Hr Professional and the Role of Safety and Health

Kaylyn Vranich

Word Count: 635

Assignment 18: HR Professional and the Role of Safety and Health

         Employee health and safety is important in any organization (Byars & Rue, 2011). Human resource professionals play an important role in ensuring employee health and safety, and in many organizations, health and safety responsibilities are within the human resources department. The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) was implemented on April 28, 1971 and its purpose is to establish federal regulations relating to employee health and safety (Byars & Rue, 2011). One of the human resources department responsibilities is to be familiar with the OSHA standards and ensure that employees and the organization, complies with them (Byars & Rue, 2011). Record keeping is important and many OSHA standards have special record-keeping requirements and reports that organizations must abide by (Byars & Rue, 2011).

In order to meet the responsibilities of health and safety in an organization, a human resources professional must first understand why it is important and then coordinate with upper management to create the best game plan to implement policies and procedures for the organization. The HR department will then begin to implement personnel management policies to make certain that everyone in the organization is aware of his or her responsibilities, and then establish effective ways to meet those health and safety responsibilities (Byars & Rue, 2011). It is important that an HR department ensures that all employees fulfill their health and safety responsibilities as outlined in the organizational policies and programs (Byars & Rue, 2011). In regards to health and safety, practices of HR include: preventing work related injuries and illnesses, and developing a culture of safety in which employees and supervisors work together to ensure that workplace safety is achieved (Byars & Rue, 2011). HR should also create and administer policies that encourage employees to report any unsafe conditions or unsafe practices to their supervisors without the fear of possibly being disciplined (Byars & Rue, 2011).

HR establishes policies that enforce company safety with health and safety programs. A health and safety program consists of clearly defined actions that implement procedures in an organization to ensure that the organization conforms to OSHA legislation and uses the best practices (Byars & Rue, 2011). The HR department has to be thorough when maintaining records of injuries and illnesses in order to protect all parties in the organization while making sure that all rules and regulations are followed (Byars & Rue, 2011). HR professionals are made available to provide guidance to all employees in matters of workplace health and safety (as well as many other matters) and should also coordinate first aid training for emergency situations.