My company, Eastern State Marine, has a contract to buy and use a new paint and rust remover in our boatyard. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), employers are responsible for providing employees a safe and healthy workplace environment for men and women, they must also set and enforce standards and provide training, outreach, education and assistance (Sweatt). It is the duty of Human Resources to work as a liaison between the employee and employer to ensure that there is a safe and healthy workplace environment. As the Human Resources specialist, I will describe in this paper the steps I would take to ensure workplace safety for all aspects concerning the chemical. All these requirements will be addressed through educating and training of the employees.
It is important to establish the different methods Eastern State Marine will use to train different sections on the safety requirements. The first method Eastern State Marine will use is to educate and inform the employees of the different chemicals and the housekeeping of those chemicals. This would be done by creating different information packets to be read and discussed in small groups.
Small group session will make it easy to address any questions or concerns the employees may have. These information packets would pertain to education of the specific chemicals to be used in the boatyard, the use of the chemicals, handling, storage and disposal of the chemicals. Along with these information packets I would have the small group view safety videos to show proper handling disposal and storage of these chemicals. These videos would include a chemical hygiene plan and detail where the plan can be located within the boatyard. These small groups would also include any hands-on training needed. The small groups will also be trained and educated on what to do in the event of an accident.
The checklist to be used in the event of an accident will be in an easily reachable place for all employees of the Eastern State Marine boatyard. The location of the stored chemicals to be used in the boatyard would also be addressed to ensure that there is proper air quality in its storage location. There would be one employee in charge of the storage location. The person in charge of the chemicals storage may also ensure that proper inventory levels are kept, that there are not any duplicate orders placed, and expired chemicals are disposed in a proper fashion (Hammel). From these videos and information packets there will be a standard of procedures that will addresses the use of the correct way to safely handle, use, store and dispose of the chemicals at Eastern State Marine. No employee will be allowed to work at or enter the boatyard until he/she has been educated and viewed the safety videos and conducted their hands-on training.
If there are certain tools that may be used to handle these chemicals each employee would need to demonstrate effective use of the tools before being allowed on the boatyard. There will be log kept of the employee’s participation of these two very important methods used to deal with safety requirements. This would require that the different departments coordinate with HR to ensure that ALL employees are educated and properly trained on how to interact with the chemicals. Although each chemical has its own set of unique challenges, addressing known hazards and planning for anticipated ones will help to minimize chemical exposure and ensure a safer workplace for everyone (Hammel). As the HR specialists for Eastern State Marine I will adjust the hands-on training, videos and education packets as needed to ensure a safe workplace environment.
