Occupational Health and Safety, or Productivity?

Occupational safety is defined as measures taken to ensure worker safety and to provide healthy and safe working conditions (İsmufder, 2015). Although this is a correct and valid definition, it also contributes to the perception that occupational health and safety is limited to situations that endanger the health and safety concepts it encompasses. This perspective is actually representative of a culture that is beginning to become established: Occupational health and safety primarily aims to identify and manage workplace risks and hazards. On the other hand, workers take steps on this matter only when laws or management hold them accountable, when an occupational health and safety specialist provides commentary or warning related to the worker's field of work, or when an accident occurs. It is difficult to say this is only a worker perception. Trainings, documents, presentations related to occupational health and safety, and even the contents of legal regulations are fundamentally focused on accident risks and reducing these risks and accident impacts (Official Gazette, 2015). Work related to occupational health and safety, or more precisely the processes, begin with an evaluation conducted even in companies demonstrating serious and strong commitment and taking action on this matter (perhaps especially in such organizations) by examining each person's work outside company processes, as a superstructure, from the perspective of hazards and accident risks.

Such work generally achieves the results initially targeted. In other words, risk areas in the organization, their classification and ranking, and documentation of necessary preventive measures are carried out.

If work such as Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (İşgüvenliği, 2015) has also been conducted, it is possible to present predictions regarding the frequency or probability of risk occurrence and numerical evaluations of impacts. The presentation of this valuable work is important. However, the critical question is who owns the resulting document from this work. As previously mentioned, if this work is generally not part of workers' core duties and the processes they are involved in, but rather is part of requirements that cut vertically through these processes, intrude between daily work flows, and cause temporary inconvenience, then the workers will not be its owners. They will consider this matter only to the extent and at times it is brought to them from outside—mostly from above. In such circumstances, the responsibility falls to senior management's reminders and warnings on this matter. When the subject is occupational health and safety and the related legal regulations contain serious penalties, these warnings generally take the form of threats concerning job security. Of course, there is also the occupational health and safety specialist dimension to this matter. Transferring the main responsibility for occupational health and safety in organizations to these individuals—who sometimes are company employees and sometimes are appointed as external consultants—is one of the frequently used methods for addressing these matters, which are not owned by the actual owners of the processes, from the company's perspective. Certainly, the existing laws, which point to occupational health and safety specialists in workplace accidents, have a considerable contribution to this.

When all these factors are combined, a scenario emerges that can be readily found throughout the country: Organizations fulfill their legal obligations by assigning one of their employees as an occupational health and safety specialist or by obtaining external consulting.

When deciding which of these two methods to choose, the organization's overall structure, personnel composition, culture, and particularly which method is more cost-effective are considered. For this reason, OHSUs—occupational health and safety units—that perform these tasks "wholesale" are increasingly being preferred because they can offer to perform these tasks at low prices. Occupational safety specialists, on the other hand, first conduct a field analysis, risk assessment and report it to management. Organization management takes some measures depending on the urgency of the identified risks, the costs of corrective activities, and operational intensity. However, because these measures are taken based on various factors rather than being part of targeted planning, their effectiveness is not particularly high. Consequently, all parties are forced to merely hope that accidents do not occur in such an environment. Unfortunately, accident statistics in our country, labor losses, and injury and fatality figures clearly show that these hopes are not realized (SGK, 2015). The expected developmental and improvement role of the occupational health and safety specialist is also limited to issuing warnings and keeping records of them. Because only in this way can they reduce their legal liability. It is clear that this does not contribute to risk reduction. The real safety risk here is precisely this! Occupational health and safety processes that cannot be effectively integrated into organization goals, business process objectives, and workers' personal goals ultimately demonstrate a situation where parties attempt to transfer responsibility to one another rather than taking ownership. The key perspective here is actually the interpretation of the total quality approach—long recognized and implemented especially by manufacturing companies—in a way that also encompasses occupational health and safety.

According to the total quality approach, quality should be a way of life and a perspective. It is integration with one's work, with the organization, in short with life itself.

This approach fundamentally argues that the quality of operations, plans, and processes must be considered from the outset, at the design stage and at every step (Toplamkaliteyonetimi, 2015). According to this, quality should not be viewed as a concept to be controlled afterwards and creating additional costs, but rather as an indispensable component that is the key to development and improvement. Similarly, the fact that occupational health and safety is an integral part of business processes and a core element must be accepted. According to this perspective, a process can only be correct and efficient if occupational health and safety are considered in its design, implementation, and control. By taking occupational health and safety factors into account when designing business processes, process owners will find it much easier to naturally take ownership of these matters.

Naturally, acceptance of such an approach and its integration into company cultures is only possible by demonstrating real effectiveness.

In other words, processes designed as "safe" and "healthy" should not be more expensive, time-consuming, or difficult to implement. In other words, the contribution of occupational health and safety to process efficiency must be measurable or demonstrable. Research conducted on this subject has produced quite promising results. According to a 2013 study covering important Turkish companies, it was observed that workplace productivity increased in all companies as a result of occupational health and safety training and process integration (Capital, 2013). The main components of this productivity increase are listed as reduction in accident frequency rates by 15-60%, resulting productivity gains from reduced labor losses, productivity gains from improved physical and mental conditions of workers reflected in work outcomes, and productivity gains from providing a safe and peaceful work environment. The HESAPRO project (Occupational Health, Safety and Productivity), jointly conducted by Belgium, Finland, France, Slovakia and Turkey, examined many cases in participating countries confirming this relationship and demonstrated the positive correlation (Hesapro, 2015). A 2011 study conducted in Finland showed that the return on 1 Euro invested in ensuring workplace well-being was between 3-7 Euro (Yrjänheikki, 2011). In conclusion, significant benefits will be achieved when the perspective that occupational health and safety is not contradictory to process efficiency but is an indispensable part of it is reflected in company cultures. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Muhittin Hakan Demir / Logistics Management - Faculty of Business Administration - İzmir Ekonomi University

References

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