What is Safety?

Safety is defined as freedom from risk, injury, or danger. It could also mean the condition of being protected from undesirable events that may cause harm or injury.

In the workplace, work health and safety management, refers to the identification of these workplace hazards and the employment of managerial principles to have employees working safely on their job and return to their homes safe everyday.

Identification of workplace hazards necessitates the involvement of workers in as much as they are the ones mostly exposed to hazards. Their inputs are necessary so that appropriate safety procedures can be formulated to address each workplace hazard as they are identified.

Management must be ready to allocate resources to the implementation of work health safety programs, including the provision of appropriate personal protective equipment and sponsoring safety and education and training for its employees.

On the employees' side, their safety commitment can be coupled with written disciplinary policies contingent
on their employment security to further strengthen compliance. Also recommended is the possibility of providing incentives for tangible and consistent success of the company's workplace safety program.

Periodic evaluation of the safety program is also necessary to assess if the same is still effective or changes or improvement need be incorporated.

Much has to be said about workplace safety, and these aspects can be handled specifically with each type of businesses companies have. They can differ from company to company, and they cannot be exhaustively discussed here.

However, the basic fact remains that for every company, a work safety program can only be successful to the extent of achieving zero-workplace accident if everybody, from the management to the employees, understand and diligently do their respective roles toward the establishment of the right company safety culture.

A more technical definition of safety states that it is the management of recognized hazards to an acceptable level of risk.

In the workplace, there are hazards that cannot be eliminated. It is through the sound management of these hazards that the risks can be minimized, and employees' safety in the workplace can be assured.