1. To do a critical evaluation of the policies, procedures and strategies of the 4 case studies.
2.Where you think you were when you started
3. What were you expecting to gain from completing the BSC Hons SHEM degree?
4. Examine your personal self, what new skills have you learned, is there any new knowledge you have gain?
5. Explain how new ideas, changes of thoughts, attitudes will be useful to you in a work sense when you graduate. Has the learning made you consider working in other industries?
6. Has any of the learning changed any of your basic beliefs or ideas? Have you taken any new knowledge into your workplace?
7. Did you identify any common themes from the different industries relating to hazards, risk, risk reduction, control measures?
8. Has knowledge of what other industries do help to broaden the knowledge of hazards and controls?
9. If you were to begin the course again is there anything you would do differently?
10. Finally, give an overview of your perceptions of the course - what did you like and what went well.
11. Can you also comment critically discuss or describe anything particularly demanding about the situation or learning? This may include things regarding planning of the course etc. etc.
12. You will definitely need to finish the reflection with a look forward and describe how you will continue to learn, how you can develop yourslef, how to further progress and how this will be achieved.
Workers Safety and Impact of Fatal Incidents
The safety of labourers are compromised despite of precautions and safety measures adopted by the various industries. Therefore, a full proof planning and strategies are extremely necessary for ensuring safety of the workers. In oil drilling industries, workers are exposed to high risk as it involves some of the life threatening procedures and a number of things could go wrong. The biggest disaster that the offshore industry encountered was the Deepwater Horizon Blowout on April 2010 (North et al., 2014). The accident involved 11 workers who were declared dead as a result from that event. In my opinion, this disastrous event lead many people to believe that the safety measures followed in the offshore industry is not up to the mark and may lead to fatal incidents. In this case, the reason behind the blowout was the negligence of the BP plc. that lead to the blowout killing 11 people and creating a long term oil spill disaster (Matejek & Gössling, 2014). However, I believe that the safety measures and trainings provided in this field of industry is high and a number of training sessions are provided to the labourers in order to avoid any harm. For instance, the BOISET training offers all the workers of this industry with the general offshore training and emergency training in escaping the disasters that the workers might encounter. Along with this, the workers are provided with Helicopter and Underwater escape training that is extremely essential and toughest part of the training. The rigorous part of the training ensures that the workers of this industry are able to escape the scene of vicious event efficiently. The response team in case of any disaster are quick to act and provide first aid to the labourers. Another industry that have hazardous effect on its labourers are the Marine industry. One of the significant disaster that the Marine industry encountered was the Piper Alpha explosion on July 1988 that resulted 167 death of crewmembers on board (Swuste, Gulijk & Zwaard, 2017). The investigation run by then senior member of Scottish judiciary Lord Cullen exposed the cause of the tragedy and provided recommendations that were later included in the safety management, training and regulations (Bennear, 2015). The investigation even made a huge contribution in bringing changes such as mandatory use of automatic safety valves on rigs in order to ensure to cease the flow of hazardous fluids that might cause explosion. I believe this inclusion in the system benefited the marine as well as the oil drilling industry immensely as it significantly decreased the risk of explosion caused by toxic and hazardous fluid leakage. The first case study also highlights the stereotypical discrimination that exists in such professions. For instance, the number of female professionals in such industries are extensively low compared to male professionals. The reasons range from a generalised thinking of the society that female would not be competent enough to deal in such harsh situations. This conception has lead to gender inequality in almost every profession including in these industries as well. In my opinion this issue could be eradicated if the majority of society challenges the shallow thought that have been existent for a long period of time.
