented in future if the health and safety will be implemented. The long
term investment in the form of training of the staff can save financial loss.
7. As mentioned in the scenario that it was a serious and well publicized
accident, so the defamation of the organization has also occurred due to this
accident. And the defamation can and have contributed to reduction in sales of
the organization and this can be prevented if the importance of the health and
safety will be accepted by the management. Therefore, it is needed to
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implement the health and safety culture to improve the reputation which will
directly be the result in the form of better sales.
8. After this accident at the organization, the skilled and competent workers left
the organization because they felt it unsafe to work in the organization which is
not willing to provide the safe working environment and it is a basic
responsibility of the employer as per the ILO R165. And the safe environment
can be provided to the workers after the implementation of the HSE culture at
the organization will lead to low turnover and high profit in term of financial
gains.
9. After the accident occurred at the organization, new workers will be hired. The
hiring process and the training of the newly appointed workers will be a bigger
cost to be borne by the organization. This loss in the form of finance and the
time can be prevented if the good safety measures will be taken at the
organization.

10. Occurrence of any incident at the organization needs a proper

investigation and it costs a huge amount in the form of loss production,
missed/canceled orders, court proceedings and the ban of organization
even for a limited time. As per the scenario, the organization was closed
for 2 weeks and this closure have cost the organization a huge loss along
with the many losses of contracts which can be prevented if the health
and safety will be implemented

Obligations of employers to workers (ILO related Element 1)

1. As it is employers’ duty to provide properly maintained workplace, equipment,

and machinery for safe working operations but as per scenario it can be
determined that frequent breakdowns were happening due to poorly maintained
or old machines which ultimately lead to an incident.

2. As per scenario only, the management has not provided adequate first aid
training to the employees of different levels at the organization to cope up with
the arising incidents at the site.

3. As per ILO R164 Recommendation 10 it is employers’ core responsibility to

provide proper instruction & supervision for the safe operation of equipment and
machinery but it can be evaluated that SOP or safe working instruction has not
been provided to the workforce. Moreover, newly hired maintenance engineers
and young workers were assigned to execute such a dangerous job during
breakdown.

4. According to Recommendation 10 of ILO R164, the Employer is bound to

provide supervision of the relevant operations as per the organization’s scope of
work. But it can be observed from the scenario that the shift supervisor/manager
was busy under the immense paperwork looking stressed while work was being
carried out without his presence at the location.

5. As it is the employer duty to provide adequate personal protective clothing

and equipment which are reasonably necessary when hazards cannot be
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otherwise prevented or controlled but it can be seen that during maintenance

work no nay fire/heat retardant PPE,s were not either available or not being used.

6. As part of the obligation of to provide safe system of work and safe workplace
which also includes revision and updating of Risk Assessment according to job
sites, so periodic reviewing and revision of risk assessment should be conducted
to avoid such incident in future and make company a better place to work.

7. It is the employer duty to provide necessary training to workers such as to

deal with emergency situations or as per scenario workers available on-site
during the incident were not first aid certified/trained neither were trained to
provide rescue to the trapped workers which lead to delay in rescue ultimately
leading to the fatality of victims.

8. Being an employer it is an organizational obligation to eliminate excessive

physical or mental fatigue from employees but the employer was not serious
about the health and safety of people and was doing the opposite by putting
blame games (will lead to mental issues) and providing unrealistic
deadline/target to achieve which is the root cause of the incident.

9. No Health and safety representative was present on-site neither no any

anyone was available in the organization to keep updating scientific and
technical knowledge necessary to comply with other clauses of recommendation
of ILO R164 Recommendation 10 and make sure that the organization is working
under legal compliance and fulfilling their basic responsibilities to provide a safe
system of work to employees.

Organisational Factors Influence Behaviour (Element 3)

Organizational factors that could have contributed to the accident are as
follows ;
1. Health and safety culture was responsible for the accident because the health
and safety culture was poor at the cafe as the frequent accidents and near
misses were happening there and no actions were taken for the prevention.
2. Inadequate risk assessment and risk assessment were not up to date and if
the risk assessment were properly performed that would helped them in
preventing the accident.
3. Level of supervision is also poor as the MANAGER didn't supervise the
contractor and assign unauthentic person for his supervision and angrily treated
the workers for the customer increase in numbers and refusing the concerns of
the workers.
4. Workspace was poorly designed due to the frequent accidents and near
misses happened at the workplace.

5. Lack of training was also the organizational factor of the accident because the
near misses were happening and no proper procedure was carried out for the
near misses to avoid the accident.

6. Commitment and leadership of the management was also not good as the
manager angrily pressurizes the worker to work more and and donot considers
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the workers concerns and in less space also ordered to adjust the furniture and
donot return any customer.
7. Workers consultation and involvement was also poor because manager was
not considering the workers consultation and workers were not happy in working
with the MANAGER.
8. Lack of resources as the number of workers were less only 2 workers were
present in the overcrowding management.
9. Near misses investigation was poor because if the near misses were properly
investigated then the walk way would be improved to avoid the accident.
10. Legal regulations compliance was not seen at the work place as they were
working in unsafe environment and no safety procedures were carried out the
work place to prevent the accident.
11. Work pattern was also poor because 5 working days converted into 7 working
days and also the work load increased due to the new MANAGER and prioritize
the customers not the health and safety and prefer the business over the health
and safety.
12. Lack of accountability as the MANAGER behave was not discouraged and
noticed as he was behaving not good with the workers.
13. Emergency procedures were also not defined to the workers in case of
overcrowding and in tackling the emergency situation.

Reviewing first-aid arrangements (Element 3)

Following are the factors that would be reviewed to determine if first aid
provision is realistic and proportionate at the cafe;
1. Physical size of the cafe would be considered that on how much area cafe is
spreaded that is knowing the geographical view of the cafe.
2. Alternative firsst aider will also be in the mind if the original first aider were
not present at the time of emergency that which alternative first aider will
perform his duties.
3. Type of work carried out and the risk associated with that work like slip and
trip hazard as from the given scenario the hot drink fall on the worker's hand and
arm and sharp object hazard and hot liquid hazard were present at the work
place.
4. Workers consultation and customer feedback will also be prioritized in order to
avoid accidents and to make improvements in the organization.
5. Risk assessment, near misses and previous accidents were also be kept in
mind that what were the reasons of the previous accidents and to avoid in
future.
6. Location and accessibility of the first aid must be ensured at the places where
it can be easily accessible at the time of emergency and also be located at the
places where there were more chances of accidents to be happened.
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7. Legal requirements also be considered in order to avoid any future problem

like fine on the organization, any civil court claims and also maintain the good
reputation of the cafe.
8. Cafe location will be prioritized on the area where medical services
accessibility will be easy in the case of emergency.
9. Arrangements of first aid considering vulnerable customers and workers that
come to cafe like old age customers, kids and disabled customers.
10. Number so workers will also be considered from the scenario the number of
workers in the cafe was 3 permanent workers and 2 workers work on the day
when there is more customers in the cafe.
11. Specify the place for carrying out the emergency procedure in case of its
need to avoid the panic created in the customers present at the cafe.
12. Distance of Emergency service access from the place of work will also be
noticed because in case of emergency how much time will be needed to get the
medical services in accordance with distance of emergency services from the
work place first aid services will be comprehended.
13. First aider training and qualification will also be considered in order to act
proper in the need of emergencies.
14. Training given to the workers and it's record should be kept in documents.
15. First aid kit must have the bandages, burn ointments, and swaps in order to
tackle the emergency situation in the cafe.