The Struggle to Protect the Worker: Safety and Security – Enemies or Friends?

Abstract

Preventing hurt to workers, organizations and the environment has been the concern of organizational leaders for years. Part of the strategies to address this concern is the implementation of safety and security management systems. While safety management system typically focusses on preventing harm from erroneous and unintended actions and inactions of organizational workers and management, security management system tries to address exposure to harm from deliberate and malicious actions of workers and personnel external to the organization. While both safety and security management system complement each other in preventing harm from internal and external activities, there are some areas of conflict between both. In such areas, implementation of safety requirements becomes counter-productive to security requirements and vice versa. The challenge is that in many instances, safety and security are treated as independent concepts and managed by separate processes and guidelines. This study was carried out through the critical review of relevant literature on the studies done on the interaction between safety and security in different organizations. The study recommends a deviation from the practice of treating safety and security as independent concepts and proposes the integration of safety and security management systems to enhance effectiveness and efficiency. Achieving that will, however, require a redefined risk assessment methodology that addresses both the concept of safety and security, training of safety professional in security procedures and training of security professionals in safety procedures, deployment of integrated health, safety, security and environment (HSSE) management systems and polices, and review of organizational structure to enable safety and security decision by common authority. As part of awareness and enhancement of safety and security advocacy, the study recommends inclusion of safety and security in secondary school curriculum and a cultural shift in understanding of how safety and security adversely impact each other.