HR Interventions in Reducing Accidents in the Mechanical Engineering Industry

Henrich, father of Industrial Accident Prevention, studied 75,000 cases of insurance claims and accident records of industrial plant owners. He found that 88% of accidents were caused due to unsafe actions of human beings. The objective of the present study was to analyze the reasons for accidents related to unsafe behavior of personnel. It further aimed to develop and recommend a workable model to the engineering industry to reduce accidents caused due to unsafe human behavior. Data were collected on accidents and their causes from 5 mechanical engineering companies selected in and around Pune region of India. Only those companies which had more than 100 employees working for it were selected. Only accidents of high potential and those resulting into man-days lost were selected from the list of accidents. A total of 17 accident cases were selected. A personal interview cum questionnaire method was used to collect data from the workers who met with the accident, line supervisors, safety officers and factory managers of the concerned factory. Results showed that in most accidents, working conditions were proper, the design and equipments were safe to work with and it was possible to operate the equipments safely. Hence this weakened the fact that accidents are mainly caused by unsafe conditions. In most accidents, unsafe actions had played a major role. ―Hurry up attitude‖ encouraged the worker to take shortcuts and bypass safety procedures. Majority of workers who met with the accident had no disease/stress and were of average physical fitness levels. Their unsafe behavior was due to there being a lacuna on the part of the management in imparting ―On the job training‖ for performing the job safely, which would have given more information about the hazards present in the job and the risks, their levels along with the safe way of performing the job. This training would have played a vital role in accident prevention and forced the worker to think and act on the safe line of action. Based on the above research, an Accident Reduction Model was developed. This model focuses mainly on identifying and correcting the unsafe behavior of workers. The model will help in dealing with these requirements in a systematic Plan-Do-Check-Act manner; hence, users will find it as a very useful tool to comply with related requirements.