PRINCIPLES OF TOXICOLOGY

530 CONTROLLING OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH HAZARDS
22.3 PROGRAM MANAGEMENT
An industrial hygiene program can be divided into four parts: (1) management commitment and
planning, (2) hazard identification, (3) hazard correction and control, and (4) training. Each of these
is discussed below. Since training is a necessary component of each, it is not treated separately.
Management Commitment
All levels of management in a company must be committed to the establishment and maintenance of
a safe and healthful workplace for an industrial hygiene program to function and fulfill its goals. A
program must have organizational and financial backing to succeed. Top and middle level managers
must establish the program policy and ensure that the company operates in the best interest of the
workers’ health. They must commit the resources, manpower, time, and money to the full implementation
of the program. They must also provide the authority and demand accountability for the health
protection of the employees.
Commitment throughout an organization to the program originates with the manager of the
industrial hygiene program. The manager must maintain a commitment to the goal of protection of
worker health above all other organizational goals. Managers who are perceived as “straddling the
fence” are largely ineffective because other managers and workers will not take them seriously. To be
most effective, the manager must develop and maintain lines of communication with all levels within
the workplace.
The seemingly disparate goals of production and efficiency versus worker protection are not
mutually exclusive. The challenge is to find controls that protect workers and also increase the overall
productivity and, therefore, the profitability of the company. In fact, controls that interfere with
productivity are frequently ineffective at protecting the workers because workers find them inconvenient
and circumvent them. The true costs of operating without effective controls includes factors that
are frequently overlooked by managers:
• The costs of workers’ compensation
• Additional health insurance costs
• Lost workdays and the resulting loss of productivity through inefficiency
For larger operations, a well-trained and highly committed staff of industrial hygienists is also
important to the success of the industrial hygiene operation. This group of professionals must fully
implement the spirit as well as the letter of the program. These are the people who will carry the message
of the program to distant sites. At these distant sites the attitude toward the program will be determined
by how the industrial hygienist is perceived. The industrial hygienist should be involved from the
beginning with any planned changes in location of processes or installation of new processes. Being
involved at early stages of planning can prevent possible overexposures to chemicals and also prevent
costly retrofitting of engineering controls.
The success of a program relies heavily on the line supervisor. The line supervisor is in the
workplace, sees the operating conditions, and deals with the workers on a routine basis. If the line
supervisor does not implement the full measures and intent of the program, it will not work.
The worker is the focus of the entire program and is also involved in the process. Employees are
obligated to themselves and their families, as well as to the company, to work in a manner that will not
cause illness. However, workers need four things before they can be expected to act in ways that will
protect themselves:
• Complete information on the chemicals they use including the effects, how they enter the
body, and the types of protective equipment they should wear