Back to Safety & Security Studies

Safety Management Courses In South Africa:

What is Safety Management?

Safety management involves developing systems to prevent accidents, injuries, and other adverse occurrences in the work place or an institutional setting. The concept includes prevention or reduction of adverse events or incidents involving employees, patients, and facilities, e.g. plans to reduce injuries from falls or plans for fire safety to promote a safe institutional environment.

What you will learn in our Safety Management Course

Occupational health and safety act

Safety Managers have to be intimately familiar with the Occupational Health and Safety Act (Act No 85 of 1993). Our online safety management training course explains the Act in simple, non-legal terms, as well as the role of occupational health and safety (OHS) inspectors of the Department of Labour; duties and rights of workers; roles and responsibilities of employers; and the functions of health and safety representatives and committees.

Monitoring and Investigation

Companies and institutions that take safety management seriously should have a Safety Committee, which is tasked with following up on all hazard, incident and accident reports at monthly meetings. The committee must take steps to investigate matters and recommend a course of action to management.

All Safety Committee members must undertake training to ensure they have the knowledge and skills necessary to fulfill their roles.

Committee members must have the authority to suspend any procedure or method of working and draw management's attention to matters relating to health and safety problems in the workplace.

Danger Signs

Safety management also involves identifying theft risks, such as suspicious consumers and employees who suddenly live beyond their means. Even though employees may not be stealing to support expensive tastes, they may run into financial difficulties through reckless spending. They may then be tempted to look beyond their salaries for ways to support their extravagant lifestyles.

Employees who show a pattern of financial irresponsibility are also a potential risk. They may do their job with great skill and efficiency but are less adept at managing their private lives, especially when it comes to their own economic realities. Employees caught in a genuine financial squeeze are also possible problems. If they have been hit with financial demands from illnesses in the family or possibly heavy tax payments, they may find the pressures too great to bear.

If such a situation comes to light, the Safety Manager should recommend a course of counselling. They may also recommend that the company provide a low interest loan to stave off any temptation and might even arrange for help through a bank or debt counsellor.

Loss Prevention

Many safety specialists speculate that enormous losses from internal theft are most common in firms that refuse to believe their employees would steal from them. As a result, their loss prevention systems are weak and ineffective.

Our course provides safety management experts with the tools to tactfully provide managers with statistics on employee theft so that they realise how important risk assessment and safety programmes are.

Assessment of Safety Programmes

Safety managers have to conduct an assessment to determine current risks and develop a programme that will restore acceptable levels of loss-control effectiveness. This can be done via a team approach or an individual approach. Typically, the individual approach is more effective.

Managing the Safety Operation

The Safety Department can operate in any one of three modes:

• In a staff capacity, where its experts offer advice, make recommendations to upper management, and develop policy for management approval. Line supervisors bear full responsibility for safety in their areas.
• In staff and line supervisor capacity, where it performs all staff functions as described above and will also help out on especially hazardous jobs. It will hold some safety meetings and training sessions.
• In an active capacity, where it holds all safety meetings, training sessions, and accident investigations, and actively performs in all areas of safety.

The first step is to conduct an attitude survey, which consists of a private, one-on-one interview with all line supervisors, from the facility manager to various first-line supervisors or foremen. Questions should include attitudes about current safety conditions, the need for a safety programme, safety management generally and feelings about some of the techniques (or absence of techniques) in the loss-control effort.

Who will benefit from our Safety Management Course?

Our Safety Management training course will benefit anyone currently working in the safety management industry and who wants a promotion, as well as students who can't afford to go to university but who want to acquire the knowledge and understanding to gain secure employment in the industry.

What award will I have after I have completed my Safety Management Course?

The Oxbridge Academy Safety Management Diploma is a career-orientated skills programme which is provider developed and assessed. The diploma is issued by Oxbridge Academy and endorsed by the South African Institute of Management (SAIM). After completion of this diploma the student will show competence in the area of Retail Safety Management.

We also offer the following skills programmes that are well suited to this area of study:

Back to Safety & Security Studies