Occupational Health & Safety (OHS)

Advice and Review of the Risk Inventory and Evaluation of the company
The primary responsibility for achieving good working conditions lies within the organizations. In order to have a good OHS policy, the employer must have an overview of all the risks that may occur in the organization. Risk inventory and evaluation (RI & E) enables the company to address the risks in a structured way in order to minimize the risk of occupational health and accidents.

Absenteeism Counseling
OHS Services Caribbean specializes in supporting organizations in developing and implementing a practical and preventive absenteeism policy.

Periodic Occupational Health Check
Providing a periodic occupational health check to your employees is an obligation. It is a medical examination that assesses the health of employees, on those aspects in which they run risks with regard to the work. These risks can be identified in a risk assessment.

Health Examination of Employee prior to coming into service
An appointment check is a survey conducted by a company physician at the employer’s request at the end of an application procedure. The examination may consist of a questionnaire, a conversation and / or additional physical or laboratory check.

Preventive Medical Examination
Preventive medical research, also called periodic medical research, is a preventive health check for employees. It is a way to monitor and promote the health of your staff.

Accident Investigation
The purpose of an accident investigation is to identify and describe the actual course of events (what, where, when), identify the direct and basic causes as well as the circumstances that contributed to the occurrence of the accident. This information can determine which risk mitigation measures can be taken to prevent accidents. In principle, it must be possible to find out exactly what has happened and what was being done during the accident.

Occupational Hygiene Advice
Occupational hygiene advice is to ensure a healthy working environment. In the workplace, one can distinguish nuisance and harmful environmental factors. These factors can, on the one hand, affect the comfort of the employee and, on the other hand, affect one’s health.

Basic Safety Advice
Basic safety advice, show you how to go about as a company with regard to safety, health and environment. Following basic safety advice as a company, you indicate that you can work safely, taking into account the environment and health of the organization and others.

Workplace Research and Advice
The integrated workplace research is aimed at preventing or remedying health problems. Based on the integral workplace research, you receive a focused advice for optimizing the work situation. This reduces your employees’ complaints and absenteeism and directly contributes to the productivity and satisfaction of your employees.

Work Related Research
This is usually information check about the health of an employee who is in a vulnerable position. For example, investigations about back problems, motivation, productivity and non-attendance.

Air Quality Measurements and Additional Measurements
OHS Services Caribbean performs measurements for fighting formaldehyde, fungus, hydrogen sulfate and carbon monoxide etc.

Ergonomic Workplace Research
In a workplace research we combine the optimal setting of a workplace with ergonomic research and practical advice on improving working and working habits.

Occupational Assessment and Advice
The occupational health professional carries out an assessment pertaining to what job is suitable for the person and takes into account the restrictions the doctor has indicated when giving the advice.

Absentee Consultancy
The consultant visits the sick at home and reports to the medical adviser and the OHS consultant. In the absence of clients at home, the consultant proceeds with a written referral to OHS Services Caribbean for further processing.

Psychosocial Work Load
Psychosocial workload is a relatively new concept. This concept includes all factors that cause stress at work, such as aggression and violence, labor disputes, sexual harassment, bullying and work pressure.

Interventions
Interventions are methods and techniques that you use to change the behavior of the employee and affect their circumstances. This aims to positively change the quality of the work / life of the employee.

Trauma
A trauma can arise when someone memorizes one or more shocking events, such as a serious traffic accident, a fire, the death of an important person, sexual abuse or violence. A trauma arises because the event (s) are not properly processed.

HRM Support
We use our knowledge and experience to help keep employees healthy and to cut back on absenteeism. For this we have developed an integrated health plan. In this plan we analyze the possibilities of reducing absenteeism. In addition, it is good to know that with 1 notice of absence of the worker, the involvement of HRM support to take all necessary actions to get the employee back to work starts at once.

Conflict Management
How do I make a conflict a success? Bringing knowledge of conflict management into the widest sense of the word leads to a conflict or threatening situation being reversed: from conflict to successful concept.

Crisis Management
Crisis management or crisis management is the systematic attempt to prevent or control organizational (international) crisis. A crisis is a major emergency in which the functioning of an organization (company, government, society and region) is severely disturbed.

Alcohol & Drugs Policy and Care
As OHS Services Caribbean, you work to prevent and reduce risks in the areas of safety, health and psychosocial workload. There are also risks associated with alcohol and drug use. Alcohol and drug use can – especially in the case of addiction – adversely affect functioning in the workplace, lead to absenteeism or other dangerous situations for the person in question and for others.

