Reflective Report on Occupational Health and Safety

This reflective report discusses the importance of occupational health and safety in different industries such as marine, construction, hazardous industries, and the challenges faced by HSE professionals. It also highlights the need for safety training and risk reduction measures in the workplace.

Running head: OCCUPATION HEALTH AND SAFETY
REFLECTIVE REPORT ON OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................2
Marine and offshore hazards...............................................................................................2
Health and safe environment in the construction industry..................................................4
Safety training in hazardous industries................................................................................6
Beyond the limit of HSE profession....................................................................................7
High-risk working environment..........................................................................................9
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Health and Safety Management System or HSMS is the systematic approach used by the
organizational heads to minimize the number of injuries and illness within an organization. The
system is inclusive of identification, assessment as well as controlling of the risk factors that
have the ability to harm the workers at the workplace operations. There are four determinants of
workplace occupational health and safety such as the safety policy, the safety risk management
policy, and assurance protocol and safety promotion. The primary role of this aspect is to search
and implement strategies to eliminate the potential hazards present in the working environment.
For this purpose, the organizations utilize housekeeping measures and routine maintenance
strategies so that health and safety condition can be maintained. While delving through the topic,
I went through several aspects of occupational health and safety applied to a different type of
working environments. These include the marine and offshore hazards, health and safety in the
construction industry, aspects of the high-risk working environment, training process related to
hazardous industries and limits of the health and safety profession. In this reflective report I will
aim to discuss about all of these five topics with the description of my experiences as well as the
situation of learning. Further I will also discuss the topics which I would learn differently if I
enroll in the course again. Moreover, my expectations, knowledge, perception and beliefs
regarding the topic will answer in this reflective report writing.
Marine and offshore hazards
The marine and offshore hazards and their management techniques were one of those
chapters I was very keen to learn about. I was aware of this topic as recently the Singapore
government implemented Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) 2018 in the marine sector of

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Singapore. The government aims to provide a progressive and pervasive culture to the marine
sector of the country. Hence, while starting this chapter I thought I was aware of the importance
of the WSH practices in marine and offshore working environments. However, I expected to
learn about several details of major incidences with an example to understand the disastrous
nature of offshore incidences. Further, I was expecting to know about the different type of
hazards present in such industries that leads to such major hazardous incidences. It has helped
me to learn about the several means of hydrocarbon and non-hydrocarbon hazards that can lead
to major marine and offshore incidences. Such as gas dispersion, fire or explosion (Hydrocarbon)
and different transportation-related accidents, the collision of ships, accidents during
occupational functions (non-hydrocarbon) and so on. These details helped me to understand the
importance of SIL target levels, safety integrity level studies, and quantifying risks and risk
matrix to determine the level of hazardous risk in marine and offshore related workplace. This
idea will be useful for me to acquire in any such industry as I will be aware of the hazardous
materials and the extent of their disastrous nature.
However I did not found any difference of hazardous risks, risk reduction and control
measures of different industries. This is because all the industries mark hydrocarbon and related
materials as potential hazards and implement control measures as risk reduction strategy.
Further, the knowledge of construction industry, the pharmaceutical industry and their risk
management and control measures helped me to identify the difference between risks and
associated incidences that can affect the workplace environment. However, if I was given a
chance to restart the course, I would focus more on the risk matrix and noise level contour and
their usage in risk reduction for marine and offshore industries. This risk matrix is important as
using this, the level of risk, the probability of its occurrence and the consequences of its severity

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can be determined and controlled. I liked the teaching material as it was very informative and
while learning we were provided with examples. It helped us to go through the hazardous
materials and associated control measures easily. However, I feel that the planning of the session
was not appropriate as without providing any prior knowledge regarding the workplace health
and safety it is difficult to understand concepts like tolerable risk, acceptable risks and risk
control matrix. Therefore, I would start over these sections with a prior knowledge of the
workplace health and safety so that I can understand the basic concepts of it. Further, prior to
learning, I will again go through my course and will study the marine and offshore related health
and safety measures with respect of Singapore governments WSH 2018 policies so that I can
relate to the practical implementations of safety measures and controls. Further, I will also attend
the yearly conference on workplace health and safety by OSHA Singapore. It would help me to
become aware of the current practices and control measures the government is utilizing to make
the marine and offshore industries a safe and risk-free place to work in.
Health and safe environment in the construction industry
This section will discuss another course which I undertook while the module course of
occupational health and safety in the hazardous industry. While starting this course, I was not
aware of the risks and control measures of the construction industry. However, I predicted that
the number of workers who are at life-threatening risk in the workplace would be higher in the
construction industry. This prediction was correct as I came to know through the lesson that in
every 15seconds, one of the workers of the construction site dies that makes the numbers up to
6500 construction workers daily. These facts made me curious to learn about the safety measures
and risk control strategies that the government is utilizing so that these workers can work safely
without the threat of losing their lives. This course changed my way of looking at sky-high

