When employees are injured on the job, the employer is responsible for the tasks and actions required to help make the injured “whole” by enabling their return to pre-injury status. A workplace injury has occurred and management needs an analysis conducted that will distinguish between fact and opinion, uncover assumptions and define their terms and make detailed observations. This information will be used to make assertions based on sound logic and solid evidence. Critical thinking will be required since it is concerned with reason, intellectual honesty, and open-mindedness, as opposed to emotionalism and closed-mindedness. The critical thinking strategy will follow evidence where it leads, considering all possibilities and reason rather than emotion. The main focus of the analysis will be precision, considering a variety of possible viewpoints and explanations and weighing the effects of motives and biases (xxxxxx). The analysis will also be focused on finding the truth and not rejecting unpopular views by being aware of prejudices and biases, and not allowing them to sway one's judgment.
Explanation of the Issue
Two weeks ago, a large piece of truss broke and fell on a hoist operator. The employee sustained a head injury and is in an induced coma. Safety reports from the Safety Office, Quality Assurance Manager and engineer has provided evidence that the prior testing reports showed the testing thresholds exceeded the acceptable load-bearing limits although the trusses where advertised as meeting “commercial-high” load requirements. According to OSHA (2011), accidental injuries and falls are the leading cause of death for factory workers and the manufacturing of roof trusses can be particularly dangerous for two reasons: (1) truss construction usually occurs high above the ground and (2) trusses are not stable until they are properly restrained and braced.
Management is moving forward with operations and has initiated new testing at lower thresholds. Employees are also being encouraged to continue to work in order to meet production schedules. Considering the severity of the incident, employees have expressed concern about the engineering processes and overall safety of the trusses. One of the employees has reached out to the media and leaked the information regarding the failed trusses and was terminated two weeks later for other documented performance issues. This termination may give the appearance of retaliation and should be investigated further.
Analysis of the Information
The project team has prepared an accident analysis plan and are confident that we are taking the correct steps to investigate and address the causes. Digging deep into the circumstances of an accident will help you prevent future accidents in the workplace and ultimately help the organization avoid unnecessary financial cost. The first step in the plan is to collect data to find out some basic information about what happened by talking to the injured employee, witness, other employees and managers (xxxxxx). The investigation reveals the following details:
• Employee worked seven 12-hour shifts in a row proceeding the accident. A recent review showed that compared to morning shifts, the risk of occupational injury during afternoon shifts increased by 18.3% and in night shifts by 30.4% (Williamson & Feyer, 1995).
• Accident happened at end of shift. One critical question regarding the effect of shift work related to the injury is whether the employee permanently worked evening or night shifts rotating shifts. The assumption could be made that working rotating shifts led to increased fatigue, which in turn led to an increased accident risk.
• The employee was approximately 10 feet above floor level and no fall restraint system was used. OSHA requires fall protection measures for manufacturing activities 6 feet or more above lower levels.
• A truss inspection policy is in place, but there is no evidence that the truss has ever been inspected. The company is negligent in that it did not provide thorough examination of truss and lifting equipment by a competent person sufficiently independent of line management to make the inspection/examination and report on its condition to the employer.
• Investigation reveals the truss was damaged and did not provide a stable working platform in any environment. Trusses are designed to support weight from the top down and must be properly restrained and braced. Movement from side to side subjected the truss to lateral force which caused a point of weakness (xxxxxx).
• Interview with facility manager reveals that the tested threshold for the truss lift exceeded the load-bearing requirements.
After the site investigation, the involved machinery and documentation was removed and tagged as having been in an accident since preservation of evidence and artifacts following an accident is critical (xxxxxx).
Considerations of Alternative Viewpoints and Conclusions
Implications of workplace accidents extends far beyond the injured employee and the corrective actions that employers must take in response to an incident. The employee-employer relationship can become strained when communication is not transparent and safely messages are not the focus. The company needs to use a combination of different communication vehicles to keep safely messages in front of the employee and to heighten their safety awareness. In addition, employees need to be encouraged to share their concerns freely. The employees are fearful and asking if the manufacturing or engineering process is flawed and if the trusses being produced could fail under load.
While the termination of Mr. Faruch Habib is said to be related to documented poor performance, the perception of the staff is that he was terminated for whistleblowing and this has contributed to the decline in the employee-employer relationship and caused decrease productivity. HR must be sensitive to signals that a whistleblowing employee may be the victim of retaliation and that the claims that the employee is “under performing” or “not a team player” may mask retaliation. The law only protects those who report wrongdoing to a supervisor, a company individual appointed to handle these matters, a regulatory or law enforcement agency or a member/committee of congress(xxxxx). In this case the information was leaked to the press and could be interpreted as misconduct, therefore it is important that the company establish a whistleblowing policy as a part of their code of ethics and communicate the policy to employees through multimedia, training, department meetings and employee seminars.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The growth, revenue and productivity of the company would not exist if it were not for the human element that ensures that the manufacturing and production equipment operate and the building of a solid partnership with employees involves increasing employee engagement, investing in human capital and fostering and environment of trust. The definition of quality improvement is the actions taken throughout the organization to increase the effectiveness of activities and processes to provide added benefits to both the organization and its customers (xxxx). The project team also recommends pursing ISO 9002 certification to contribute to making development, manufacturing and supply of products and services more efficient and safer. ISO is a network of the national standards institutes of 137 countries, on the basis of one member per country, with a Central Secretariat in Geneva that coordinates the system and it develops voluntary technical standards which add value to all types of business operations.
According to ISO 9002, the key elements of a quality system based on ISO 9000 are the following:
• A management policy to seek customer satisfaction by meeting the customer's quality requirements and the setting of concrete objectives to translate the policy into action.
• Analysis of all aspects of the organization's activities that affect the quality of its output.
• Development and improvement of the organization's processes which produce its output. We can call this, "Making sure we are doing things right".
• Monitoring and measuring, and corrective and preventive actions to ensure that quality objectives are met.
• Auditing to determine if the quality system is functioning well and conducting management reviews to address the possible need for changing policy, objectives and processes to achieve continual improvement.
• Documentation of the quality system to ensure transparency of policy and responsibilities, consistency of processes, to assist in training and induction by avoiding having to re-invent the wheel, and to provide traceable data for problem-solving and quality improvement (Eicher, 2001)
Effective quality management plans require considerable time, personnel, and financial resources but coupling employee engagement with quality improvement, which is a process for changing standards, the company will emerge stronger and more resilient.