Essay on Enhancing Workplace Safety and Risk Management: A Case Study of Salad Fresh

Introduction

Workers' health and safety are an important component of employees' welfare (Jensen et al. 2000). Additionally, to guarantee consumers good quality end products, it is required that measures be put in place to ensure that all the foodstuffs are free from contamination (Jensen et al. 2000). It can be done by first identifying the production line needs and the employees' safety requirements to ensure the smooth running of the operations. As a result, enhance a better quality of produce from the factory (Jensen et al. 2000). Also, governments have developed several guidelines that must be followed by companies to ensure the well-being of employees (Jensen et al. 2000). This project will identify the safety needs at Salad Fresh and develop measures to ensure the employees' safety is guaranteed, express the need for responsibility in the implementation of the guidelines, and why the employees should be trained before being deployed into various sections of the operations.

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Roles and Responsibilities of Salad Fresh

The Salad Fresh Company does:

• Produce prepared salads.
• Sells pre-washed salads to customers.
• Provide assembled salads to customers.
• Give the customers the convenience of dressed salads and add flavors to enhance the taste.
• Deliver vegetable mixes that are microwavable.
• Provide ready-to-roast vegetable salads.
• Conveniently provide pasta foods to their customers.
• Several kinds of ready-to-heat and-eat soups.

These activities are made possible at the Salad Fresh Company because of the machines' availability to process the produce. Also, a team of dedicated employees ensures that there is timely delivery of the goods to several customers. The business involves fresh ready-to-eat food; therefore, a high level of cleanliness is maintained within the facility.

Staff Associations

The employees at Salad Fresh have joined several unions in Australia, including the Liquor, Hospitality, and Miscellaneous Workers union (Nicholson et al. 2017). Another union is the National Union of Workers (Nicholson et al. 2017). These unions enable employees to present their adequately present their views and get compensation in case there is injury (Nicholson et al. 2017). Furthermore, the management at Salad Fresh is aware of these unions.

Kitchen Safety

Salad Fresh Company has put a raft of measures to ensure the employees are safe whenever they are operating within the business. The kitchen has many machines with moving parts and some with extremely sharp edges (Jensen et al. 2000). Additionally, the protection procedures have helped the company keep the number of injuries per year at the very minimum, thus ensuring employees' well-being, maintaining the production rate at the optimum level, and delivering standard goods to the consumers (Jensen et al. 2000). Some of the safety precautions put in place include; the management has provided the kitchen staff with protective clothing and head cover (Proven and Pryor 2019). The employees should wear shielding gear to prevent any chemicals from entering into their bodies. Furthermore, the helmet would prevent loose hair from getting into the foodstuffs, thus maintaining the quality of the farm-fresh produce (Proven and Pryor 2019).

Another kitchen safety at Salad Fresh is that the sharp cutting edges are covered with grills to prevent accidents from happening if the staff gets into contact with the moving parts of machines (Proven and Pryor 2019). Conversely, the moving parts require greasing, which is taken care of at the premises. However, the chemical is extremely dangerous if it gets into contact with the food processed at the facility (Proven and Pryor 2019). Therefore, the company has developed coverings for particular portions to ensure no spillages occur during operation. Since the machines at the facility are electrically driven, no open wires should exist within the premise to avoid electrocution of employees when they clean the apparatuses (Proven and Pryor 2019). Also, the firm uses water to clean the farm produce before packing. It catastrophic if there is no proper insulation of the electrical connections within the facility (Proven and Pryor 2019). Though the technicians have developed and implemented this, much needs to be done to ensure sufficient protection.

Support and Emergency Contact List

In case of emergency, the support available to the victims includes first aid procedures and replacement with another employee for recuperation (Yanar et al. 2020). Additionally, the employees are given comprehensive health coverage in case of accidents. Some of the emergency contacts available are; contacts for poison control authorities around the company, contacts for the fire brigade offices, hospitals around for other people in management at the company (Yanar et al. 2020).

Hazards and Risk Management

At Fresh Salads, there is an urgent need to develop WHSMS because of several reasons, as listed here. First, one of the company employees had to be amputated because of moving parts in the machine. Furthermore, this shows that guard rails are missing; hence, the employees are not protected from the machines' moving parts, which poses a serious challenge to the employees' safety (Gan 2019). Additionally, the two supervisors have given contradicting accounts on how to handle the on-pack machines. The action shows that there are no written guidelines that ought to be followed by the workers to ensure their safety and do the right thing at all times (Gan 2019).

