What is personal safety? – Personal safety, also known as occupational safety, is considered to involve lower-level hazards that are likely to occur at work on a more regular basis. Personal safety is taking preventive action to reduce hazards that can result in slips, trips falls and manual handling injuries – these risks are much more common.
- Personal safety injuries come from a result of interactions between people and/or equipment – often seen as easily preventable with and reminders around the workplace in the form of posters.
- Most industries and lines of work have personal and occupational safety procedures in place to prevent injuries – ranging from construction to office work.
According to a study conducted by the – the number of lost time injuries (time lost due to recovery from a workplace injury) between 2013 -2017 amounted to 251,625 hours. This statistic shows just how many people suffer from workplace injuries as a result of hazards from work – this figure does not include the number of fatalities.
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What is the meaning personal safety?
Your personal safety is a general recognition and avoidance of possible harmful situations or persons in your surroundings.
What is included in personal safety?
The three basic rules for personal safety are: –
- Stay alert and be aware of your surroundings.
- Give the impression that you are calm, confident and know where you are going.
- Trust your instincts. If it doesn’t look or feel right, it might not be.
Why is personal safety important in the workplace?
Safety Pays for Everyone – The cost of injury prevention is far less than the cost of an injury. A safe and healthy workplace attracts and retains quality employees. It’s an asset to a community, operates more efficiently and enjoys a healthy bottom line. The business and the workers thrive in a safe, healthy, respectful and caring environment Safe and healthy workplaces:
Have more satisfied, productive workers who
Produce higher quality products and services Return to work more quickly after an injury or illness Feel loyal to the organization
Are better places to work Retain employees Establish positive community relations
What is personal safety and protection?
Personal Protection – In Personal Safety and Security Playbook, 2014 Chapter 2: Personal Protection provides information on ways to protect yourself in a wide variety of settings and situations (at home, when you are driving, when you are at work, when you travel, and many others).
It defines the four fundamental concepts of personal security: being prepared; being alert; taking proper precautions to reduce the chance of becoming a victim; and mitigating the consequences when you’ve become a victim of an accident, crime, or natural disaster. This chapter also includes a section on the signs of domestic violence, steps for victims of domestic violence, and guidance for those who have friends of family members who are victims.
Read full chapter URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780124172265000026
What are 2 personal safety needs?
Safety and security needs include such things as an individual’s need for protection from physical harm, as well as the need for emotional well-being, job and financial security, and overall health.
Why do we need personal safety?
Why Personal Safety Comes First 🎖️ | Strat Training Personal safety is a concept that we all need to have in order to feel at peace and minimally comfortable. Many people know of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which places safety and security second on the list.
This means that after satisfying our physiological needs we need to feel safe. Today, this means being able to sleep at night without being threatened, having job security, as well as mental, health, and emotional well being. South Africa has been plagued by the reputation of being dangerous for none of its population and for having no sense of safety.
This is very untrue although it is a high risk area due to the high contrast between the rich and the poor and due to the fact that the majority of the country lives in absolute poverty. In terms of workplace safety, OSHA and training companies such as Strat Training offer for employers and employees to take part in.
- These courses ensure physical and mental safety and should be taken seriously, especially in industries such as driving, construction, transport, lifting, and so forth.
- For personal safety, there are a number of things that an individual can do to feel safer.
- Ensuring that your is as safe as possible is important.
For example, having a boundary that separates your home from public property, gates, locks, electric fences, alarms, and so forth. People can also invest in devices such as pepper spray or so that they are able to better defend themselves if they face danger.
However, it is also important to use your natural safety measure – common sense. Do not walk alone late at night in a dangerous area or put yourself in harm’s way. Most rules and regulations put in place by society is there for safety. When driving, pay attention and obey the rules of the road. Stop signs, robots, yielding, all of these things are to warn people and to avoid danger.
Many accidents happen due to people being careless or reckless and many issues can be avoided if people paid more attention to safety. : Why Personal Safety Comes First 🎖️ | Strat Training
Why is it important to maintain personal safety?
Why Is Personal Safety Important? Personal safety goes beyond following the employer’s safety program. It also means having a general awareness and prevention of possible harmful situations, whether off or on the clock! Giving proper attention to personal safety concerns can improve employee morale and reduce absences.
Is safety a personal value?
For months I have been contemplating, and the same thoughts keeps coming back to me as to why we have the incidents we have on our job-sites, and the following is what I have pieced together, I know it looks long, but it is just the tip of the iceberg.
