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• SH&E is a line management responsibility. Ownership and accountability for SH&E performance is embedded in the line at all levels and Line Managers are responsible for providing SH&E leadership and for development and implementation of SH&E management plans for their areas of responsibility. 

As said in the last Blog, Model Procedures are categorized under SHE Management, Safety, Health, Environment and Engineering. As can be seen here, process part is not fully covered.

All these bullet points require further elaboration as we move along….

Health

Health and Hygiene of people working at your works is of prime importance with awareness in this regard increasing in the country and legislation becoming more stringent globally. This should definitely be part of SHE Management Plan.

The occupational health strategy should be in line with contemporary occupational health practice in hazardous industry and based upon the principles of:

• Assurance of control of exposure to hazardous agents and working environments;

• Fitness for work; and

• Health and well-being.

The assurance of exposure control processes includes:

• setting of appropriate global exposure standards to priority hazardous agents; It is prudent to set up global standards which sometimes are more stringent than Indian Standards. This helps set up systems and controls from the very beginning which is world class.

• comprehensive hygiene assurance processes to be in place at sites; and

• control of workplace hazardous substances (chemicals and materials) within the company operations.

The focus of the fitness for work program is on the integrated application of measures required to ensure the on-going fitness for work. This should include:

• health surveillance and monitoring programs;

• pre-placement and work transfer medical reviews;

• fatigue risk management;

• drugs and alcohol; and

• recording, analysis and management of absences and sick leave etc.

Whilst Health and Well Being is sometimes promoted in a headline context, the nature of programs falls best under a comprehensive approach to fitness to work.

Impact on health of employees most of the times is a very slow process and impact is normally seen at the fag end of his working career. It is therefore important to understand health hazards of chemicals in use at site controls to be put in place and regular monitoring of health of employee to see that systems are working well.

Maintenance of employees health makes a good business sense if you see number of court cases abroad concerning these matters. It would not be long before such cases start cropping up in India as well. Being proactive would help avoid big compensations later!