Occupational Health and Safety in Ontario, Essay Example

There are a number of critical factors that support occupational health and safety in today’s work environments. In Ontario, these circumstances require ongoing evaluation, and necessitate an understanding of the factors and limitations that are influential in promoting occupational health and safety across organizations. As a means of determining whether or not a program is achieving its desired objectives, it is necessary to develop various measures that will evaluate these programs and will identify various strengths and weaknesses, including statistics and methods. Therefore, the following discussion will address two primary measures that might be useful in determining the level of success of occupational health and safety in Ontario. To be specific, measures regarding Lost Time Injury (LTI) , workplace fatalities, and claim statistics will serve as some of the key indicators of success in evaluating these programs across provinces.

Measuring the overall ability of occupational health and safety programs to achieve their desired outcomes is a key requirement to promote effectiveness. This is often measured by exploring what obstacles were evident in the past in order to promote future directives, utilizing surveys and past legal records to evaluate these challenges (CCOHS, 2010). One important indicator to consider is LTI, or Lost Time Injury, which is reflective of the time that is spent away from work as a direct result of workplace-related injuries. This is a key measurement opportunity to determine the potential effectiveness of different Occupational Health and Safety Programs in the context of these injuries.  However, the measurement of these statistics and behaviors must also incorporate room for change when there are updates to systems or processes that may lead to different levels of risk in the workplace (Health & Safety Executive, 2001). There are advantages to measuring LTI, such as the ability to determine the level of lost productivity as a direct result of these injuries, and how this ultimately influences workplace environments in negative ways. On the other hand, this process is perhaps to cumbersome because it would require a specific report that might not already exist.

Another measure to consider is that of workplace fatalities, including their frequency and cause. This is an essential contributor to the process because it offers a greater sense of how the workplace protects its workers from the risks that may lead to fatalities in the first place. This is a difficult measure to ignore, and is highly relevant, particularly in high-risk professions, such as construction and underground activities. These elements are of critical importance because they convey a means of improving upon existing reporting requirements regarding workplace fatalities. In addition, these measures determine and stick to the facts of the case, which is of critical importance in supporting possible changes to existing Occupational Health and Safety programs in a variety of settings.

In evaluating the performance and effectiveness of Occupational Health and Safety programs, it may be necessary to implement the Ontario Ministry of Labour Orders (MOL) in some situations where there might be problems that are beyond the capacity or control of the individual business or organization (Ontario Ministry of Labour, 2009). If MOLs are necessary, then it is due to a significant error on the part of the organization in question, and therefore, requires government intervention in order to make decisions that will be in the best interests of the business (Ontario Ministry of Labour, 2009). This is an advantage in cases where there are repeat offenders or businesses that remain a constant threat to their employees or to the general public for a variety of reasons. It is important to address these challenges and how MOLs might be useful in supporting improved results in terms of OHS programs in these businesses. In some cases, the organizations might not survive these obstacles and must fold, while in others, there are resources available to overcome these problems and to take notice of the business as it takes the steps that are necessary to improve outcomes.

There are electronic training tools that may be effective in supporting health and safety, and that reflect an understanding of the challenges and expectations of providing adequate health and safety measures in workplace environments, such as the E-Learning Portal (PSHSA, 2010). Therefore, a measurement of effectiveness with respect to education would be to determine how an organization is succeeding in supporting long-term educational objectives in utilizing some of these resources on a consistent basis. This would be measured through training quizzes that would require each employee to login to the system, take these quizzes, and receive a passing score.

The Workplace Safety & Insurance Board (WSIB) is designed to provide this type of protection and involvement for new employees, and for young persons who might not recognize the value of these challenges, this may be a particularly daunting experience in the early stages (WSIB, 2010). The number of claims reported to the WSIB is a possible measure that could lead to some degree of improvement across organizations, because businesses that are subject to these claims possess no choice but to make the necessary changes in order to become compliant, or may be forced to shut down their operations. Therefore, the number of WSIB claims is a statistical measure that is useful in facilitating positive outcomes for Occupational Health and Safety as a whole.

Health and Safety (CCOHS) provides information that may be used to evaluate individual workplace programs on a random or regular basis in order to enforce the roles and expectations of an organization and its employees. Health and safety is not exclusively associated with workplace practices in using equipment and resources, but must also examine health-related habits and practices, such as eating and drinking (CCOHS, 2010).  Therefore, disease prevalence and used sick time might be useful measures to determine if employees are taking the appropriate steps. The key to successful measures is improved recognition and awareness, and this supports a greater understanding of the challenges that each organization faces in providing valuable resources for employees in these areas of ongoing growth and development in businesses throughout Ontario (CCOHS, 2010).

References

Bomel Ltd. (2006). Evaluation into the success of occupational health and safety regulators and organizations use of expert systems. Retrieved October 11, 2010, from http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr508.pdfs

Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (2010). Health and safety report. Retrieved October 11, 2010, from http://www.ccohs.ca/newsletters/hsreport/issues/2010/09/ezine.html#ccohsnews

Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (2010). Joint Health & Safety Committee – Measuring Effectiveness. Retrieved October 15, 2010, from http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/hsprograms/hscommittees/measure.html

Health & Safety Executive (2001). A guide to measuring health & safety performance. Retrieved October 15, 2010, from http://www.hse.gov.uk/opsunit/perfmeas.pdf

Ontario Ministry of Labour (2010). About Safe at Work Ontario. Retrieved October 11, 2010, from http://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/hs/sawo/about.php

Ontario Ministry of Labour (2009). Information for farming operations: enforcement of the Occupational Health and Safety Act – When Self Compliance Fails. Retrieved October 17, 2010, from http://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/hs/pubs/farming/enforcement.php

Public Services Health & Safety Association (2010). Retrieved October 11, 2010, from http://www.esao.on.ca/

Workplace Safety & Insurance Board (2010). Launching a safe start. Retrieved October 11, 2010, from http://www.prevent-it.ca/files/5010A_SafeStart_WORKER_2004.pdf