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Safety Management System Audit

Reagan Holley

Columbia Southern University

Safety Management System Audit

Elements of Safety Management

The organization’s safety management system captures broad organizational health and safety areas. The manuals provide health and safety management leadership with employee participation, a planning process with procedural and resource planning and allocation objectives, implementation and operation plan for health and safety protocols, corrective action plans (Amazon-S3, 2021), and management review. The documents on safe operating procedures and job hazard management also indicate that the organization addresses a comprehensive set of items that cover health and safety. The component areas that they address include human resource training to use the information on health and safety, standards for safety, the stipulation of occupational safety and health policies, and the legislated roles and organizational responsibilities. The company also addresses employee rights, procedures to follow in work refusal and stoppage, safety and health testing and reporting, hazard/incident/accident/injury investigation and reporting procedures, first-aid and emergency response, and work-return safety. Sorensen et al. (2018) find such comprehensive approaches best practices in health and safety. Furthermore, the facility’s safety and health guidelines cover training on hazardous materials and information systems, musculoskeletal injury preventions, biohazards and infections controls and management, prevention of harassment and violence and harassment, guidance on the prevention of falls, slips, and trips, fire safety guidance, requirements for personal protective gear, and additional training documentation on various safety areas.

More information indicating systematic approaches to occupational and organizational safety occur in audit reports by external entities. Such information indicates that Amazon faces technical and operational challenges in reducing safety incidences and injuries despite adopting a systematic approach to occupational health and safety (US Bureau of Statistics, 2019). The need for more robust risk management and training is evident. The company has a large team of management personnel that oversees safety and health in coordination with supervisors and the other employees. The profiles and views of such personnel reflect a commitment to health and safety and an understanding of how the organization could meet high standards for these elements. Visual depictions of the workplaces show an orderly setup that follows safety standards, but some sections may require specialized training to avoid incidences and accidents.

Four-Tier Evaluation

The organization has systematic health and safety management leadership with employee participation, planning and review process components with objectives for resource planning and allocation, guidelines for implementing and operating health and safety protocols, corrective action plans (Amazon-S3, 2021), and management reviews. Management leadership and employee participation appear to be at a moderate level. Employee safety has been subpar with incidences of low protection in workplaces. However, the organization demonstrates continual improvement in advancing employee safety and health. The company demonstrates an effort to improve overall conformance with safety requirements by providing leadership on systemizing procedures and automating many aspects of the job performance environment. Therefore, some elements of management and leadership with employee participation show inconsistency, and the element scores moderate.

The system provides standardized planning processes and protocols to improve the capacity for risk assessment, controls for prioritizing risks and hazards, and instituting on-site controls for safety. Amazon plans its health and safety based on the system’s workplace safety measures at its warehouses using data from sophisticated technologies and direct on-site reports by personnel (Garnett, 2019). Employees also participate in planning, including simulations where the company assesses their responses to occurrences relating to health and safety. The company’s systems also involve deploying software in which employees receive training to guide various mechanized components like robotic systems and minimize safety hazards for employees. The preparedness also involves training personnel on how to interact with the job environment, including understanding the job design technologies. Employees in warehouses also have preparatory training on how to use specialized protection, including operations in unique spaces and interaction with various components of the job environment. Therefore, procedural, resource and infrastructural planning occurs in developing the health and safety protocols, which makes the score for the element strong.

The implementation and operation plan for health and safety protocols is evidenced in the company’s safety management system. For example, opening a new worksite follows stringent procedures, including a six to 18-months period of inspections before opening. The company deploys a team to assess and analyze engineering, health, and safety details, determining the limitation of potential hazards or risks. The teams prepare reports and implement evidence-based procedures to optimize all feasible components of the ANSI standards and OSHA requirements (ANSI, 2017). The company has developed 2,500 safety checkpoints to assess each new site before opening (Amazon, 2021). The protocols for machine and equipment design also exist, and the firm focuses on optimizing such design to suit the context of human involvement in operations. Similarly, equipment installation and testing follow a checklist, and all worksites have to meet particular compliance standards that align with the ANSI requirements and OSHA regulations. The company has regular reviews of its internal standards by cooperating with vendors and manufacturers to update them. Therefore, implementation and operation are strong.

The organization's evaluation and corrective action of safety protocols follow the standardized measurement of outcomes, continuous monitoring of performance, equipment and employee performance assessment regarding compliance with safety and health guidelines, and rapid response and investigations of incidences (Garnett, 2019). The score for this element is strong based on ANSI standards (ANSI, 2017). The organization has established an internal process for reporting incidents through an enterprise system platform. The system has internal mechanisms for analyzing incidents, but it also alerts the relevant personnel, who investigate the incident and analyze it for appropriate responses. The internal system has defined conformance parameters and non-conformance limits with various factors to predict and manage incidents. Due to technology and automation, investigations for most incidents are usually timely. The technological advancement of the system makes it significantly superior in speeding up evaluation and corrective action. Therefore, the rating for the element is strong.