Vitality and Movement Policy
Not only unhealthy nutrition and lack of exercise causes bad conditions.
The social and economic situation also affects the welfare and functioning of the employee. In addition, aging in the workforce and the increase in retirement age also requires attention from the employer. Often employees are considered a large expense item. But employees are important, if not the largest capital for an organization.

Successful management stands or falls with vital, motivated and employees who are involved. The employer can create conditions for employees to make them perform as optimal as possible. Different research indicates that the return on investment of a sustainable OHS policy, which is partly aimed at prevention, results in a cost/benefit ratio of at least 1:2.

Work and Life Style
Employers play an important role in promoting vitality in the workplace. The employer stimulates and facilitates a healthy lifestyle and it is the responsibility of the employee to make use of the offer.

Debt Relief
The number of employees with debt is growing. And employees are having such problems with their work. Wage bills, requests for an advance are potential signals that your employee has financial problems. Problems that may also affect the workplace, such as absenteeism, concentration problems or even fraud. How do you recognize an employee with financial problems and what can you do as an employer to prevent it from getting worse?

Diversity Policy/-Management
Diversity policy is defined, inter alia, as a policy aimed at recognizing and appreciating the differences between individuals.

Smoking Policy
As an organization, you are legally required to take a number of measures to limit the inconvenience of smoking. With your own smoking policy, you will take a step further in promoting healthy behavior.

Coaching
The purpose of coaching in the workplace is to make the person in the workplace function optimally. And in such a way that both person and organization benefit.

Burn-out
Burn-out is in most cases the final stage of years of overload at work. Often, burn-out is about people who have been working hard for years and finally come to the conclusion that they are getting too little for themselves. They do not feel rewarded for all the efforts they have made. Based on that conclusion and their personal feeling, their motivation to work completely disappears. One has been burned out, exhausted and empty.

Employee Satisfaction Survey
Employees who are satisfied with their work, the work environment and the organization perform better and contribute to the success of the company. In order to measure that satisfaction and then to improve it, an employee satisfaction survey is often used.

Training of employees, employers and unions is still in its development phase, while the level of absenteeism is very high and there is almost no discussion of topics such as bullying, substance abuse in the workplace addiction, psychosocial work load, debt relief, etc. Nevertheless, OHS Academy Caribbean will inform all parties and give the necessary training in order to professionalize the quality of working conditions. There is a great need for training with curricula at SBO (MBO) / HBO level in St. Maarten. OHS Academy Caribbean ensures that all training and training related to labor in St. Maarten is realized.

Our OHS Academy Caribbean wants to make a valuable contribution to improving working conditions and participation in OHS matters in St. Maarten. We do this by training/ educating professionals well and purposefully for the present-day practice of public and occupational health.
We develop and organize training, in-company programs and symposia at SBO (MBO) and post-HBO level. Our training and training programs aim to train employees, employers and unions so that they can better understand and use the OHS services.

OHS Academy Caribbean has complete training packages for professionals in the field of OHS services and for trade unions.
Looking for a course or training on safety and occupational issues? Then you are well at OHS Academy Caribbean. We offer OHS courses and other training courses in this field.

We provide the following training:

Basic Safety Prevention Worker
According to legislation, preventative tasks in the area of OHS, where possible, must be regulated by the organization. This will cost you less time and money. Often a prevention worker is to be appointed. Any organization with more than 25 employees must employ at least one prevention staff. As a prevention employee, you are the spider in the web of working conditions in your organization. In fact, you assist the employer in his responsibility for the safety and health of employees, customers and guests.

Safety Prevention Officer
A good education is a necessity. Prevention Science is now developing into a field based on Security Science. We offer a solid basic education for Safety Prevention Officer with direct connection to Vocational Education & Training in Safety.
The respective training of Safety Prevention Officer consists of 3 modules:
Module 1: Basic knowledge of prevention & safety
Module 2: Advance safety knowledge
Module 3: Managing safety and OHS conditions

Grip on Non-Attendance
A sick employee costs an employer a lot of money a day. Together with the employee you are responsible for the failure and reintegration. The Act states your rights and duties as employer and employee. But what can you expect from the employee? What is absenteeism, what is absentism and what is presentism. What support does the company doctor offer? And what does the OHS Service do and what does SZB do? During the Grip on non-attendance training you will hear the consequences of default and what the legal obligations of you and your employees are. So you get real grip on the precious neglect!

OHS & Basic Safety
Safe and healthy work is important for employees to achieve a healthy completion of the work. However, thousands of employees still die around the world every year due to unsafe and unhealthy working conditions. Four times as much as in traffic.
The most important place to work on safe and healthy working conditions is the workplace itself.

