PRINCIPLES OF TOXICOLOGY - Biology East Borneo

530 CONTROLLING OCCUPATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH HAZARDS22.3 PROGRAM MANAGEMENTAn industrial hygiene program can be divided into four parts: (1) management commitment andplanning, (2) hazard identification, (3) hazard correction and control, and (4) training. Each of theseis discussed below. Since training is a necessary component of each, it is not treated separately.Management CommitmentAll levels of management in a company must be committed to the establishment and maintenance ofa safe and healthful workplace for an industrial hygiene program to function and fulfill its goals. Aprogram must have organizational and financial backing to succeed. Top and middle level managersmust establish the program policy and ensure that the company operates in the best interest of theworkers’ health. They must commit the resources, manpower, time, and money to the full implementationof the program. They must also provide the authority and demand accountability for the healthprotection of the employees.Commitment throughout an organization to the program originates with the manager of theindustrial hygiene program. The manager must maintain a commitment to the goal of protection ofworker health above all other organizational goals. Managers who are perceived as “straddling thefence” are largely ineffective because other managers and workers will not take them seriously. To bemost effective, the manager must develop and maintain lines of communication with all levels withinthe workplace.The seemingly disparate goals of production and efficiency versus worker protection are notmutually exclusive. The challenge is to find controls that protect workers and also increase the overallproductivity and, therefore, the profitability of the company. In fact, controls that interfere withproductivity are frequently ineffective at protecting the workers because workers find them inconvenientand circumvent them. The true costs of operating without effective controls includes factors thatare frequently overlooked by managers:• The costs of workers’ compensation• Additional health insurance costs• Lost workdays and the resulting loss of productivity through inefficiencyFor larger operations, a well-trained and highly committed staff of industrial hygienists is alsoimportant to the success of the industrial hygiene operation. This group of professionals must fullyimplement the spirit as well as the letter of the program. These are the people who will carry the messageof the program to distant sites. At these distant sites the attitude toward the program will be determinedby how the industrial hygienist is perceived. The industrial hygienist should be involved from thebeginning with any planned changes in location of processes or installation of new processes. Beinginvolved at early stages of planning can prevent possible overexposures to chemicals and also preventcostly retrofitting of engineering controls.The success of a program relies heavily on the line supervisor. The line supervisor is in theworkplace, sees the operating conditions, and deals with the workers on a routine basis. If the linesupervisor 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 areobligated to themselves and their families, as well as to the company, to work in a manner that will notcause illness. However, workers need four things before they can be expected to act in ways that willprotect themselves:• Complete information on the chemicals they use including the effects, how they enter thebody, and the types of protective equipment they should wear