Training Protocols and Necessary Changes for Workers Safety
The third case study provides the possible hazards that are more likely to occur in offshore industries or in other industries such as construction or mining industry. The severity of these hazards are maximum, as I believe that the range of accidents mentioned in this case study may lead to life threatening incidents and thus, causing a negative impact on worker’s health. This might lead to employers abandoning their position in these industries and shift towards those professions that ensures full safety to a workers health. However, I believe that proper training and suitable amendments in the required area could ensure wellbeing of a labourer. In my opinion, bringing a change in the safety measures and the necessary changes in equipment’s as well would ensure a better functioning that would ultimately secure the workers’ health. Now, discussing about the fourth and final case study, it highlights the significance of product safety. The most basic criteria that a company has to fulfil is to ensure its consumers that the products manufactured are safe. Bringing out a quality product in the market is a necessary obligation along with building a trustworthy relationship with the consumers. Therefore, in order to provide tests and certification of the products for ensuring a quality of the products, the TUV SUD corporation delivers thousands and thousands of organisations with certifications, trainings and tests which ultimately makes sure the safety check of the products manufactured by various organisations and companies (www.tuev-sued.de, 2018). The significance of the product checks is of highest priority as it may refrain a possible accident from occurring. In my view, when a company manufactures a product, everyone involved with the company are responsible for its impact on consumers. The negative impact could cause fatal accidents, which involves the consumers. For instance, in this case study, it is mentioned that the over charged battery of a drone caused a devastating fire in 2016 that involved the death of an individual and was a valued consumer (Huiwen, 2018). Such incidents could bring in grave reputation towards the companies and eventually deteriorate the profit of it. The job of providing quality products to the consumers and building trust between the organisation and the consumers benefit both the company as well as the consumers in the market.
The course that I opted for Safety Health and Environment Management course would benefit me in my career since the profession that I look forward fall under the category of hazardous industry (Sousa, Almeida & Dias, 2014). The various safety measures related to various industries which was thoroughly discussed throughout my course helped me gain knowledge and made my decision to choose a specific profession in the future (Glendon, Clarke & McKenna, 2016). The course could provide me with the basic knowledge of safety measures and potential hazards that I might have to face in my career in future. It also benefited me with the history of certain regulations that were amended in recent times. This course has extensively offered instances that how lethal the hazards may occur in various circumstances. It has even made my choices clear to choose as the various case studies in described in the course help me critically evaluate the circumstances that may arise in a specific industry. For instance, the above-discussed case study gave me the various training protocols that are involved in an oil drilling industry.
Significance of Product Safety
The knowledge that the course offered me helped me gain confidence in managing any organisation or industry’s safety and health related activities (Sayre, 2014). I acquired the knowledge of varied laws that are linked with safety and health regulations of a business organisation. The course even helped me gain knowledge towards the recent amendments that are based on the safety and health activities that concerns the wellbeing of a labourer. With the help of the knowledge, I would be able to apply certain approaches that shall help me deal with the changed policies and regulations regarding the health and safety of products as well as the labourers associated with an organisation.
In my opinion the ability and passion to work in a certain field will always boost an individual to work in that field no matter how hard of hazardous circumstances arises. However, with a proper knowledge and adequate training one could always avoid any fatal accidents in his or her profession and efficiently complete his or her task. In addition to this keeping, an optimistic outlook would definitely help me to achieve success in whichever field I opt for in future (Carver & Scheier, 2014). In addition to this, I would always try to appeal the customers or consumers with the product or service that I am assigned to deliver. Customer or consumer’s satisfaction should be kept as highest priority (Pan & Nguyen, 2015). In any profession, it is significant to satisfy the customers or consumers with quality products and services. Therefore, keeping this in mind I would deliver the task that I would be assigned with in future. The recent course has changed my mind to join the technical service corporation such as TUV SUD that ensures the safety of the products manufactured by a company or an organisation. This industry may not involve the hazardous working circumstances in its field of work, however, it ensures that other companies follows the safety guidelines and qualifies the safety of a product. This enables the safety of the consumers who would be using the product.
