The Chief Operating Officer of the Environment and Sanitation Group of the Jospong Group of Companies, Mrs Florence Larbi, has said it is important for labour intensive organisations to ensure safe and healthy workplaces.

This she said will protect workers from injury and illnesses but lower injury costs, reduce absenteeism and turnover, increase productivity and raise employee morale. 

She believes safety is the right thing businesses must encourage to increase the quality of output at all times.

Mrs. Larbi said according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), employers can save $4.00 to $6.00 for every dollar spent on a safety and health program because the enormous benefits surely supersede all investments in an organization that depends largely on labour.

Mrs Florence Larbi who has well over 20 years of corporate management experience was addressing a durbar of workers at the maiden safety week celebration of the Integrated Recycling and Composting Plant (IRECOP) at the Accra Waste Recovery Park (AWARP).

Under the Environment and Sanitation Group of the Jospong Group of Companies are the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant (ACARP), Zoomlion Ghana Limited, Zoom Domestic Services Limited, Waste Landfills Limited, Alliance Waste Services Limited, Meridian Waste, Waste Masters, Urban Waste and Coastal Waste, Integrated Recycling and Composting Plant (IRECOP)s among others.

“I am elated to be associated with this platform targeted at instilling occupational health and safety among employees of this very facility to protect workers, visitors and the environment by preventing major accidents through proactive approaches.

Mrs Larbi observed, there is a global correlation between productivity, safety and health at any work environment, such that, the lower the safety and health standards of an organization, the lower the productivity of the organization, particularly in highly labour intensive environment such as IRECOP.

“There is no doubt therefore that improvements in safety for workers through effective loss control practices can be financially rewarding to IRECOP and subsequently spread the benefits to other stakeholders” she assured.

The General Manager of the Integrated Recycling and Composting Plant (IRECOP), Ms Betty Brown Nyadu stated that IRECOP which is less than three months has recorded encouraging statistics spanning the period of April and May 2019.

She stated that the vision of IRECOP is to inculcate safety policies and procedures in all aspects of management decisions and to protect employees by arriving at an accident-free work environment.

She said the purpose of the safety week in less than the company's one year in operation is to further educate the employees on safety and to allow the workers to be audited to find out safety gaps and draw corrective measures to some of their operational standards and procedures.

 "In contemporary times, safety has moved from a voluntary option to an inevitable choice in management practice, thus, every manager should endeavour to take health and safety issues very critically to forestall the loss of lives and the payment of unnecessary claims".

Ms Nyadu said the Ghana Labour  Act makes it mandatory for the employer to put a premium of health and safety by minimizing hazards at the workplace and as a manager to the facility that is a position she greatly shares in.

She said many companies have resolved to the fact that being safe in the workplace is just the provision of reflectors, boots and helmets for staff; but suffice it to say safety is in the mind – safety indicates our commitment to do things right and report activities that has the potential to cause harm and an unsafe environment.