Safety Audit At Awesome Landscape Pty Limited Office. Essay.

• Purpose of Audit
• Description of area of inspection

• underlying issues that affected the inspection
• Hazards identified – include 3 hazards from previous inspection
• risk assessment that was conducted including the risk ratings and priority levels recommended controls
• implementation plan including:
  • actions required, completion dates, etc.
  • persons responsible, their contributions to the plan and evaluation of their performance
  • any factors that limit the effectiveness of controls
  • How can these factors be overcome?
  • How can the staff be encouraged to be active participants in implementing change?
• monitoring plan - weekly, monthly, etc. plan for monitoring if controls have been effective
• research analysis you conducted regarding the three (3) priority hazards including recommendations for training and recommended training providers

• Consultation with relevant stakeholders regarding:
  • hazard identification
  • risk assessment and control (Provide at least 2 strengths and 2 weaknesses of each control.)
  • potential emergencies
  • specialist advisors or emergency agencies
  • implementation of change
  • legal advice/consultation
  • breaches identified
• A brief summary of any resources required for emergency response including availability, cleanliness, location and serviceability of emergency equipment
• Will the identified hazards impact on other functions of the organisation? If so, provide any recommendations to address them.
• Were there any legislative breaches identified? If so, provide recommendations to correct them.
• Does the workplace have a return-to-work policy and injury management process?
  • Discuss the current RTW and IM in place and determine if it meet legislative requirements.
  • If no process currently exists in the workplace, discuss the need to develop an RTW and IM procedure and recommend a procedure for the organisationto follow.
• Discuss the OHS/WHS culture of the organisation and provide recommendations for improvement.
• Discuss consultative process including:
  • Is there an existing consultation process in the organisation?
  • Who are the persons you have involved in the consultation process?
  • What are their contributions to the risk implementation plan? How were these facilitated?
  • What are the barriers, if any, to individuals or groups seeking OHS/WHS information or raising issues?
  • What are the actions taken, if any, to remove those barriers? How effective are they?
  • Provide recommendations for further improvement
  • Describe your evaluation of the relevant personnel’s contribution to implementing the plan
• Discuss legislative compliance including:
  • objectives and principles underpinning WHS
  • current WHS requirements for the workplace
  • any recent changes to legislation or industry practices that may affect your workplace
  • Duty of care responsibilities, rights and obligations for each role in the organisation -Identify which part of the legislation dictates this requirement
  • Define how negligence is determined at statutory and common law. Define how it is applied in the workplace.
  • Regulatory authority WHSMS tools, standards and guidance material and how they are applied
  • Functions and powers of the Regulator and how these are exercised
  • Enforcement processes for breaches e.g. fines, penalties
  • The requirements and arrangements for incident reporting and any recommendations for improvement
  • the record keeping requirements and recommendations for improvement
• Discuss the analytical process you used including:
  • The process of determining the reliability and validity of the information
  • Was the risk rating matrix used appropriate for the workplace inspected?
  • Discuss how the appropriate controls to be used were determined.
  • Explain the method of how the information was gathered.
  • Identify any contradictions, ambiguities, etc. when the research was conducted. Briefly explain how you dealt with it.
  • Identify the business technology used to access, organise and monitor information
  • Explain how the security of the information gathered was maintained.

The purpose of this audit is to help in the identification of some of the areas of no-compliance at Awesome Landscape Pty Limited Office so as to recommend on areas of improvement (Messier, 2010). It’s also aimed towards verifying that employees and the whole management team is engaged in the whole safety program, identify areas of potential hazards and recommend on means of dealing with such hazards.

The organization Awesome Landscape Pty Limited was founded twelve years ago with the aim of providing long lasting landscaping solutions and remedies to various interested organizations. The company is now well established with so many years of experience in there are of specialization and has even reached at an extent where it works with various subcontracting companies with the sole aim of offering both diverse and unique landscaping services as to as to ensure maximum customer satisfaction.

The company is fully committed towards ensuring that it complies with the required legislation regarding landscaping and that it promotes the safety and well being if its employees in the process. In order to ensure that the company fully adheres to this, the company has a well outlined and properly coordinated work health and safety obligation in place. In order to attest that these obligations are carefully met as per the required standards and expectations, and audit is conducted. There are a number of findings that were observed in this audit and they were corrected and recommendations were made in the audit process. There were also some certain areas where the company showed that it really does well. It is important to however note that this report focuses only on the areas of weakness and/or non-compliance with the safety and healthy procedures.

