Natural and Environmental Science and Technology †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Natural and Environmental Science and Technology. Answer: 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. 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. 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) Health and safety priorities of 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 bu t the incident indicates that BHP failed to comply with the requirements. According to Colborn et al. (2011), BHPs 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 organizations senior leadership team was not completely involved in the framework, which further created a gap between human resource department and middle management. 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. 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 BHPs employees at risk. Therefore, organization is trying to achieve the objective of identifying those risks and perform controls. BHPs 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 companys 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 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 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. 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 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 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. 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 boombust cycle.Resources Policy,36(2), pp.178-186. 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.