HR Policies and Procedures Review: Occupational Health and Safety

This report provides a comprehensive review of human resource policies and procedures, specifically focusing on occupational health and safety within BHP Billiton, an Australian-based organization. The research, conducted using secondary data from BHP reports and journal articles, evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of existing HR policies. The analysis highlights a significant issue: while BHP prioritizes health and safety through policy development, implementation failures have led to incidents, such as the Brazilian dam disaster. The report assesses compliance with relevant legislation, identifies challenges in maintaining health and safety, and recommends the establishment of a Health and Safety Committee to improve policy enforcement and worker safety. The conclusion underscores the vital role of HR in monitoring and safeguarding employees in high-risk industries.

Running head: REVIEW HUMAN RESOURCE FUNCTIONS
Review human resource functions
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
This report presents a review of human resource policies and procedures related to occupational
health and safety. To conduct the review, the health and Safety policies of BHP Billiton has been
discussed and analyzed in the report. The research has been conducted by collecting secondary
data. The secondary data has been collected from the health and safety report published by BHP
and journal articles. The findings indicate that organization develops a set of health and safety
policies and treat them as organization’s first priority but the policies are not implemented
properly in the operation, which caused an accident in the plant. To strengthen the policies,
approach of developing a Health and Safety committee has been suggested to the organization.

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Table of Content
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Methodology....................................................................................................................................4
Results..............................................................................................................................................4
Health and safety priorities of BHP Billiton....................................................................................6
Discussion........................................................................................................................................8
Recommendations............................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Reference and Bibliography..........................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The following report provides a detailed review of human resource policies and
procedures used by the organization –BHP Billiton located in Australia. The purpose of the
report is to evaluate the human resource policies and procedures. Thereby, to meet the purpose,
three different HR policies issues, particularly the occupational health and safety issues have
been reviewed and analyzed by identifying the strength and weaknesses of the policies. The
human resource policies and procedures help to build structure, control, fairness and
reasonableness in the organization. Therefore, a significant report is required to conduct on
Human Resource Policy context to learn about how the organization is implementing its HR
policies to meet the demands of its shareholders and stakeholders.
Methodology
The research has been conducted by accessing secondary such as books and journal
articles and wide reading sources such as internet. The elements related to human resource are
analyzed with the opinions and arguments of many scholars. Likewise, the strength and
weaknesses of human resource policies have been identified by comparing them with industry
occupational health and safety policies. The secondary data that has been collected for the
analysis are reliable and validated because they have been collected from reliable secondary
sources such as University Library, authentic government website, recent updated websites. In
addition, the organizational data has been collected from the organizational website only.
Results
Results derived from secondary data sources:

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According to Witter et al. (2014), HR professionals play a crucial role in ensuring
workers’ health and safety, because they know the workplace and the needs of the job. Adgate,
Goldstein and McKenzie (2014) mentioned that in several organizations, health and safety
responsibilities are within the human resource department. Thereby, to perform the
responsibilities, the human resource department must do the following.
 Establish suitable ways of fulfilling health and safety responsibilities
 Ensure that each individual in the organization meets or performs hi/her health and safety
responsibility as mentioned in organizational programs and policies
 Apply personal management policies to ensure each individual in the workplace is aware
of their responsibilities
Relevant Legislations, Guidelines and Australia Standards
Relevant Legislation Legislative Requirement Compliance
“Coal Mining Safety and Health
Act 1999”
Develops obligations for the
employer, designer and
constructor
Must undertake requirements in
the Act, and regulation standards
by applying diligence and taking
reasonable precautions
“Dangerous Goods and Safety
Management Act 2001”
Develops standards for the
transport as well as shortage of
substance
Coal mines should be exempt
from this particular act butt they
should be regulated under the
Coal Mining Safety and Health
Act 1999 and regulations
Table 1: Legislative Framework
(Source: Witter et al. 2014)

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Health and safety priorities of BHP Billiton
Analyzing the occupational health and Safety issues at BHP Billiton
Data collection from the health and safety report of BHP indicates that the organization
recognizes its operation can affect the health of its employees. The organization develops clear
requirements with minimum mandatory control to deal with and protect the health and wellbeing
of its employees and contractor. However, the report implies that BHP faces a major issue of
health and safety when its Billiton Dam in Brazil catastrophically failed and killed almost 28
people (Bhp.com 2018). According to the media sources, the incident at Brazilian dam was not
an accident but BHP officials showed negligence in monitoring and supervising the plant. In this
context, Parkes (2012) commented that even though the organization develops a set of health and
safety policies but BHP officials did not comply with the legislative requirements. According to
the above-mentioned three policies, the employers and the employees must have to set effective
ways for meeting health and safety responsibility but the incident indicates that BHP failed to
comply with the requirements.
According to Colborn et al. (2011), BHP’s operations need to be identified and managed
by a series of health and safety wellbeing risks and to report against the target on a frequent
basis. After the occurrence of the incident at Brazilian Dam, HR health and safety department at
Billiton are failed to ensure the implementation of the policies, which caused the negligence in
monitoring the plant. In this context, Chan (2011) commented that a cross-functional working
group with the employees across the organizations was built to identify as well as prioritize
action to support the framework. However, this framework did not create any positive result, as
organization’s senior leadership team was not completely involved in the framework, which
further created a gap between human resource department and middle management.