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multistory buildings as I started thinking about the risk and threat the workers had to face while
constructing them. How a smaller risk or incident such as misplaced danger indicators, open
electrical socket and unrepaired machinery can lead to the death of workers, changed my
thoughts and attitudes towards the construction workers. While the risk of this industry and the
severity was different from other industries, the risk management control measure was similar.
The presence of mind, respect of safety measures and following them completely was important
for the personal as well as the cumulative safety of the entire team working on the project.
Other industries such as the marine industry can implement measures against the
hazardous chemical and hydrocarbons, which has the ability to destroy the complete industry
within hours. However, in the construction industry, the risk is associated with several things
such as height, sharp objects, cutter, welding machine, electrical shocks and others that not only
affect the working environment but leads to the death of the workers. Hence, the risk control,
hazard management and hazards were different in this industry. However, if I was allowed to
start over this course again, I would learn about the present hazards and safety measures in
separate lessons. A merger of both in a single reading created a dilemma regarding the severity
level of absence of safety measures or absence of knowledge about safety measures in the
workers. However, in the course, I like the course material which was used to provide us
information regarding the workplace health and safety in a construction site. Despite this, the
arrangement of topics within the topic was not proper as the hazards were properly identified
such as not using a helmet, unaware of sharp objects, open electrical circuit and standing at a
height without a safety belt or safety cable. However, the safety measures that can be used to
overcome such issues were not provided separately and hence, it created a dilemma for learners.
However, I was excited to know more about this industry and its associated risk factors. For this

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purpose, I will try to gather more information about the construction site health and safety
measures. Further, I will try to visit several construction sites to identify the risk factors and will
try to locate the safety measures that the management has taken to reduce or eliminate the
severity of its occurrence. I will be attending seminars and conference on construction site health
and safety so that the measures the government has taken to reduce the incidences of such
hazards in the workplace.
Safety training in hazardous industries
This course was one of the important sessions as it was able to answers all the questions
that I thought while learning about the situations in marine and construction related industry.
Before learning about this course, I have gathered knowledge regarding the safety measures and
training that is provided to people to protect them in hazardous conditions. Hence, I was
expecting that through this course, I will be able to understand the general hazardous activities
and means to be protected from those hazards in any workplace. This course started with a
question, which I was thinking of from the very first day of the course which was ‘what is the
need for training'. This increased my interest in the topic and I was able to concentrate
completely in the reading. This course changed my thoughts and attitudes as previously I was not
aware of the severity level one small hazard could possess. For example, I was not aware of the
severity level of a screwdriver that could lead to the death of the worker working at the
construction site. Further, this course lets me understand the effect of falls, incorrect machinery
usage, physical injuries at the workplace, medical emergencies and others while working in
different industries and the way it could lead to disastrous results for the industry.

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Further, previously, I had an idea that with experience, people become aware of the place
they are working in and in this course they learn about the hazards present in their working
environment. Therefore, only new employees should be provided with health and safety related
training. However, I was wrong as this course made me understand that simple humanly
mistakes. For example, not keeping an object at its own place, not maintaining or repairing any
machine can also lead to severe health conditions which can lead to the death of workers. Hence,
training should be provided to new as well as older and tenured employees. This was one of the
new knowledge that I acquired from this learning session. The safety training and measures
which were mentioned in this course was a general concept which is applied to every industry as
falls, spills, machinery and human errors can lead to hazards in any industry. Therefore,
knowledge of this will help me to understand the safety concern and its management measures in
any industry in the future scenario. If I was provided with an opportunity to learn regarding this
course, I would like to use real examples of different industries where such communication
theories or training related games were used to train the employees regarding risk management
and control. It would help me to understand the effectiveness of these I real and practical
situation. This course had several positive sections that impacted my thought and beliefs, as the
‘7-minute solution’ theory mentioned in this course that was used to boost the confidence of the
workers and understanding their mental state that could be hazardous for the employees as well
as the industry. However, this can be the critic of this course as, without any real example of the
application of safety measures or controls, it was difficult to understand the effectiveness of the
process. Therefore, I will be looking for proper examples of all the strategies and process was
mentioned in this course to understand their effectiveness. Further, I will be attending several

