Improving Safety Culture in Bruno Smallgoods: A Business Report

This business report highlight the safety culture of a company Bruno Smallgoods, which is a company associated with the work of provide finest quality of meat in Australian market. Safety culture is the beliefs, attitude and perceptions of the employees concerning the safety of the workplace. The beneficial results are positive outcome of the financial performance, employee involvement and improved industrial relations.

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Human Resource Management
Name of the Student
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Author Note

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Executive Summary
This business report highlight the safety culture of a company Bruno Smallgoods, which is a
company associated with the work of provide finest quality of meat in Australian market. Safety
culture is the beliefs, attitude and perceptions of the employees concerning the safety of the
workplace. The beneficial results are positive outcome of the financial performance, employee
involvement and improved industrial relations. The major legislation involved in the industry are
Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (ACT) and Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988
(SRC Act). The benefits that can be obtained by implementing safety culture are providing safe
work premises, assessing risks and then implementing relevant measures, ensuring safe handling
of goods, maintaining safe machinery and materials, assessing workplace layout and strictly
follows insurance and workers compensation. The problem identified in the business report are
removal of blockage in mincers while the machine is operating, poor utilization of safety
equipments in the workplace, improper knowledge in handling manual practices, hazardous
objects are not put into desired places after use, dangerous use of forklifts and removal of safety
barriers. The solutions are suggested for the improvement in safety behaviors in handling the
machineries, using safety equipment, handling dangerous objects like knifes and utilizing safety
barriers. Recommendations suggested for overcoming the problems are effective employee
training, effective induction process and including governing personnel for regular inspection.

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
2.1 Legal responsibilities that employers have to ensure a safe workplace......................................6
2.2 Details on ‘safety culture’............................................................................................................7
2.3 Description of improvement safety behaviors of employees through safety culture..................8
2.3.1 Improvement safety behaviors in handling the machineries................................................9
2.3.2 Improvement safety behaviors in using safety equipment...................................................9
2.3.3 Improvement safety behaviors in handling dangerous objects like knifes.........................10
2.3.4 Improvement safety behaviors in utilizing safety barriers.................................................10
3.0 Recommendations..........................................................................................................................10
3.1 Employee training......................................................................................................................10
3.2 Effective Induction process.......................................................................................................11
3.3 Including governing personnel for regular inspection...............................................................11
4.0 Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
5.0 Reference List................................................................................................................................13

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List of Figures
Image 1: Worker fatalities: fatality rate by industry of employer per 100,00 workers.........................5
Image 2: Agriculture industry sub-divisions fatality numbers..............................................................6
Image 3: Agriculture by mechanism of incident from 2007- 2016 (combined)....................................6

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1.0 Introduction
Antonsen (2017) stated that employees are the most valuable asset of an organization as
they works for accomplishing the organizational goals. The staffs work hard for developing the
products, representing the brand and fuel the success. Thomas and Galla (2013) furthermore
highlighted that poor safety environment at the workplace resulted in high absenteeism, serious
injuries and employee turnover rates. This report thus highlights the importance of safe
workplace for the organization Bruno Smallgoods, which is a provider of finest quality meat in
the Australian market. The company is facing a series of issues like front line worker removes
blockage of mincers while the machine is still operating, poor utilization of safety equipments
in the workplace, improper knowledge in handling manual practices, hazardous objects are
not put into desired places after use, dangerous use of forklifts and removal of safety barriers
in order to fasten the production process.
This report will highlight the legal responsibilities which should be followed by both
employers and employees to ensure a safe workplace. Moreover, importance of safety culture
along with recommendation and justification to improve the safety culture in Bruno Smallgoods
will also be demonstrated.
2.0 Findings and discussion
The fatality rate in agricultural industry is more than the construction industry and other
remaining. In the year 2016, the fatality rate comes down to almost 12 per 100,000 workers
compared to the rate of 16.2 for the previous year 2015 (Safeworkaustralia.gov.au 2018).

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Image 1: Worker fatalities: fatality rate by industry of employer per 100,00 workers
(Source: Safeworkaustralia.gov.au 2018)
The statistics also shows that older workers aged 55 and over accounted for fatalities in
the Agriculture industry (Safeworkaustralia.gov.au 2018). The findings by the government
statistics also shows that sheep and beef cattle industry is liable for 279 out of 418 fatalities
which represents two-thirds (67%) of the total accidents (Safeworkaustralia.gov.au 2018).