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However, Witter et al. (2014) mentioned that BHP Billiton works to make sure that the
psychological elements of health and safety are priorittized. The organization sets the policies to
identify and address mental health standards. Such data point indicates that organization BHP
pays adequate attention to some particular aspects of health and safety but the overall health and
safety policies are not effective enough to avoid workplace risk and challenges.
Results derived from secondary sources
Theme 1: “Health and Safety policies developed by BHP Billiton”
The organization BHP Billiton develops a set of health and safety priorities. The
organization always considers the safety of its people and the communities where it operates.
However, the working environments naturally expose BHP’s employees at risk. Therefore,
organization is trying to achieve the objective of identifying those risks and perform controls.
BHP’s materials safety risk evaluation must include potential community influence. BHP is
committed to a series of global safety priorities in FY2016 that helps to guide company’s
decision-making and the approaches to safety. The major areas are such as:
 To ensure that safety comes before the operation or productivity
 Emphasis on in field verification of materials and fatal risks
 Improve its internal investigation process and largely share and implement lessens
Theme 2: “Challenges faced by BHP in maintaining health and safety policies”
When it comes to health and safety challenges, ethical issues are the major to consider.
According to health and safety policies developed by the organization, safeguarding employee
interest is major priority but when the employees are not provided with adequate safety

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equipments during the operational at the plant, it appears as ethical challenge. For example, the
principle of “Coal Mining Safety and Health Act 1999”, employees, constructor and designers
at the plant should be provided with appropriate safety equipments. However, failure to this
initiative led to killing of 28 people at Brazilian Dam.
Discussion
The results indicate that BHP Billiton develops a set of health and safety principles and
priorities but the implementation of those policies were not appropriate. Lack of attention and
negligence in the policies caused the accident in the workplace. The analysis also indicates that
health and safety priorities developed by the organization did not comply with the legislative
requirements, as the compliance column of the legislative table mentioned above indicates that
organization or health and safety department of the organization must have to take the reasonable
precaution when undertaking a risky operation. The investigation of the issues reveals no such
precautionary steps. On the other side, the negligence in mining operation occurred, as the
organization did not form the guidelines for developing health and safety committee
Recommendations
BHP Billiton must have to develop the guidelines for forming a “Health and Safety
Committee”. The organization must have to appoint management members in the committee. As
the firm is associated with the union, the union should select employee members. On the other
side, if this requirement is not mentioned in the legislations, the selection should be made
according to the reference developed by the workplace. The proposed health and safety
committee should engage one employee representative who should be selected by employee

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union. The committee should build a regular communication with other parties involved and an
official meeting should be called in every two months.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be ascertained that health and safety policies are the major priorities
of any organization dealing with oil gas and mining operation. It is the major responsibility of
human resource department of the organization to monitor the health and safety policies to
safeguard organizational members and the people where it operates. The health and safety
programs, which should be developed by the organization, must include the actions to execute
the health and safety policies.

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Reference and Bibliography
Adgate, J.L., Goldstein, B.D. and McKenzie, L.M., 2014. Potential public health hazards,
exposures and health effects from unconventional natural gas development. Environmental
science & technology, 48(15), pp.8307-8320.
BHP Billiton. (2018). BHP Billiton | Health and safety. [online] Available at:
https://www.bhp.com/our-approach/health-and-safety [Accessed 31 Mar. 2018].
Bhp.com. (2018). Health and Safety. [online] Available at:
https://www.bhp.com/-/media/bhp/regulatory-information-media/copper/olympic-dam/0000/
draft-eis-main-report/odxeischapter22healthandsafety.pdf [Accessed 31 Mar. 2018].
Chan, M., 2011. Fatigue: the most critical accident risk in oil and gas construction. Construction
Management and Economics, 29(4), pp.341-353.
Colborn, T., Kwiatkowski, C., Schultz, K. and Bachran, M., 2011. Natural gas operations from a
public health perspective. Human and ecological risk assessment: An International
Journal, 17(5), pp.1039-1056.
https://www.bhp.com/-/media/bhp/regulatory-information-media/copper/olympic-dam/0000/
draft-eis-main-report/odxeischapter22healthandsafety.pdf
Parkes, K.R., 2012. Shift schedules on North Sea oil/gas installations: a systematic review of
their impact on performance, safety and health. Safety science, 50(7), pp.1636-1651.
Shandro, J.A., Veiga, M.M., Shoveller, J., Scoble, M. and Koehoorn, M., 2011. Perspectives on
community health issues and the mining boom–bust cycle. Resources Policy, 36(2), pp.178-186.

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Witter, R.Z., Tenney, L., Clark, S. and Newman, L.S., 2014. Occupational exposures in the oil
and gas extraction industry: State of the science and research recommendations. American
journal of industrial medicine, 57(7), pp.847-856.