The most important contribution to safe and healthy work is therefore provided by employees who work together in their interests.

Alcohol and Drugs use in the Work Place
Drinking alcohol is anchored in our culture and transcends the different classes of the population. The use of resources that affect the awareness and the view on the world also increases. These include (analgesics, tranquilizers, sleepers, stimulants), sniffing agents, illegal drugs (cannabis, LSD, cocaine, opium, heroin).
We must realize that the adverse effects of using these resources by an employee do not stop when he enters the company.

Excessive alcohol or drug use can not only cause problems in the private sphere, but can also cause problems in the workplace. When alcohol or drugs are consumed at work or when its effects work on the workplace, the employer’s co-responsibility is compromised.

One of the duties of the employer is to ensure that the work is carried out under proper circumstances, with regard to the safety and health of the employee.
Being under the influence of alcohol or drugs is one of the important factors that affect the safety and health of employees and their environment.

In addition, the use of alcohol or drugs usually results in a reduced or problematic functioning or leads to absence, which means a source of stress for fellow workers by increasing their work pressure and disrupting the work organization. Alcohol and drug use is also a major cause of cross-border behavior.

Preventive alcohol and drug policy is the means to prevent such alcohol and drug problems at work or at least to prevent these problems from worsening. However, it is not easy for an employer to know exactly how he is best performing such a policy and what actions he or she can take in the elaboration of this policy. In addition, such a policy fails between the right of authority by the employer and the privacy right of the employee. It is therefore the art to find an acceptable balance between them. However, conducting a preventive alcohol and drug policy in the company is extremely important. This issue is serious and seeks to work in the workplace, but also on the living conditions of the employees themselves, their colleagues, the employer and finally, but not least, those of the employee’s family environment. They are therefore affecting employees, employers and the government.

Debt Relief in the Work Place
Financial problems in the work place. What are the implications for the employer?
Debt relief is well in motion. Due to the economic crisis, more people are experiencing financial problems and change the nature and extent of debt. Debt relief is therefore more complicated, while implementation is often better and organizations are expected to have less resources in the coming years. They face the challenge to do more with less.

Debts have increased in recent years and the number of creditors per debtor has risen. Previously, people with low incomes or on social welfare belonged to the risk group but now you also have higher income groups. Employees with financial problems can absolutely not function optimally and end up in short-term absence, borrow money from close colleagues and / or steal.

Many investigations have shown that the application of debt relief can in many cases be improved. All in all, enough to make debt relief an agenda point in your company.

Corporate Counseling Team
An increasing number of organizations play an important role in providing the internal training of “Corporate Counseling” for colleagues who can conduct reception calls after a traumatic event at work. In our training for Corporate Counseling Team, you will learn how to best meet a colleague, how to structure a reception call and provide a listening ear. We teach you how to act according to an aggression protocol and instructions, while you maintain your own personal style. The aim is that you as a Corporate Counseling Team member help your colleagues after an incident and at the same time help prevent stress and sick leave absenteeism.

Five-day Curriculum Corporate Social Work
In this training we begin with the basic aspects of a regular social worker on to become a corporate social worker. We assume that corporate social workers already working in the respective field, know largely these basic aspects. In this training we will treat these basic aspects in the form of “refreshment”. The amount of refreshment all depends on the level that already has been committed. In addition, we start with those aspects that make a regular social worker become a corporate social worker, who is good for the individual and good for the organization within which the individual works.

Confidential Person with Multiple Tasks within the organization
Within a healthy organization, it is mandatory to protect employees from (sexual) harassment, aggression and violence, bullying and discrimination. Many organizations in this regard appoint a trustworthy person. Usually this is someone from within the organization who has this as a secondary job. The Trust Personnel training prepares you for this comprehensive task. Afterwards you have insight into the role of the trustworthy person and you will be able to assist, support and give advice to employees.

 Addressing Psychosocial Work Load
Everyone sometimes experiences work pressure, but if this occurs too often and too long, this quickly results in work stress. One third of the absenteeism is related to stress. It is therefore not for nothing that the law obliges to address psychosocial work load. During the training Burn-Out Prevention, you will be able to understand the causes of stress and burnout, preventing sickness and loss from work stress and increasing productivity. The training ends with a concrete plan that will help you get started right away.