The safety management review occurs periodically and covers most of the core elements. The company provides evidence of progressive risk reduction procedural effectiveness in risk assessment and prioritization, but it does not report substantially on the management of system deficiencies. The firm does not provide details on causal mechanisms of risks or system deficiencies. Employees and associates can provide periodical input in evaluating the work environment, performance, and safety. Still, the organization does not provide evidence of how this informs strategic decisions at the management level. Corrective measures are timely for most incidences, and the firm has a broad set of technologies for risk-prevention purposes or general monitoring of change in the job environment. The management’s audits and reviews are hardly available, and the details of how they influence action and change are also scanty. Periodical reports provide some details on the extent of objective achievement, but relative performance per expectation remains obscure. Therefore, the overall performance over management review is moderate due to the scattered performance across key components.

Recommendations

In management leadership, there is a need to improve how the organization implements its human resources to address gaps in capacity for implementing safety procedures, executing continuous improvements, and integrating its protocols into entire operations. ANSI (2017) recommends these as key to proper management leadership and employee participation in a safety management system. While the firm funds appropriate safety and health programs, it fails to develop a robust and sufficient human resource capacity. Many of the injuries are related to such issues as exhaustion and inefficiency. Low-level employees like packagers have little involvement in the planning, implementation, operation, and continuous monitoring or feedback on the safety systems. Therefore, the direct experiences of low-level employees do not play a significant role in improving the systems to meet world-class standards for employee participation and management leadership. The organization also needs to improve the integration of the OHS systems into other transportation and delivery, which rely on different standards that the firm sets for the employees. Employees in transportation and delivery lack proper protection from numerous occupational risks as the company has not developed a system for improving their safety. The performance reviews do not reflect feedback on developing more robust systems for safeguarding health and safety. The compensation rates are competitive but do not reflect a focus on safety for employees that work for many hours. There is a need to provide longer breaks and compensate employees more, which would also discourage overworking and the related safety and health risks.

Amazon warehousing was a source of high injury rates, and the company has been addressing warehouse operational pitfalls to reduce fatalities. In addition to new robust technological installations, the company has developed robust training procedures, installed more spacious infrastructure, and improved routine checks. The system shares standard safety and health protocols across all business units, including responding to incidents. Standardized storage and assortment of materials occur efficiently and routinely with appropriate cross-docking procedures to minimize handling and cycle time. The risk of communication breakdowns is low, but the staff working on manual tasks in warehouses does not directly liaison with the safety management, which removes them from strategic decisions. The need for more frequent meetups between the management and low-level performers is key to improving experience-based evidence for enhancing the system.

Summary and Alignment with other Management System

The organization’s safety management system has an overall strong score. Most elements score strongly, but others like management leadership with employee participation and management review score moderately. The system addresses a comprehensive set of items with strategies that focus on technological interventions or automation, human resource training setting and sharing standards across units and operational domains, clear safety, and health policies, and proper delineation of organizational roles and responsibilities. Nevertheless, employee safety has not been optimal with injuries and low worker protection incidences despite the commitment to continual improvement. The lack of strong employee engagement and participation in strategic aspects of managing and leading safety procedures is an area for improvement. Technical and operational challenges persist in reducing safety incidences and injuries. Employees also need better resource provisions and compensation to reduce the pressure for working long hours or improve their overall capacity to support robust safety procedures.

Planning has a strong rating as it covers risk assessment, risk prioritization, planning for hazard management, and on-site controls. The organization applies a system that captures data, digitizes it, and provides reliable measures to plan workplace safety at its warehouses. Implementation and operation are also strong as the team utilizes a robust process with 2,500 checkpoints in site assessments, machine and equipment design protocols, and robust installation and testing standards. The evaluation and corrective action are strong. The system follows standardized measurement to determine areas of improvement, continuous monitoring of performance, equipment assessment, and employee performance evaluation for compliance guidelines. The system also provides for rapid response and investigations of incidences. Management reviews are moderate due to a fragmented approach with systematic progress management and personnel input collection but unclear strategic application. The facility needs to improve towards world-class standards for employee participation and management leadership and enhance the OHS systems’ integration into transportation and delivery. Nevertheless, the degree of alignment between the safety management system and other management systems like operations management is strong. The safety management system embeds with enterprise management software and usual management procedures. Managers can access the integrated system and relevant components related to their work, making it easier to incorporate them into operations.

References

Amazon Inc. (2018). Safety. https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/operations/safety.

Amazon S3. (2021). Corrective Action Plan.

Garnett, K. (2019). 5 Things you Don’t Know About Safety in Amazon Warehouses. https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/operations/5-things-you-dont-know-about-safety-in-amazon-warehouses.

Sorensen, G …, & Wagner, G. (2018). Measuring best practices for workplace safety, health, and well-being: The workplace integrated safety and health assessment. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 60(1), DOI: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000001286.

US Bureau of Statistics. (2019). Warehousing and Storage. In: Packaging Pain, Workplace Injuries in Amazon's Empire. https://s27147.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/NELP-Report-Amazon-Packaging-Pain.pdf.

Amazon Inc. (2021). Safety Design and Technologies. https://sustainability.aboutamazon.com/people/employees/health-safety.

American National Standard (ANSI). (2017). ANSI/ASSE Z10-2012 (R2017): Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems.

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