It is often an interesting question to raise and discuss. With many stories appearing in the news from time to time sharing a safety breach, a serious injury or disaster within an organisation, it really makes you think, who is responsible for safety in an organisation?
Companies can employ skilled and experienced professionals and provide further training and support, put systems in place to inform them how to work safely (permit to work, processes and instructions) and also provide appropriate PPE, but things can still go wrong.
Yes, companies are responsible for their employees legally, but also morally responsible for how they work, but the real ‘nut to crack’ is to develop the workforce culture to one where nobody unknowingly creates unsafe environments, carries out an unsafe action or even deviates from processes and procedures they should follow. The cause of the majority of incidents that materialise are, you guessed it, good old human error.