Policies, Procedures, and Programs on Safety Matters at Work

Policies, procedures and programs on safety matters at work

Introduction
Safety at work is a very important aspect of managing a business. There are several national
policies which has been established and implemented for improving the health as well as
safety of the employees at work across every sector (Furci and Sunindijo, 2018). The Work
Health and Safety Legislation in the UK suggest a range of duties for the employers which
must be followed to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of the employees working in a
business environment. This report will over the policies, procedures and programmes of
safety matter at the supermarket giant Tesco.
Tesco is a one of the largest multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer in the
world. It is primarily based in UK, with its headquarters in Hertfordshire. Tesco was founded
in 1919 and over the years it has started to operate its business in more than 60 countries with
6,569 stores across the world. As of the year 2017, the total number of employees working in
Tesco sums upto 460,000 employees. Tesco is also very famous for looking after the
healthcare and safety of its employees as well as customers. The company prefers to conduct
the business with utmost concern and safety of the people and maintaining a proper Safety
Standards within the organisation. Tesco applies number of WHS acts in the company such
as Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011, Work Health and Safety (Hazardous Manual
Tasks) Code of Practice 2015 and other such regulations.
WHS policies, procedures and programs
Tesco is a giant supermarket organisation that implements number of policies and
programmes for maintaining the healthcare and wellbeing at work for the employees. The
company provides provision in the work related safety and health along with the fire safety
engineering by the specialists in the Group People Safety Department. The safety
professionals like Members of the Institute of the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health
are allotted to manage the risk of policies of the business and procedures which has the ability
to affect people (Grasso, 2016). Tesco also follows certain code of practice which is approved
under the WHS act. There and number of codes such as Work Health and Safety (How to
Manage Work Health and Safety Risks) Code of Practice 2015, Work Health and Safety
(Work Health and Safety Consultation, Co-operation and Co-ordination) and many other such
codes that guide the company to achieve the standard of health under the WHS Act and WHS
Regulations.

Hazard identification
Hazard is an effect which can be described as a source of possible damage or harm on
something or someone. Identifying the process is part of the process to assess the situation
within the company that may cause potential harm. It is the duty of the employer to evaluate
the health and safety risks for the employees. They should check for the physical harm caused
by slipups and trips, awkward postures, machinery or mental harm caused by additional
workload and other such harms (Abbott and Tyler, 2017). As Tesco is a supermarket place,
there are certain hazards which can be found in monotonous tasks at the checkout counter or
while lifting loads or in the storerooms. There are times when the staffs also face violence
from customers and intruders
Risk assessment
It is the duty of every employer to look after the health and safety of workers, their disabled
employees, or shift workers, and pregnant employees at Tesco. The employers should
consider each hazard and calculate how it can cause harm for the employees. This whole
process will regulate if the employer have to lessen the level of risk at work or not. There are
times when the risk is still relevant on the workplace even after taking all precautions
(Hopkins, 2018). The risk of such hazards can be high, medium or low which could be
assessed by ensuring that the workplace is implementing all the safe working practices such
as safety instructions by the management team, supervisors and line managers along with
looking after the new working practices, new equipment and other demanding work targets.
Risk control
The employers at the Tesco must ensure that they are fully equipped to control any kind of
risk. They must not let the old or sick people to lift heavy loads at work. They must always
call the ambulance if necessary and provide emergency medical assistance in case of
someone gets hurt badly (Ittner and Keusch, 2017). Tesco make sure that the staffs are given
proper medical care and training to manage the risk at workplace. They also provides
emergency fire exist drill with the new recruits in order to prepare them to manage the
upcoming risk.