The Job’s Safety Risk Profile

Abstract

The left-hand side of Fig. 1.1 (shown in Chap. 1) has a box labeled job’s safety risk profile. A further, and very necessary, step to ensure new employee safety is to consider the risks and hazard profile of the job into which a new employee will enter. Many jobs are inherently risky, in that they have known hazards and safety risks. Such risks and hazards have been referred to as resident pathogens (Reason in Human error. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990). Known safety hazards and risks are always associated with the job and cannot be easily removed. A classic example of a resident pathogen is the rocks at the entrance to a harbor. Such rocks are a hazard to all ships entering a harbor, but cannot easily be removed. Chapter 3 discussed how new employees, to varying degrees, expect known safety hazards and risks, and how these should be signaled in job description documents. Furthermore, organizations normally attempt to protect employees from known safety hazards and risks via training, protective equipment, warnings, and work procedures. Unfortunately, a job’s safety risks and hazards can extend beyond known and expected limits. That is, while both the new employee and the organization might have a clear understanding of a job’s normal, accepted, and known safety hazards and risks, there can be other safety hazards and risks which are not normal, nor are they expected. This chapter discusses hazards and risks which can be added to a job, and which can make a job more risky than normal for a new employee. The aim of the chapter is to point out areas which organizations can target to reduce the addition of safety risks associated with work in the initial period of a new employee’s tenure.