The learnings that I acquired during this course work were useful for me in various ways. The various case studies that I have to go through during the course helped me analyse the key faults that lead to huge disasters in various field of work. It even help me detect a basic ideology that how a minute negligence could lead to a hazardous situation and even cause fatal outcomes. Prior to the course, I had a belief that providing quality work from an individual’s end is mandatory. However, after the completion of the course it made me realise that it is instead mandatory to put a joint effort in providing a quality product or service for the consumers (Costa, Passos & Bakker, 2014). Some of the case studies suggests the fault of an entire team lead to the fatal disasters and jeopardised the safety of the labourers. In addition to this, the course helped me realise that in any field of profession an individual requires proper and suitable training. In case of hazardous profession such as oil drilling industry or marine, training plays one of the key roles in an employee’s career as it would support him or her in dealing with difficult circumstances that might arise in the job (Dupre, Meixner & Kielty, 2014). However, the course additionally enlightened the fact that training alone would not help a labourer to escape hazardous situation in distinctive professions. Along with training the routinely check-up of the equipment’s is necessary for avoiding any hazardous situations (Strand & Lundteigen, 2016). Therefore, the safety management system must be updated from time to time in order to adapt with the changing technologies. This will decrease the rate of fatal circumstances from happening at the workplace.
Importance of Regulations
One of the similarity that was identified from different industries relating hazardous situations was the negligence from the labourers or workers or a team who are at the site of work. A minute negligence could lead to hazardous situations (Main, 2014). In addition to this, the response team’s initiative to take quick action towards a hazardous situation also matters in dealing with the circumstances. Another similarity that could be identified in distinctive industry’s control measures is the investigation procedures that involves critical analysis of past circumstances that might have occurred. In various industry’s hazardous situations, an investigation procedure is carried out in order to identify the causes that lead to the disaster (Shamsuddin, Ismail & Ibrahim, 2015). Later on, the controllable measures are set depending on the type of industry and the nature of the cause behind that disastrous situation.
The knowledge that I acquired by studying distinctive industries measures to control the possible hazardous situation has greatly broadened my knowledge to avoid such hazards that I might face in my career. A routinely risk assessment is extremely necessary to avoid any disaster at the site of work. In addition to this, the workers must be trained by professionals in order to escape hazardous situations. The rescue team must be swift to respond in case of any emergency occurs at the site of work.
Even though the course that I opted offered me extensive knowledge about the safety management activities and its significance in various industries. However, if I had to restart my course once again, I would have maintained a file where I would have compiled the different industry’s measures to control hazardous situation. This would have helped me keep a self-track of the varied range of situations and the effective measures to cope with those situations. This practice would have helped me in my future professional career, as I would have an access to the compiled files during my course work. In addition to this, I would have taken various case studies outside the course for instance from newspapers and other online sources. This would have helped me to gain critical thinking or rather enhance my analytical skills in hazardous situations. The articles available online would have provided me with practical measures that were adopted in practical scenarios. A compilation of these measures would have come in immense importance in securing good grades in my course.
The Safety Health and Environment Management course proved to be extremely beneficial for me. I was extremely fond of the various case studies that I had to analyse. In doing so, I attained knowledge about varied range of safety health policies of various countries (. The course even offered an in-depth process of necessary steps that should be taken in a specific situation. It was interesting to know the specific escape measures that workers of oil drilling industry had to take in case of any disaster happened at the site of work. The course even helped me to select a specific career option related to safety management.
This course extensively provided an insight towards the probable health hazards that a worker might had to face in certain industry. A detailed strategy and measures to deal with these hazards was included in this course as well (Hoyos & Zimolong, 2014). However, I look forward to learn and acquire further knowledge related to safety health and environment management activities. The various online training courses are a great way to enhance my skills in this particular field of profession. Additionally, the videos available online would give me a virtual knowledge about the hazards that might occur in various industries. I would opt to study the Masters course that would further help me acquire knowledge and develop my environment management skills. I would be able to further develop my skills reading news articles related to prior disasters that occurred in distinguished industries. The professional career that I chose is Health and Safety Consultant. In order to land the specific job I have to sharpen my analytical skills that would help me detect the possible hazards that a certain industry might face in future. I would also need to focus on my communication skills since the profession that I have chosen is of a Health and Safety consultant. Therefore, I would need to give out a thorough strategy to my clients and even have to explain them the strategies with logical reasoning. Hence, I would require working on my communication skills as well. In addition to this, I would have to choose from various training session that would further accelerate my skills as Health and Safety Consultant.
Reference
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