Safety at League Plastics

Natalie Wilson, a human resources administrator at League Plastics, a manufacturer of parts for the recreational vehicle industry, was worried that she would be blamed by her supervisor for an increasing number of workers’ compensation claims. After gathering data on the ever-worsening safety record in the facility and taking notes about where injuries were occurring, Wilson knew she would need to act before the company’s workers’ compensation policy came due for renewal. She needed to put together a plan that would start reducing injuries for the rest of the year, and she needed to persuade her supervisor to implement it.

The exercise can be used effectively in undergraduate- and graduate-level courses or modules on health and safety, human resources, training, motivation, and organizational behaviour. This exercise asks students to develop a plan to improve the health and safety conditions in a manufacturing plant, including a training plan and methods to improve employees’ motivation to act safely. It will help both undergraduate and graduate students improve their understanding of the process of managing or building a safety program for an organization. After working through the exercises and assignment questions, students will be able to do the following:<br><br><ul><li>Identify the underlying causes of health and safety problems.</li><li>Classify the types of interventions that can be used to resolve the safety issues.</li><li>Create an action plan that will address a number of health and safety problems.</li><li>Develop an approach to persuade others to follow the proposed plan.</li><li>Evaluate the training needs of a situation and select appropriate solutions.</li><li>Demonstrate competence using Kirkpatrick’s hierarchy to assess training effectiveness.</li></ul>

• health and safety
• safety
• training
• needs assessment
• training evaluation
• Kirkpatrick's hierarchy