Another glaring issue is the lack of proper training. Some employees do agree that they were taught how to handle the machines while cleaning. However, the injured one had no clue on the proper way of handling the onpack machine. Also, the supervisors are not fully responsible for implementing the WHS guidelines, as evidenced by the company's case scenario. Furthermore, without clear guidelines, a lot of confusion can arise. The documents used in training should be well printed to ensure the employees can refer if they forget about any procedure (Mohammadfam et al. 2017). The risks mentioned above need proper assessment and proper guidelines set to ensure they are managed well (Nunes 2016). Furthermore, this diagram illustrates how the process should flow to aid adequate coverage and understanding by the employees and the entire management.

The process shows that the management should first identify the hazards involved in the production line of Salad Fresh and further do an assessment on the best way to control them. Also, the frequency of occurrence must be noted to determine the best ways of addressing the issues (Andersen et al. 2019). Additionally, once these risks are noted, a proper control process is put in place to control the risks.

Some of the measures that should be put in place in Salad Fresh include the construction of grills to protect the machines' moving parts. Conversely, the workers should be provided with protective gear (Marsh et al. 2016). However, as the implementation is done, consultations should be encouraged at all levels to enable the team to identify all the risks and implement them adequately (Andersen et al. 2019). Similarly, for proper continuous implementation of these measures, complaints from the employees and the general public must be well articulated and recorded for constant review (Coenen et al. 2017). The management must embrace a 360-degree way of communication to allow the continuous flow of information (Andersen et al. 2019). The details captured during complaints were:

• Nature of the risk identified.
• Time and date of the occurrence.
• The exact spot.
• Frequency.
• The person in charge of the mitigation measure
• The extent of injury caused.

Once this information is captured the next step is to identify and implement the corrective measures following the procedure below:

The first step is to plan the proper ways of eliminating the hazard identified.

• Replace the hazard with something safer for the workers.
• Disconnect the hazard from the operation line.
• Implement engineering measures.
• Seek help from the administrative controls.
• Apply personal protective gear.
• Assess the performance after the implementation.

The employees are to be continuously trained to equip themselves with the new rules and guidelines while at the premises. Also, the employees must be supervised to ensure that they understand what needs to be done in case of an emergency.

Workplace Assessment Report

After completing the occupational safety assessment at the premises, the team identified and compiled a report on the achievements and concerns that the management should adhere to and protect the employees fully (Coenen et al. 2017). Also, the concerns identified need progressive execution since they develop from time to time. Hence one method of mitigation may not necessarily provide the needed solution (Hofmann et al. 2017). Some of the concerns identified include:

• The employees at Salad Fresh lacked adequate training on occupational safety procedures.
• Furthermore, the employees were not satisfactorily protected as the protective gear did not match the required standard.
• Some of the moving parts of the machines were not properly guarded.
• The implementation procedures set by the company were not properly documented hence allowing room for mistakes.

However, consultations with the management revealed that these concerns were already being implemented. Also, an assessment of the environment showed that the place was well cleaned daily hence reducing the chances of other infections of foodstuffs. Additionally, there was a good working environment; thus, the employees could easily provide management information if there was an incident.

The results obtained warrantied the committee and the management to develop and implement the WHS procedure to address the concerns. New protective gear was bought, guard rails constructed, and training conducted to boost employees' awareness about these new developments. Additionally, the management appreciated the work done by this team and concluded that it was an eye-opener for them. The example action plan also provides a roadmap that could be used by many other industries in the same production line as Salad Fresh (Cheng 2019).

Conclusion

Salad Fresh is an example of many companies struggling with workers' health safety needs and cannot identify and mitigate the challenges. The research has identified some of these areas and proposed better ways of approaching occupational safety issues. Additionally, if the proposals are fully implemented, then many industries would be better concerning the safety of their employees. Also, the proposals are not just confined to Salad Fresh Company but could be implemented in any other industry dealing with fresh products.

References

Andersen, J.H., Malmros, P., Ebbehoej, N.E., Flachs, E.M., Bengtsen, E., and Bonde, J.P., 2019. Systematic literature review on the effects of occupational safety and health (OSH) interventions at the workplace. Scandinavian Journal of Work, environment & health, 45(2), pp.103-113. https://www.sjweh.fi/show_abstract.php?abstract_id=3775&fullText=1

Cheng, S.Y., Lin, K.P., Liou, Y.W., Hsiao, C.H., and Liu, Y.J., 2019. Constructing an active health and safety performance questionnaire in the food manufacturing industry. International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics, pp.1-7. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10803548.2019.1586369

Coenen, P., Gilson, N., Healy, G.N., Dunstan, D.W. and Straker, L.M., 2017. A qualitative review of existing national and international occupational safety and health policies relating to occupational sedentary behavior. Applied Ergonomics, 60, pp.320-333. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003687016302708