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Image 2: Agriculture industry sub-divisions fatality numbers
(Source: Safeworkaustralia.gov.au 2018)
Lastly, when considering the reason for the occurrence in agriculture industry, it has been
found that 16% get hurt by roll-over by non-red vehicle, 14% hit by moving objects, 6% trapped
by moving machineries, 5% affected due to contact by electricity and 4% trapped between
stationary and moving objects (Safeworkaustralia.gov.au 2018).
Image 3: Agriculture by mechanism of incident from 2007- 2016 (combined)
(Source: Safeworkaustralia.gov.au 2018)
2.1 Legal responsibilities that employers have to ensure a safe workplace
Australian Government formulated many work and safety regulations like Work Health
and Safety Act 2011 (ACT) (Business.gov.au 2018). The main benefits to consider these
legislations at the workplace can be witnessed through retaining staffs, maximizing the

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employee’s productivity, minimizing injuries and ensuring obligations (Business.gov.au 2018).
The WHS legislations and policies also provide education and training regarding work health
and safety along with the procedure to incorporate safety management in business operations.
Moreover, if the management got genuine complaints for employee accidents in the workplace
showing that theyhave been injured while working or handling the equipments used in the
production prcess, the employer has to offer the employee compensation by abiding the
legislation of Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (SRC Act) and WHS Act
(Comcare.gov.au 2018).
The legal responsibilities that should be followed by the employer are providing safe
work premises, assessing risks and then implementing relevant measures, ensuring safe
handling of goods, maintaining safe machinery and materials, assessing workplace layout and
strictly follows insurance and workers compensation. The worker should also require
complying with the legislation formulated for the health and safety perspectives, use provided
safety equipments, no interference with health and safety equipment and do not go to risky
place and injure themselves willfully (Business.gov.au 2018).
2.2 Details on ‘safety culture’
Thomas and Galla (2013) expressed that the beliefs, attitude and perceptions that
employees share concerning the safety of the workplace is referred as safety culture. The
presence of safety culture, demonstrates prioritizing health and safety over production needs,
isolation of machinery and equipment, supervise workers with specialist knowledge and
complying with health and safety requirements. The importance of safety culture can be
witnessed through the positive outcome of the financial performance as employee are more
focused on the work they are doing rather than on the injuries they obtained from the workplace

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(Milios et al. 2014). Employee involvement is another benefit that can be attained from safety
culture as people found the organization more ethical and transparent to the accidents and
compensations policies. Poole (2013) highlighted that improved industrial relations can also be
obtained for maintaining safety culture in the business environment.
Schofield et al. (2014) on the other hand highlighted that if a company do not maintain a
safety culture, WHS Act provides some graduated enforcement options like- issuing a non
disturbance notice, issuing a prohibition notice, issuing an improvement notice, issuing an
undertaking, issuing an enforceable undertaking, issuing an injunction and issuing a penalty
notice. Moreover, prosecutions for the breaching the elements of WHS Act are under criminal
law (Comcare.gov.au 2018). The amount of penalty that incurred by an organization can be high
as $3 million; while, in case of individuals on finding breaching these regulations resulted a fine
of $300,000 to other individuals (Comcare.gov.au 2018).
2.3 Description of improvement safety behaviors of employees through safety culture
The issues that have been identified in the working environment of Bruno Smallgoods are
that the employee of the company handles the mincer machinery ineffectively. These workers
usually remove any kind of blockage while the machine is operating which results in accidents
due to moving machinery. These workers might have been lost their limbs while doing such
work. It has been also seen that many workers are not using safety equipment provided to them
which also leads to serious injuries in the workplace. Moreover, many of the workers also do not
know the handling procedure if the forklifts for products transfer and also leads to accidents due
to moving vehicles (Santos et al. 2017). Employees are also not aware of the proper handling
of knifes and they keep the knife open in the surface that might other employees, who are not
aware of the dangerous products. Lastly, but the most dangerous incident that is witnessed in the