It was expected that the inspection would go smoothly and in a very quick manner as it was anticipated by the various stakeholder that made the inspection take place. This was, however, not the case (Kabir, Abubakar, El-Nafaty, 2010).As a matter of fact there were certain issues that greatly undermined the inspection and made it much more hectic that it should have been, First and foremost, the inspection was not properly organized. There was no order in the events that were being carried out by the appointed officers. Secondly, the employees did not fully cooperate during the inspection. They felt that the audit was meant to intimidate them of which that was not the case but to them it felt like so. They therefore did not give their full attention and cooperation to the officers that were conducted the inspection. Moreover, when recommendations were made regarding the areas that should be strengthened and ensure that they are in compliance with the legislation; the employees felt that they were being targeted for not fully doing their job (Dollard & Bakker, 2010).

Chair and desk arrangement-The chairs and desks are inappropriately arranged. This puts employees at the risk of developing various health problems (McNeil, Frey, Embrechts, 2015).

It was also noted that there were no sufficient fire exit doors and the available fire exit doors were not properly located.

Implementation plan

Chemical storage was not appropriate too. Dangerous and extremely toxic materials were stored in other normal sinks instead of them being stored in special designated sinks.

There are various sockets that are exposed. They are open and can be easily trickled with water. This has the effect of causing a fire outbreak.  It is recommended that these open sockets are fixed to avoid the incidents of fire

The receptions desk is not well organized. It was always messy as it was found and this portrayed a very bad image for the whole office as well. It was recommended that the receptionist desk be neat and well arranged all the time because it reflects and represent the image of the whole organization.

A risk assessment conducted indicated that all the above identified hazards had the probability of happening. Only the levels of damage and time of happening were expected to significantly differ.

For the hazard associated with chair and desk arrangement for instance, this hazard had a very high likelihood of happening. I was certain, only that the time of happening would be quite long. It was recommended that appropriate action is taken so as to ensure that the elbow as well as the hands is in the same level with the keyboard when sitting on a desk at a right angle (Dowling & Leech, 2014). Moreover, ensuring that your computer is in line with your eyes, the screen should in right angle with your and at a significant length when properly sitting in an upright position

With the issue of fire exists and doors, it was recommended  that appropriate action is taken to resolve this matter such as increasing the number of emergency exits and locating them in appropriate positions.

With the issue of chemical storage, it was advised that chemicals are stored separate from each other depending on the nature of the chemical wastes

Awesome Landscape has complied with the required legislation. However, there are certain instances that the organization has not strictly adhered to the required standards. For instance, it was noted that Awesome Landscape did not have the required waste disposal procedures. Their waste materials such as chemicals are not well a properly disposed.

It is recommended that the Awesome Landscape should rectify their waste disposal procedures and follow the required waste disposal procedures.

In regard to a monitoring plan, it was recommended that a monthly follow up is done so as to ensure that the proposed actions are actually being implemented.

The relevant stakeholders were consulted regarding various issues such as hazard identification and the risk assessment process. It was not just a random inspection that was characterized with a lot of guess work. Certain actions and standard procedures that were followed to the latter in identifying the hazards. For risk identification for instance, this is a particular stated process that is used to evaluate any particular situation at a certain instance so as to determine the potential cause of harm. Certain risks were identified such as the issue of fire, chemical wastes disposals among others (Honan & Hassle, 2011).

Discussion

There were also risks assessment control tools that were used to provide the remedy to the identified risks as mentioned above. Some of the risk assessment control tools that were used in this particular inspection were checklists and active risks managers. The checklist was very efficient in this audit and it played a very crucial role in identifying the risk as well as making an appropriate corrective action regarding the risk itself. It’s a form of data collection that involved comparing the standards on the ground with the required and generally accepted standards and making the appropriate recommendations regarding the improvements that need to be made. This method of risk assessment is very efficient thought it has various disadvantages as seen from the audit that was conducted here. It is very theoretical in nature; it focuses more on situations and conditions that can be barely achieved by real action.

It was also noted that there were some cases of emergencies that were identified that needed immediate corrective actions such as the open sockets that needed replacement among others. It was also noted that certain resources were needed in order of the company to deal with such emergencies (Schaufeli & Taris, 2014).These resources would play a very crucial role in dealing with such emergencies as fire and other related issues.

