Putting businesses under surveillance for the safety of our workers

At the Ministry of Manpower, we constantly urge companies to place workplace safety and health as top priority. As some companies may need more help, we place them under close supervision through our Business Under Surveillance programme.

Think of it as an apprenticeship companies must undergo in order to be certified competent. If companies don't acquire all the necessary skills or equipment, it’s back to the drawing board until they reach the mark!

What happens in the Business Under Surveillance programme? Our inspectors will work to identify systemic inadequacies in companies’ risk management plans by:

•            Reviewing their workplace safety and health management system and developing outcome-based action plans

•            Conducting physical inspections at the workplace

•            Conducting interviews with workers

Through this programme, we want companies with poor safety records to take action and create a safe working environment for their workers.

Let’s follow the journey of Company A, which was placed in the Business Under Surveillance programme after a series of forklift and traffic accidents. 

A popular saying goes, “Change must begin at the top!” Hence, we met Company A’s senior management to work out areas for improvement.

Company A was required to develop and commit to a comprehensive action plan to enhance management of traffic at the storage yards and wharf areas.

Some improvement areas included:

•            Ensuring that traffic controllers supervised the operation of forklifts, trailers and other machines to prevent collisions and accidents

•            Having proper safe work procedures for lifting of materials using forklifts

•            Improving in-house safety rules and regulations as well as safe work procedures for forklift operations

During our inspection, we found that the lifting gears were not appropriately stowed.

There were also inadequate markings for pedestrians and vehicles, indicating gaps in the company’s traffic management plan.

Company A also needed to educate its workers on appropriate attire for safe work, and implement a supervisory regime to ensure that its rules were being followed.

To-date, Company A is still placed in the Business Under Surveillance programme. It can only exit the programme after implementing its action plan effectively.

Let’s now take a look at Company X. At the start of the surveillance phase, we met the company’s senior management to identify areas for improvement.

Chloe Quek, MOM’s senior inspector, was there to guide Company X along the way. Her initial inspections uncovered several work at height lapses that were prevalent across all of its worksites.

For example:

•            The work at height permit submitted by the company indicated that risk assessment had been conducted for all work at height activities. But this was not the case.

•            The anchorage and lifeline of the fall protection system were also not inspected.

•            The lifeline, a type of rope provided for workers to mitigate falls while working at height, was found to be unsuitable and unsafe. The material of the lifeline used on-site was different from what had been submitted in its certificate. The lifeline and anchorage had not been checked by a competent person as required.

These findings meant there were systemic inadequacies in Company X’s fall prevention plan and work at height control measures. Chloe worked closely with the management of Company X to ensure that the required control measures and action plans were implemented.

Company X management then took decisive action to manage and reduce its accident statistics. This resulted in a tremendous improvement in the physical condition of its worksites. Through hard work, Company X even acquired favourable third-party audit results, and has since exited successfully from the Business Under Surveillance programme.

The bottomline? We must never take workplace safety and health for granted. Let’s do everything we can to ensure that our workers’ safety is not compromised, so that they can return to their loved ones after a hard day’s work.

#BUSProgramme #workplacesafetyandhealth

 This article was written by Alvian Tan, Senior Assistant Director, Occupational Safety and Health Division, Ministry of Manpower