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Bruno Smallgoods’ workplace is that in order to increase the production process, removal of
safety barriers is opted from the supervisors and middle management. This shows the poor
attitude of the senior management towards safety amongst front line staffs.
2.3.1 Improvement safety behaviors in handling the machineries
Apart from using mincing machines, other dangerous machines are cowl choppers,
bandsaws, circular knife slicers and machines with circular saw blades (Farouk 2013). Dicers
and Cubers are also used in this industry that has some hazardous outcome like- access to the
rotating blades at the discharge end, open access to feed chamber and hopper, trapping
between the loading device and the machine and blades handling during the cleaning and
maintenance. The employees should maintain the safest distance with the machines and they
should maintain gap of at least 120mm between the base of the machine and the loading device
(Purnell 2013).
2.3.2 Improvement safety behaviors in using safety equipment
In order to improve the behaviors in utilizing the safety equipment, employee should
know the use of all the safety equipments and must have the knowledge concerning emergency
first aid (Zhou et al. 2012). The safety equipment offered to the employees are Cut Resistant
Gloves, Cut Resistant Gloves with stainless steel core, arm guards, stainless steel mesh gloves,
sound ear cuffs and eye glasses for the safety of the eyes (Dolez et al. 2012). The workers of the
Bruno Smallgoods should be assigned with safety equipments, checked for continued
functionality and effectiveness, recognize the deficiencies and restrictions of Personal Protective
Equipment (PPE), identify the situation when these equipments need to be changed or repaired
and procedures for replacing PPE.

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2.3.3 Improvement safety behaviors in handling dangerous objects like knifes
Leps et al. (2013) stated that the employees should know the correct use of the knife for
performing meat cutting along with identification of the correct knife out of the many in order to
easy accomplishment of the desire job. The employees should also know how to sharpen the
knife in case they find that the knife has become blunt (Musavian et al. 2015). Employees are
also liable for using and storage of the knives. The employees should only use knives that are
easy to clean and have non-slip handle, have anti-slip guard, suitable blade that can cut the flesh,
smallest blade that can be used to complete the task for avoiding pressure and reducing excessive
bending of the wrist (Worksafe.vic.gov.au 2018).
2.3.4 Improvement safety behaviors in utilizing safety barriers
The machines should also be equipped with a conveyor belt so that employee could not
be in direct contact with the blades. Moreover, interlocked grids, trip bars or light barriers should
also be incorporated for preventing the access to the danger points (Wyness and Mooney 2012).
These barriers should be properly used and incorporated in the processing system. Employee
should know the complaint process of they found anyone switching off the safety barriers or
removing them from the process.
3.0 Recommendations
3.1 Employee training
Employee training should be given training on using and selecting the suitable knife,
storing knives in good condition, correct holding of the knife, correct cutting methods,
techniques of cutting meats, body gesture while holding the knives and using it and putting the
knives in appropriate place when not in use. This training is required for safeguarding the

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employees and also helps others to follow the safety concerns. Employee should also be
provided with the training for logging complaints without any hesitation. This training should be
offered for handling the policies and regulations. Experts should teach them about gaining
knowledge of all the safety regulations and its importance, understandability of the health and
safety policies and filing complaints if anyone breaching the legislations.
3.2 Effective Induction process
It is required for the organization to give proper induction process to the new employees
after their recruitment. The induction process should comprise of the knowledge of type of risks
related to the machineries, plants and equipments present. The induction process should also
include details about electrical safety, safe working from heights, utilizing hazardous chemicals
and effective management of risks. The benefits of the string induction process are that
employees know the values the organization is following and the actions that the company can
take if the safety rules are not followed properly. Moreover, when these new members come to
know the safety culture of the environments, the desire to stay in the company gets higher
resulted in high retention rate.
3.3 Including governing personnel for regular inspection
Including a member from the Australian Meat Processor Corporation (AMPC) or from
government for regular inspection allow the managing people to follow the safety rules. Since,
high penalty can be imposed on not following the safety culture in meat industry, the safety
barrier removals or improper use of dangerous equipments can be reduced. Another solution is to
hire an auditor to prepare an unbiased report on the safety management twice in a year. This will
help the official to measure their progress and the required changes they have to incorporate to

