Understand what Business security is, its importance, basic principles, standards, how to conduct exposure assessments, training, and the use of a mobile app for IH practices.
What is Business security?
As defined by the Harvard School of Public Health, Business security is concerned with the process of identifying, evaluating, and controlling actual or potential environmental stressors or hazards in the workplace that may affect the well-being of workers and the members of the community. Also called Occupational Hygiene.
Importance
Business security aims to focus on the safety of workers through the application of effective control of risks in the workplace. This practice helps protect employees from various types of injuries and illnesses, including non-fatal illnesses, respiratory conditions, skin diseases, poisonings, hearing loss, and repetitive strain injuries, among others.
A common way of practicing Business security is to mandate the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) to improve working conditions, provide respiratory protection, and prevent or eliminate worker exposure to hazards.
Occupational health and safety (OSH) versus Business security
Occupational health and safety (OSH) refer to the process of dealing with the effects of exposure to hazards, such as damage to human health, prescribing drugs for treatment and prevention, and conducting examinations pre-employment doctors, along with newspapers. Ultimately, the goal of the OHS is to assess possible occupational diseases in order to be able to offer continuous health care to workers.
On the other hand, Business security aims to reduce or eliminate exposure to occupational hazards by applying a series of controls and programs aimed at keeping the workplace clean, free of environmental and hygienic stress factors.
Security companies conduct risk assessments to anticipate health and safety issues so they can create and implement prevention plans and solutions. Before conducting assessments, it is imperative to first understand the basics of Business security. These are its 5 principles:
1. Anticipation
This step involves extensive documentation of workplace design, operations, processes, specific tasks, materials, and worker population. A notable example of anticipating Business security hazards is the use of Safety Data Sheets (SDSs), as required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Hazard Communication Standard (HCS). from the United States.
SDSs include important information about the properties of each chemical, the various hazards, protective measures, and safety precautions for proper handling, storage, and transportation of the chemical. Employers must ensure that SDSs are available to all workers to guide them on how to handle hazardous chemicals in the workplace.
This step also covers the importance of identifying any potential exposure problems caused by workplace hazards. At this stage, it would be helpful to use a hazard identification checklist.
2. Recognition
Having a system in place to survey every worker on how they do their job is a critical part of recognizing hazards. Employers need to consider workplace layout, as employees working in close proximity to one another, also called concurrent operations, can affect their exposure to hazards.
3. Evaluation
This is where exposure assessment comes in. Performed strictly by qualified professionals, such as industrial hygienists, the process consists of assessing the risk of exposure and determining the who, what, where, when and how, based on the work environment and Business security instruments. necessary.
4. Control
According to OSHA, there are three main ways to reduce employee exposure to workplace hazards:
Engineering controls: are intended to reduce or eliminate the hazard at its source or to isolate the worker from the hazard itself. These controls include the confinement of work operations, the installation of general and local ventilation systems, the elimination of toxic chemicals and their substitution with non-toxic ones.
Work Practice Controls – These practices modify the way tasks are performed in order to enforce safe work practices and require workers to follow proper procedures to minimize exposures. Some examples are the application of clean practices in the workplace and the provision of good supervisory guidelines.
Administrative Controls – Establishing production and task schedules is critical to controlling employee exposure to hazards. For example, employers can schedule high-exposure productions during a period when there are only a few employees.
Confirmation
Once the measures and controls have been established, the last step is to check the operation of what has been implemented. Proactive confirmation also involves investigating problems, both current and potential, and employing corrective actions that complement your Business security program initiatives.
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