- To me, in my observation, education, and experience, we can set back and watch, get a numbers game going of statistics, and try to see trends, or we can really make a strong culture of safety in our company and profession, by making Safety a Core Value.
- What I have learned is policies, procedures, and good equipment do not make a strong safety culture, it is the people that do! – Ryan L.
Rinehart Culture is described as the beliefs and behaviors handed down from one generation to the next. In the workplace each new employee and contractor represents the next generation of a company. This can be an opportunity or a continuing challenge, because these new people will adopt the safety behaviors of their coworkers.
One of the findings from a major industrial incident was “hazard training was largely passed down by experience from others. Sometimes this guidance was poor, perhaps due to an element of complacency” Managers need to constantly ask themselves “whose behaviors are our new people adopting and are these behaviors we want being passed along to the next generation of employees?” There is a significant difference in a safety culture and a culture of safety.
A safety culture simply describes the beliefs and behaviors that are demonstrated within an organization. Therefore, a safety culture may be good, focused on reducing incidents and injuries, or it might be poor, tolerating at-risk behaviors that put people at unnecessary risk.
Thinking of incidents, past or even recent, it makes us ask, “What do we need to do different?” and “What can we do better to ensure that people are safe?” And the usual response has been, getting policies created and approved, and a presence in the field and shop locations, along with some training changes.
Which is a great step towards a safety culture, yet we do not have the buy in at the personal level that we desire, which would lead towards a culture of safety. For us to say safety is a priority isn’t actually putting our safety priorities at work. Why? Priorities are the first to change when dealing with say the bottom line, the cost cutting-get it done mentality, operational performance, deadlines, or even customer demands.
- To clarify my point, when money becomes tight on a project or operations fall behind schedule the focus becomes getting the job done, no matter what risks or short cuts you have to take.
- It is sort of a “Mission First” mentality.
- So since priorities change, safety just took a nose dive to dead last or not even considered anymore.
When Safety is a core value, the only time it becomes ” the priority” is when it comes into conflict with anything else, meaning we as a company commit to putting human life above all other demands. We can agree that Priorities change, Core Values remain constant,
- Safety as a Core Value is how we can instill a culture of safety in a personal level as well as add moral value in each and every employee.
- Safety shouldn’t be a policy that people read, remember for a few days and then forget.
- Safety is something people practice at work and in their personal lives, the safety core value essentially means, every person is responsible for their own safety, as well as the people around them.
Training to this Safety Core Value would include at-risk-behavior identification. Workshops for leaders, managers, supervisors, foreman, and leads across all divisions and departments. If any of those in leadership positions do not support the safety of their personnel, you have to ask, are these people desired to be kept on our team? If someone in a leadership role is turning a blind eye to at-risk-behavior and rewarding short-cuts, then they are not doing the job they were hired to do.
In order to build and maintain a strong culture of safety, management must not only buy-in, but consistently exemplify this standard by supporting it and making sure it stays relevant as the company evolves. Safety as a priority must be avoided when building a culture of safety. In a strong safety culture, safety is elevated to be a core value within the organization.
Too often, people still rely on ‘compliance with’ safety policies, procedures and equipment in everyday operations rather than a ‘belief in’ safety. In order to create a culture of safety, safety must become a personal value where each employee takes responsibility for recognizing and reducing unnecessary at-risk behaviors.
- A person’s attitude toward safety is a choice and it is your choice to believe in safety for you, your family and your teammates.
- In a culture of safety, you are the key to creating an incident-free environment.
- When we are building a culture of safety, management must create the environment that enables safety to be a core value of the company and, more importantly, within the hearts or even the souls of the individuals who work there.
It should be something everyone practices both at work and in their personal lives. In order to help instill a strong culture of safety in day-to-day operations, management should consider adopting the Core Value of Safety.
Is safety and protection the same?
According to Dictionary.com, protection is defined as ‘preservation from injury or harm.’ Safety is defined as the ‘freedom from the occurrence or risk of injury, danger, or loss.’
What is the difference between safety and health at work?
Do you need clarification about occupational health and safety? The two terms sound similar, but they are not the same thing. What’s the difference between them? Occupational health refers to the maintenance of workers’ physical and mental well-being.
This includes providing proper nutrition and rest, managing stress, and protecting against workplace hazards. On the other hand, occupational safety focuses on reducing risks at workplaces. This means preventing accidents from happening and providing resources or training to reduce negative consequences.
Although both are important, each has its unique focus. This article will discuss the differences between occupational health and occupational safety and how the two work together.