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ensure the extreme safety for the employee. The result is beneficial as there is always an
assistance and invigilation of an expert from the desired field.
4.0 Conclusion
Thus it can be found that in order to diminish the problem of removing blockage of
mincers while the machine is still operating, poor utilization of safety equipments in the
workplace, improper knowledge in handling manual practices, hazardous objects are not put into
desired places after use, dangerous use of forklifts and removal of safety barriers can be
overcome through employee training, effective induction process and including governing
personnel for regular inspection. The important legislation for maintaining safety culture in meat
industry are Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (ACT) and Safety Rehabilitation and
Compensation Act 1988 (SRC Act). It is also found that following these legislations for
incorporating a safety culture resulted in retaining staffs, maximizing the employee’s
productivity and minimizing injuries and ensuring obligations. Moreover, additional importance
of safety culture in the organization is positive outcome of the financial performance, employee
involvement and improved industrial relations. It is also found that if the considered company is
failed to follow all the safety regulations them governing bodies can issue a non disturbance
notice, a prohibition notice, an improvement notice, an undertaking, an enforceable undertaking,
an injunction and a penalty notice.

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5.0 Reference List
Antonsen, S., 2017. Safety culture: theory, method and improvement. CRC Press.
Business.gov.au., 2018. Workplace health & safety. [online] Available at:
https://www.business.gov.au/info/run/workplace-health-and-safety [Accessed 24 Apr. 2018].
Comcare.gov.au., 2018. Managing risks in the workplace. [online] Available at:
http://www.comcare.gov.au/preventing/managing_risks_in_the_workplace [Accessed 24 Apr.
2018].
Dolez, P., Azaiez, M. and Vu-Khanh, T., 2012. Characterization of the resistance of protective
gloves to pointed blades. In Performance of Protective Clothing and Equipment: 9 th Volume,
Emerging Issues and Technologies. ASTM International.
Farouk, M.M., 2013. Advances in the industrial production of halal and kosher red meat. Meat
Science, 95(4), pp.805-820.
Leps, J., Einschütz, K., Langkabel, N. and Fries, R., 2013. Efficacy of knife disinfection
techniques in meat processing. Meat science, 95(2), pp.185-189.
Milios, K.T., Drosinos, E.H. and Zoiopoulos, P.E., 2014. Food Safety Management System
validation and verification in meat industry: Carcass sampling methods for microbiological
hygiene criteria–A review. Food Control, 43, pp.74-81.
Musavian, H.S., Butt, T.M., Larsen, A.B. and Krebs, N., 2015. Combined Steam-Ultrasound
Treatment of 2 Seconds Achieves Significant High Aerobic Count and Enterobacteriaceae
Reduction on Naturally Contaminated Food Boxes, Crates, Conveyor Belts, and Meat
Knives. Journal of food protection, 78(2), pp.430-435.
Poole, M., 2013. Industrial relations: origins and patterns of national diversity (Vol. 4).
Routledge.

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Purnell, G., 2013. Robotics and automation in meat processing. In Robotics and Automation in
the Food Industry(pp. 304-328).
Safeworkaustralia.gov.au., 2018. [online] Available at:
https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/system/files/documents/1710/work-related-traumatic-
injury-fatalities-report-2016.pdf [Accessed 24 Apr. 2018].
Santos, A., Cardoso, M.F., Costa, J.M.C.D. and Gomes-Neves, E., 2017. Meat Safety: An
Evaluation of Portuguese Butcher Shops. Journal of food protection, 80(7), pp.1159-1166.
Schofield, T., Reeve, B. and McCallum, R., 2014. Australian workplace health and safety
regulatory approaches to prosecution: Hegemonising compliance. Journal of Industrial
Relations, 56(5), pp.709-729.
Thomas, L. and Galla, C., 2013. Building a culture of safety through team training and
engagement. BMJ Qual Saf, 22(5), pp.425-434.
Worksafe.vic.gov.au., 2018. [online] Available at:
https://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/208198/ISBN-Safe-use-of-knives-
in-the-meat-and-food-industry-2009-11.pdf [Accessed 24 Apr. 2018].
Wyness, L. and Mooney, R., 2012. ProSafeBeef conference: advancing beef safety through
research and innovation. Nutrition Bulletin, 37(2), pp.160-164.
Zhou, G., Zhang, W. and Xu, X., 2012. China's meat industry revolution: Challenges and
opportunities for the future. Meat science, 92(3), pp.188-196.