Barriers to Establish Standards of Occupational Health & Safety

Barriers to establish good standards of occupational health and safety in most of the companies/firms can be due to mainly 3 reasons.

1. Complexity
2. Conflicting Demands
3. Behavioural Issues

Complexity: Workplaces can be complicated, requiring coordination between many people performing different activities. Therefore, finding a solution to a specific health and safety problem or issue can be complex, needing extensive background knowledge and awareness of the possible consequences of the various courses of actions that are likely.

Conflict of demand - Productivity vs Environment Protection

Conflicting Demands: Often, competing and conflicting demands are placed upon people and organizations. A common conflict of interest occurs when the organization needs to choose between the need to supply a product and/or service at an appropriate speed, so as to make profit and the need to do so safely and without risk to people’s health. Another conflict can be created by the need to comply with different types of standards at the same time. For example, having to comply with health and safety laws, environmental protection laws etc, simultaneously.

Behaviour Triangle

Behavioural Issues: Good standard of health and safety often reply on the perfect behaviour of individuals, and as we all are aware, people do not always behave in the ideal way. The solution to a health and safety problem usually requires a worker to undertake their task in a particular way. For example, a worker on a construction site should wear head protection (hard hat) to protect themselves from falling objects. But people are not robots; they do not always behave as they are supposed to. Workers sometimes make mistakes (they do wrong things, thinking that it is the correct way to do something). At other times, people even do wrong things deliberately. The fact that health and safety standards are affected by workmen behaviour can be a significant barrier to maintaining god standards in a workplace.