Group work in collaborative learning environments

¶ … safe working environment for employees and in addition to providing them with the opportunity to learn more about this respective environment, a CEO would have to concentrate on further educating his or her employees in order for them to have a complex understanding of their roles and the risks they involve. Through minimizing these respective risks, employees and the management can cooperate with the purpose of making the business as a whole a safer place.

With Vincenzo Soprano having a very good overview of safety risks in the company, one would mainly have to think about ways to open employees' eyes with regard to attitudes they need to take in order to be safer. Through constantly consulting employees concerning health and safety issues, an employer can make sure that he or she is doing everything in their power in order to prevent any accidents from happening.

Having meetings on a monthly basis or each time a new process is being implemented can help employees as they try to learn more about the environment they are working with. By being reminded of the hazards associated with particular activities, employees are more likely to refrain from taking on huge risks.

Many employees consider themselves to be experts in their field of work and this comes as a consequence of operating the same types of machineries for prolonged periods of time and being familiarized with all of the factors associated with these respective machineries. Things like "workers reaching into mincers to remove blockages whilst the mincer was operating; poor manual handling practices; workers not wearing their personal protective equipment; dangerous use of forklifts; equipment such as knives not being put away properly; and safety barriers on machines being removed to speed up the production process" perfectly emphasize the way that many workers at Sopranos Smallgoods have reached a point where they feel they have a particularly good understanding of the machines they work with and thus feel that they can quicken the production process as a consequence of refraining from performing tasks that the health and safety agenda requires they do.

One of the company CEO's main mistake is that he considers safety regulations to be a one-way street. He considers that by simply providing people with the rules they need to act in agreement with he is doing enough. However, the reality is that management needs to consult employees in order to learn more about their position and about things that make them feel that they should not respect safety regulations. "Consultation must be either direct or through a safety representative that is either elected by the workforce or appointed by a trade union." (Employer's responsibilities)

Employers often disregard health and safety regulation principles as a consequence of the additional costs they involve. However, the truth is that implementing several reforms or simply reinforcing current regulations is very probable to have long-term benefits for the company. Fearing the costs associated with implementing changes in the health and safety agenda is often resulting from managers not being able to understand that short-term loss is required in conditions where people are not properly prepared to deal with the tools they are working with. Experience does not necessarily mean that an employee is exempt from experiencing any work-related accidents. Even some of the most experienced workers from around the world have seen horrible accidents because they became too confident. The fact that they were confident enough to operate machinery that posed a high risk of accidents made them feel that they had the experience required in order to avoid falling victim. While this might work in some cases, it can be catastrophic in others.

Safety culture relates to how safety is being handled in the workplace, with managers and employees being part of a larger group that needs to do everything in their power in order to make sure they make the work environment as safe as possible while also working efficiently.

There is much controversy regarding the 1986 Chernobyl accident, considering that most believe it to be a result of both system failure and human error. Considering a workplace such as a nuclear power plant, most people would expect all employees there to have a sort of respect toward their work environment and to act in agreement with all tasks they need to perform. Situations in which an employee fails to take on all the right attitudes with regard to these respective tasks are certainly unsettling. However, they also make it possible for people to understand that no place is too safe -- with health and safety regulations needing to be reinforced in most work environments on a constant basis in order for employees to actually be able to gain a complex understanding of what they need to do in order to avoid causing a disaster.