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seminars on health and safety measures related to training so that I can implement these in my
workplace.
Beyond the limit of HSE profession
This course was one of the most important concepts that made me understand that safety
should be the top priority of each industry and the workers working in an environment which has
the ability to lead them to death. My prior knowledge regarding this concept was very positive as
I thought that people working in the HSE profession must have the attention of people working
in the industry. However, I came to know that safety is the topic which is mostly ignored or
given less priority even in the industries having severe hazards. This fact changed my thoughts
and attitudes towards the safety training and risk management drills in hazardous industries. This
course made me think understand that while safety drills and safety training no one gives it
priority and listen to it carefully as they did not face any such incident in their work. However,
this course also made me understand that organizations and industries provide safety measures,
but unable to draw the attention of the employees, so that they can follow or utilize those
measures in an adverse situation. This facts and data made me think about working as an HSE
professional as it would be a difficult job to make people understand the importance of their
safety at work if they are not willing to listen about it.
The theme of this course was different from other courses as it dealt with the negligence
and ignorance the HSE professionals had to face while providing training to the workers in any
industry. This changed my view about the health and safety training and also about the risk
reduction measures that the organizations use to train their employees. This idea helped me to
understand the scenario, the HSE professionals had to face in any industry and the challenges

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they had to go through to implement the health and safety measure in their industry. Further, if I
was given a chance to restart this course, I would try to know more about the self-risk
assessment. This is an important concept as providing each employee with the self-risk
assessment training would make them aware of the risky environment they are working in. They
will also be able to know and mark the hazards and use safety precautions to overcome the risk
associated with it. Further, in this learning process, I liked the course material by using different
diagrams, it clearly stated the reason people did not give attention to the safety protocol and
training. Further, to gain more knowledge regarding the process, and the strategies to make it
more appealing and interesting to the staff, I will be attending safety management and risk
reduction related seminars and workshops. As well as I will apply in several industries to visit
their safety management department so that compliance with the safety protocols can be
determined. Besides this, I will try to contact my lecturer to suggest me several documents
through which I can understand the measures and strategies the organizations take to
successfully implement the safety measures despite the ignorance of the employees.
High-risk working environment
This course was also related to the responsibility of the organization as well as the
employees had regarding the health and safety of the workers as well as employees. This course
starts with the information regarding the time limit one person spend at work while working for
the organization and in this time limit they are less concerned about their health and safety
should be the first priority. Prior to commencement of this course, I was not aware of the
specifications or identifying strategies of a high-risk environment. However, I expected that this
learning will help me to determine the common failures and mistakes that people commit while
performing a risk assessment. This reading changed my thinking and attitude towards risk

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management as it requires never-ending mental strength and determination that helps people to
never give up. Further, I was able to understand that in any crisis, if the employees are
determined and are able to think properly to figure the way out of the situation, then it will
helpful for them. This changed my thinking about working in any environment and made me
aware of the things and equipment which are around me and can lead to the hazardous condition.
Further, if I was given a chance to study the course again I would try to learn more about
the details of the examples mentioned in the course material and understand the strategy the
employees stuck to while facing such crisis. This will help me to understand the strategies using
which an HSE professional can inspire an employee to face and overcome any workplace health
and safety related crisis situation. This was the only negative aspect of this course material as
there were no such details regarding the crisis examples provided in this course material that can
be used to inspire and motivate employees working in hazardous industries. Further, the positive
aspect of course material was the presence of pictorial presentation of all the events and aspects
of risk assessment, management, and strategies that were used by employees while facing crisis
situation that had the ability to lead them to death. As the course has finished, I gained more
knowledge regarding the topic, I would like to go through several articles and websites through
which I can gather more knowledge regarding the HSE incidences that were survived by the
employees. Further, I would like to attend the government seminars and workshops related to
occupational health and safety so that I became aware of the policies and strategies the
government suggests for the high-risk industries to provide their employee a safe environment to
work.

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Conclusion
Occupational health and safety is an important aspect that every organization has to
consider while determining their worker's safety at work. In this reflective report writing, I have
reflected upon my course readings. It has provided me the holistic knowledge about different
working environments, their associated workplace hazards, the safety training methods and the
high risk working environments. Furthermore, it has helped me to understand the struggle of a
Health and safety environment professional while working with a group of employees who are
reluctant about the safety training. Further, I presented my thoughts, primary ideas, changed
concepts and loopholes in the course that I would like to fulfill through several means to gain the
idea about the occupational health and safety in the workplace.