Ergonomics behind the computer
Working on the computer may be accompanied by occupational complaints such as neck and shoulder complaints, headache, lower back pain, and eye or finger pain. If these complaints are not taken seriously, they can affect the overall functioning of the person, disabled for work due to pain, can no longer perform households, cannot drive more, etc. In other words, it can cause very persistent adverse complaints.

Ergonomic measures in terms of work tasks, working hours, work pressure, working methods and working conditions can work preventively. Or if a person already has advanced complaints, these measures can help to get rid of it through intensive guidance. These ergonomic measures are discussed extensively and physically demonstrated.

Burnout Prevention
Prevent burnout, enhance personal leadership.
Burnout seems to be something from our time. Burnout is often mixed up with over tiredness and work stress. But burnout is much more complex than that. Burnout has to do with long-term imbalances between caring for others and caring for yourself. The fire, the passion that gives energy to get started every day, are no longer present by burn-out clients. This means a psychological, physical and emotional “burned up” has taken place with all the consequences hereof.
Preventive coaching in a threatening burnout can reduce or even prevent negative effects. During the Burnout Prevention training, we start from initial burnout diagnostics and will work with underlying burn-out sensitivities, such as mourning, putting aside your passion or desire, and having confusion in the system of origin. We support our client in reversing barriers and strengthening personal leadership with a lasting result as a consequence.

Health Management
In this training you will learn how to start up and further develop health management. It deals with questions of why health management is important, what the most important elements are, how does the organization get a better view on healthy behaviors and what interventions are possible to influence healthy behavior.

Risk Inventory and Evaluation (RI & E)
The basis for good working conditions is the risk inventory and evaluation (RI & E) and the plan of action. This is the most important requirement of the OHS rules and regulations.

With an RI & E, you list all the risks and you can address them in a targeted way. With the help of the RI & E, it becomes clear to the company what the risks are and how to tackle these. The plan of action tells you which the steps to take are. During the training you will learn how to practically perform a RI & E and make it workable for your own organization.

Conflict Management
People differ from each other and in many collaborative situations there are also different interests. Conflicts are on the verge. Sometimes they get out of the way, while it is just better and more effective to tackle conflicts. Sometimes conflicts escalate and the emotions rise high with all the unwanted consequences for the organization and for yourself. The “Conflict Management” training teaches you how to deal effectively with conflicts. How to handle exciting situations and achieve good results without losing sight of the interests of others and improving relationships with others.

Sustainable Employability
Do you want to get into your organization with sustainable employability, but do not know how to tackle this? Or do you want to give your professionals ways to engage in the long-term engagement with employees? Then you must follow the ‘Sustainable Employability’ training.

Vitality in the workplace
Work pressure, tension and stress have become part of our daily work and often make the job fun to do, challenging and important. Only thing is, stress should not last for too long and also not too much. It is also important to relax, to rest and relativize. Everything should be in balance. And it is not easy to stay in balance and to be vital in this time and age of having excessive incentives, abundant choices and lot of work activities at home as well as on the job.

The training ‘Vitality in the workplace’ teaches you to respond to tension signals in a timely fashion. You will recognize when in you, healthy tension turns into unhealthy stress.
This training will help you to control your balance and increase your sense of vitality and pleasure in work and life.

Motivational Training
Our motivational training is the ideal workshop for: your kick-off; new team composition; solving team problems; team spirit.
The team will be treated with exciting assignments, effective learning moments and surprises. The primary goal is to strengthen motivation and mutual ties. Blockades in the work place are tackled. A lot of learning moments in the area of communication, appointments, human-oriented actions and team formation will be addressed.

Sick Building Syndrome (SBS)
Recognizing the Sick Building Syndrome to achieve Healthy and Productive Organizations. Very important to standstill at and address the signs and symptoms of the Sick Building Syndrome (SBS):

– Chemical contaminants

– Biological contaminants

– Physical factors

– SBS in St. Maarten

– SBS still leads to high absenteeism and presentism

– SBS in relationship with work conditions

– Do we have legislation to prevent SBS?

– Let us speak about good employer and a good employee in relation to SBS

– How do we go further? Is there a policy to combat SBS or decrease it in St. Maarten?

– Conclusions and Recommendations

Basic Training Business Support Worker
Company workers are normal employees. However, if something happens in the office – fire breaks out, someone is injured, or maybe evacuation is needed – business support workers are to take necessary actions. They know what has to happen if there is a fire or what has to be done in case someone falls down. They also know what to do if the building is to be evacuated. In such a case, the business support workers ensure that people remain as calm as possible and leave the building as fast as possible.

OHS Academy Caribbean also organizes Conferences, Seminars and Workshops related to OHS matters.