Systemic Integration of Occupational Health and Safety within Business Management

Abstract

This paper approaches the specific elements of the importance of OHS management system (Occupational Health and Safety) as part and parcel of business general management. Considering the fact that such an integration allows the increase of the business sustainability, we made an inventory of the most relevant opinions found in specialized literature in connection with the concepts and models of OHS management systems; we also analyzed the influence the legal stipulations specific to this field exert upon the transition from the traditional management to the OHS systemic management with a view to getting more secure and healthier labor environments and a better general organizational performance. The second part of the paper displays the systems and the degrees of integrating OHS within business management through: the management and promotion of occupational health and safety, an integrated management of health and the systems of integrating occupational health and safety within quality programs through the Total Quality Management (TQM), Lean Production, Six Sigma and Balanced Scorecard (BSC). Beyond the limitations of a theoretical study, we consider that the specific aspects of OHS integration within business management displayed by this paper are useful for the specialists owing to the increased interest of the organizations for employing OHS as a support in implementing a performing management.