Identifying work place accidents ( a visual lesson )

 1 ) SabotageThe most Powerful 'person' in any workplace is the health and safety officer or representative. Any individual employee has the opportunity to become that 'Person'. An active interest in H&S and an ability to recognise and help prevent WP accidents is all that is required. If any potential dangers are noted the employer must action the concerns immediately, address the concern and if necessary change company procedures. Failure on their part to do so would be an act of negligence for which there are serious fines that could be imposed if an accident occurred after a danger had been reported to them. A common fault in many industries usually seen as an oversight is lack of provision in providing suitable tools or equipment for a duty at hand while another is failure to provide adequate training to an employee carrying out a particular task for which they not educated or suitable for any other reason to carryout safely. The focus for a H&S rep must always be firstly on the accident itself how, why, when as opposed to any outcome for an employee that may have caused an accident or failed to prevent one. Any employee disciplinary outcome that may result from H&S matters would be the job of the employee support person but that's a whole new lesson that can be entered into later, they are probably the second most important 'person' in the work place. While most accidents and near misses result from carelessness or unforeseen events it's important to be aware that a small proportion arise as a result of sabotage which is then of a most serious concern for all due to the unpredictable nature of the perpetrator and the possibly of repeated behaviour. Perhaps we should look first at some examples of this before moving on to more common causes of accidents. ( see above )