One of the key roles of management is to ensure employee safety. This applies whether employees spend their days in factories, in offices or on the road.

In parts of Asia, there is often a more relaxed view about employee safety. This is mainly due to a combination of poor regulation and a lack of enforcement. There is simply less of an employee safety culture in many parts of Asia although this is slowly changing. Many would be aware of the factory fire horror stories over the years in different parts of Asia where employees were unable to escape because exits were padlocked. Employers claimed the locked doors were necessary to prevent workers stealing items.

Increasing foreign investment into parts of Asia has enhanced employee safety as these corporate investors have used workplace benchmarks from their home countries which often exceed the requirements of the countries in which they operate. Examples include the workplace health and safety cultures implemented by Japanese, British and American companies in parts of South East Asia, particularly in the automotive sector.

On one restructuring, it was necessary to implement a more rigorous approach to workplace safety, particularly in relation to fire safety. Employees worked in various offices spread throughout South-East Asia. In a number of locations, there was heavy reliance on the safety standards of the buildings where office space was leased. But what happens when those landlords fail to implement even minimal fire safety standards? What does management do in the event of a safety standard vacuum?

In implementing adequate employee safety standards in the Head Office on a high floor in a city office building in South-East Asia, I looked at examples of companies involved in the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11. Some of the companies that had been affected by the 1993 basement bombing of the WTC North Tower subsequently had very strict evacuation procedures in place which assisted evacuations on 9/11. In one case, the company had fitted small backpacks to the seat back of all employees' chairs which included a face mask, light and bottle of water. Another company's safety procedures made evacuation mandatory if there was an incident involving the other tower.

For this company, we implemented a multi-pronged approach to improving employee safety which included:

- introducing a company-specific fire drill conducted independent of the annual building fire drill.

- walking all fire stairs periodically to ensure there were no blockages.

- ensuring the office emergency exits had working light bulbs which would illuminate in the event of a power outage. I expect that, if I had checked all the floors in that building, there was little likelihood of seeing any working emergency exit signs.

- educating employees on how many fire exits there were and splitting the office into zones to ensure the use of all exits on an evacuation.

- placing current lists of all employees at all fire exits so designated fire wardens could collect the lists on their way through the exit and accurate employee head counts could be taken at ground level.

- storing glow sticks at emergency exits for employees to use in case of stairwell lighting failure. These were imported from Australia due to a lack of local supplies at the time.

- instructing employees not to listen to anyone on the fire stairs advising them to return to their office. It was mandatory to go to the ground level and wait for an update from the company's fire wardens.

- adding portable fire extinguishers at designated office locations.

We also conducted reviews of all other offices and implemented procedures to improve safety standards. We could never rule out a fire or other incident occurring but, by improving safety standards, we could improve the chances of all employees being safely evacuated. In the case of the Head Office building, I thought it was more likely that it would be hit by an errant Government helicopter passing through the nearby air traffic corridor than a fire. We planned for a number of possible scenarios.

Many of the safety improvements outlined above may seem standard to those working in countries with highly developed workplace health and safety regimes. However, it is not surprising to see companies in South East Asia where no safety standards exist or standards exist in company manuals but have never been properly implemented. Where legislative regimes do exist, compliance failures present liability issues for companies and management. But beyond that, management has a moral obligation to take all reasonable steps to ensure worker safety. A consumer backlash can be quite fierce on a company seen to be falling short of its obligations in this area.

PELEN

May 2018

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