The identified hazards are a very serious issue and have a very high probability of impacting on the function ability of the company. When the identified hazards are not properly handled and dealt with there is a threat that could cripple the functions of the entire organization which would also involve putting into danger the lives of various employees in the company.

There were also certain legislative breaches that were identified. It was noted that the organization had not installed an appropriate and standard waste management procedure; the wastes were just being disposed in a random manner and not following the procedures that the law requires. It was recommended that the right method of waste disposal is adopted so as to avoid the effects and dangers that would arise as a result of not managing the wastes properly (Pouliakas & Theodossiou, 2013).

Following the audit that was conducted the following issues were recommended;

There should be a clear outline of the safety and health responsibilities of each of the stakeholders and main managers in the company

On the issue of emergency evacuation it was recommended that the exists are fixed at the appropriate areas so as to avoid future instances of commotion and congestion at the exit areas in the event of a fire outbreak

In regard to ergonomics, seat and desk arrangements, it was recommended that the company provide the employees with appropriate and adjustable seats with an adequate room that is spacious for them to conduct their day to day activities.

Waste management was also another recommendation that was made. It was recommended that an appropriate waste management procedure is adopted (Mannan, 2012). A procedure that is of the right standard and one that complies with legal standards.

Generally, below is a list of some of the common and standard practices that were proposed for adoption by the company;

1. Conducting random but periodic safety inspections
2. Procedures of raising safety concerns
3. Escalation of safety concerns
4. Hazard identification and analysis procedures

Conclusion:

The audit was very significant and it met the purpose it was aimed to. There were certain hazards that were identified that were a potential source of danger and threat to the company. Relevant recommendations were proposed on dealing with each of the hazards identified.

Despite the various challenges that were experienced during the audit, it was still a success. Well, challenges are a common thing in various sectors and they should be faced and dealt with accordingly (Paltrinieri, Tugnoli, Cozzani, 2015). Finally, it can be concluded that these random inspections and audits are very important to any organization whatsoever. They help in identifying a potential hazard and how to deal with the hazard. They therefore ensure a working environment that is safe for the employees as well as the clients.

References:

Dollard, M. F., & Bakker, A. B. (2010). Psychosocial safety climate as a precursor to conducive work environments, psychological health problems, and employee engagement. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 83(3), 579-599.

Dowling, C., & Leech, S. A. (2014). A Big 4 firm's use of information technology to control the audit process: How an audit support system is changing auditor behavior. Contemporary Accounting Research, 31(1), 230-252.

Hohnen, P., & Hasle, P. (2011). Making work environment auditable–A ‘critical case’study of certified occupational health and safety management systems in Denmark. Safety Science, 49(7), 1022-1029.

Kabir, G., Abubakar, A. I., & El-Nafaty, U. A. (2010). Energy audit and conservation opportunities for pyroprocessing unit of a typical dry process cement plant. Energy, 35(3), 1237-1243.

Lees, F. (2012). Lees' Loss prevention in the process industries: Hazard identification, assessment and control. Butterworth-Heinemann.

Manita, R., & Elommal, N. (2010). The Quality of Audit Process: An Empirical Study with Audit Committees. International Journal of Business, 15(1).

Mannan, S. (2012). Lees’ Loss Prevention in the Process Industries: Hazard Identification. Assessment and Control, 1.

McNeil, A. J., Frey, R., & Embrechts, P. (2015). Quantitative Risk Management: Concepts, Techniques and Tools-revised edition. Princeton university press.

Messier, Jr, W. F. (2010). Opportunities for task?level research within the audit process. International Journal of Auditing, 14(3), 320-328.

Paltrinieri, N., Tugnoli, A., & Cozzani, V. (2015). Hazard identification for innovative LNG regasification technologies. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 137, 18-28.

Pouliakas, K., & Theodossiou, I. (2013). The economics of health and safety at work: an interdiciplinary review of the theory and policy. Journal of Economic Surveys, 27(1), 167-208.

Schaufeli, W. B., & Taris, T. W. (2014). A critical review of the Job Demands-Resources Model: Implications for improving work and health. In Bridging occupational, organizational and public health (pp. 43-68). Springer, Dordrecht.