PREVYMAN and diversity in the management of occupational risk prevention

Where have I been and what happened to me?   

I have been thinking for some time that Occupational Risk Prevention Management is or should be very far from “one size fits all”. Every person is different, not only in aspects of personality or the influence of each person's history, but in aspects such as generational, functional, gender or cultural diversity.

While I was thinking about this, I received a call from a professional colleague who provides her professional work as head of the Prevention Service of an important industrial company. The development of occupational risk prevention management has led to the observation that there are accidents that occur due to the generality of an evaluation of occupational risks and, therefore, the generality of the management itself. It must be taken into account that this is a company that has a very heterogeneous workforce: it has young and also senior workers, from very different countries of origin and culture, and the predominant sex is male, with the number of female workers being a still small quota of the total. In addition, the company is very committed to the integration of people with disabilities, which is why it has this type of workers in several production lines.

My colleague is convinced that we must take a step forward in this matter and specify occupational risks, with the aim of moving towards ad hoc risk prevention based on the different types of people who make up the Company. I am agree with my colleague, I believe that in this way we will avoid more accidents and occupational diseases and achieve more effective prevention, while improving other indicators that are also important for the company. 

_a meeting has been called with the Management of the Organization to discuss this matter and my professional colleague has invited me to it.Between us, we have managed to get both the Directorate and the rest of the Departments involved to be fully involved and the Human Resources Directorate has been delegated to collaborate closely with the Prevention Service itself in matters of diversity.

What means does the company have to avoid this situation?    

After several meetings with the Human Resources Department and other managers, for example, the Marketing Manager, an action plan has been drawn up, initially focused on an industrial line that supports 28% of the company's accident rate, which has been subjected to approval of the General Directorate.

The phases of this action plan focused on occupational risk prevention, finally approved by the General Directorate, are the following:

• Internal dissemination campaign with extension to the entire company (personal messages to workers' cell phones, emails and posters) with a duration of 1 month on the concept of diversity with the motto:“Look next to you, is there someone like you? you?”

• HTMLTAG119___Detailed study of the composition and heterogeneity of the workforce of the industrial line under analysis in terms of diversity generational, functional, de gender, or cultural.HTMLTAG126___ This study has been carried out by the Department of Human Resources and a time investment of 2 weeks.

• Study of the accident rate of the analyzed line, based on types of accidents and its possible correlation with the heterogeneity of the workforce, detecting possible causes and points for improvement. It is estimated a temporary duration of 1 week and being carried out by the Organization's own Prevention Service.

• Adaptation of the Risk Assessment to each of the situations derived from the diversity detected by the previous study. The objective is ambitious, to reach an individual and specific risk assessment for each worker…implicit final objective of preventive legislation in our country. The expected time to carry out this task on the entire line under analysis is 3 months.

• Adaptation of the Occupational Risk Prevention Training Plan with the aim of offering workers personalized training according to the specific risks of their job, adapting it to the particular characteristics of each one. The intention is to provide workers with training adapted to each of them, taking into account the country of origin, language, culture and even the physical or mental disabilities of the disabled workers who make up the workforce.We must be sure that this training, so important to avoid accidents, is assimilated by all workers, taking into account the heterogeneity of the workforce.  A duration of 1 month is expected for the design and 3 months for specific training. This adapted training will be used in the initial training of newly hired workers as well as the retraining training carried out in the Company.

• Given that this is a very masculinized workforce, sign a commitment by Management, Human Resources, Prevention Service and all the Departments of the company for the integration of the gender perspective in each of the jobs. This will translate into integrating the gender perspective in key aspects such as: risk assessments, preventive measures to be adopted, ergonomic conditions, purchase of PPE, anti-harassment procedures, equal opportunities, etc.

• HTMLTAG191___Design of a strategy for sending individualized and personalized messages, even in several languages for workers who come from other countries, to the mobile devices of each worker with tips on occupational risk prevention. It is considered that this action must be continuous and stable over time.

• Adaptation of jobs for disabled workers and updating the workplace emergency plan taking into account their possible limitations.

 What results have been obtained?    

12 months have passed since the end of the initial training phase in the production line in which the Company's activity in diversity began. The sequence of results has been as follows:

1. Decrease in accidents by 16% in the production line studied and acted upon.
2. The Human Resources Department has carried out a parallel Work Environment study along the same lines and a noticeable improvement in the results is evident.
3. The increase in productivity of the line is notable in relation to what happens in the other lines of the same Company. It has been possible to quantify a 5% increase in productivity in relation to the previous semester.
4. Thanks to the integration of the gender perspective in the ergonomic adaptation of jobs, sick leave due to musculoskeletal disorders has been reduced by 15% among employees. workers.
5. The assessment that workers give to the training received in prevention has greatly improved.As it is a personalized training, they now show a greater predisposition for prevention and what is even more important, they have learned how to work safely.
6. Disabled workers feel much more integrated into the company thanks to the adaptation of their jobs. In the emergency drill carried out, the emergency plan that was updated was followed perfectly, and no notable incident was recorded.
7. Assessed the costs and benefits, General Management approves extending the action to the entire Company.
8. In six more months, the data obtained has been gradually extrapolated to all areas of the Company and the Prevention Service has been invited to professional forums to explain its case of success.

And as PREVYMAN always says... “Any resemblance to reality is NOT pure match”

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