The Root Causes of Work Place Injury
In Canada, the health and safety of employees: is the responsibility of the employers, supervisor, and senior management. If measures are not taking to prevent workplace injury the financial and social costs can be tremendous for an organization. Such as hiring and retraining new employees to replace injured workers and paying worker compensation claims. According to the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada, in 2007 Canadian companies spend 9.6 billion paying workers compensation from workplace injury claims. This has led to a significant amount of research to be conducted on the issue to try and identify ways to prevent and improve workplace safety.
Bruce Doge a Research Associate with the Occupational health Safety Division of the Nova Scotia Department of Labor and Workforce Development article; Patterns of Root cause in Workplace Injury, examines some of the problems that lead to workplace injuries. The purpose of the article was to identify patterns associated with the root cause of serious workplace injuries in Nova Scotia. The study was ordered by the Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Council of Nova Scotia in response to a surge in workplace injuries in the province and the study was meant to provide some insights to prevent future workplace injuries and reduce the associated cost related to such injuries. At the time Nova Scotia had an insured workforce of just over 318,000, slightly over $290 million in benefit costs were incurred in 2007 as a result of workplace injuries. In 2008 Nova Scotia reported 29 workplace fatalities”.
In response to an increase in work-related injuries the Occupational health and safety Division and Safety Advisory Council of Nova Scotia ordered the Occupational Health and Safety Division (OH&S Division) of the Nova Scotia Department of Labour and Workforce to undertake a study to better understand why such injuries were occurring. “The OH&S Division is the regulatory body in charge of developing workplace policies and enforcing these policies within the provincial jurisdiction. Thus, all companies located in Nova Scotia are obligated to report serious workplace injuries to the OH&S Division and are subject to investigation.
To complete this research into workplace injury, primary sources of data were used such as the investigative records of the OH&S Division, which was supplemented by conducting interviews with investigators and using employer’s investigation reports to make a fair assessment of workplace injuries in the province. As noted above the main aim of the research was to be able to identify and understand the cause of workplace injuries. To achieve this, the author uses a qualitative and inductive approach to understand the pattern associated with workplace injuries. Additionally, the author reviews the literature on the root causes of workplace injury to systemically get a better understanding of what causes such injuries.
The authors used of qualitative research method for the research was appropriate since the aim of the research was to identify the roots cause of injury because qualitative research is used to revealed expressive information about beliefs, values, feelings, and motivations that underlie behaviours which can not be captured by using quantitative research. This was evident in some of the research findings as stated.
“Culture may be seen as a set of beliefs, values, and assumptions collectively held in a social group such as a workplace, together with actions by the group. In an organization, the culture is defined by leaders, consciously or unconsciously, and workers look to leaders for clues regarding how a workplace operates and what is important. New workers will also look to existing workers to see what conclusions they have reached, and to the processes, they use to get work done. Culture is a powerful force and is not easily countered by espoused policy or statements”.
The quote illustrates that often-time workplace injuries are deeply rooted in workplace culture and management because managers can create a culture that values safety. This can be accomplished by promoting workplace safety and creating a culture where safety habits are naturally ingrained in the workforce and they react instinctively once they notice a safety issue. Moreover, a manager’s attitude can determine whether workers follow safety procedures or not. Thus, the use of qualitative research to capture this information was vital. This point is also important to our case study. In the Northern Copper arsenic poisoning case, the culture created by senior management related to workplace safety was deplorable.
Management failed to use the previous incidents of arsenic poison to demonstrate that they valued workplace safety or get to root causes of that particular incident, which created a culture and environment where workers and management did not value workplace safety.
The use of root cause analysis to investigate workplace injury is well supported and appropriate. Using a root cause analysis as the guiding principle to analyze the causes of workplace injuries is a good way to identify the fundamental problem that causes workplace injuries. When the root cause of the problem is identified it is much easier to eliminate the problem or reduces future injuries. The root cause is “the most basic casual factor, or factors, which, if corrected or removed, will prevent recurrence of a situation”.
Another important reason for using root cause analysis is when an injury happens at work management reacts by identifying factors that contributed to the immediate accident however, a root cause analysis allows employers to analyze underlying and systemic cause, this is important because addressing or just fixing the immediate problem may eliminate a symptom of a problem, but not the problem itself. Further to this point is that root cause analysis also allows employers to take a proactive approach to workplace safety, therefore, allowing employers to identified potential hazards and assessed risk and put preventable measures in place to address such risk so that similar incidents will not occur.
