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601 Essentials of Occupational Safety and Health
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601 Essentials of Occupational Safety and Health

Accountability

It's important that the employer fulfill legal obligations to the law and every employee. Effective workplace safety accountability exists if: appropriate behaviors are objectively evaluated and result in effective consequences.

A woman pointing at the camera.
Accountability must be fair and objective.

An effective accountability system will include all of the following elements:

  1. Formal (written) standards and expectations. Before employees can be held accountable, management must develop and communicate clear standards of employee behavior.
  2. Physical resources. Before management can hold employees accountable, they must first fulfill their obligation to provide employees with the tools and equipment to perform safely.
  3. Psychosocial support. Management must provide adequate psychosocial support so that employees can achieve standards of behavior.
  4. A process to evaluate behaviors. It's important that behaviors, not outcomes, are measured and evaluated so that discipline is based on facts, not feelings. Employees should be disciplined only for substandard behavior, and the safety management system has not failed the employee. Punishing an employee for getting hurt is never justified.
  5. Effective Consequences. Consequences should be "progressive" to be effective. Effective discipline will change behavior in the desired direction. The discipline that changes the behavior of one employee may not change the behavior of another.
  6. Appropriate application of consequences. Appropriate consequences ensure discipline is justified and perceived as fair. For discipline to be considered justified and fair, supervisors and managers should first conduct a self-evaluation to make sure they are meeting their obligations to employees.
  7. Evaluation of the accountability system. Evaluation is essential in order to continually improve the accountability system. Management should analyze the system to determine how well it's working, and then evaluate the system to make a judgment about its effectiveness.

Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.

5-3. Effective workplace safety accountability exists if: appropriate behaviors are objectively _____ and result in effective _____.

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