The purpose of this thesis is to elevate occupational safety and health (OSH) and safety culture through e-learning with associated risk management for the case company NRC Group Finland Oy. NRC Finland provides services in infrastructure construction and engineering and operates also as the biggest rail builder in Finland with customers such as government agencies, municipalities, industrial corporations and ports.
By enhancing NRC Finland’s safety culture and profile through the new e-learning platform the goal is to demonstrate more active role regarding safety to outside as well as inside the company. The process will also include creating a new safety briefing material into the new training platform which will be used to brief NRC Finland’s visitors into safety procedures regarding railway industry. The theoretical background will cover and explain the definitions of e-learning, occupational safety and health, safety training, safety culture and risk management. The development task is as follows: how to develop and further improve safety culture regarding occupational safety and health.
The research methodology used in this study is the qualitative research method, the purpose was to gain knowledge and new ideas. The two data collection methods that were chosen were a workshop and a survey. The workshop was conducted at NRC Finland with the managers and the purpose was to gain insight to what is the company’s goal regarding e-learning and other safety issues. The survey focused on getting the workers point of view regarding OSH e.g. safety training and safety culture, out of 44 survey recipients 18 replied to the survey.
Based on the data that was collected it was apparent that the biggest concern shared by the workers was excessive rush at work which could potentially cause dangerous situations. There is a sense that a projects schedule takes precedence over safety and because of that safety instructions are being ignored. Other concerns or potential risks were poor attitude and indifference towards OSH regulations. In general, work-related accidents are declining but certain accidents like stumbling, slipping and tripping are on the rise and from the different business unit’s maintenance stands out in the accident records.
The safety briefing material was the tangible outcome of this study and with this material NRC Finland is able to enhance their OSH and add awareness of the company’s safety culture outside the company. It will show that the company takes OSH seriously and generates positive reputation on the company’s name and operations. Additionally, it is recommended that when designing the courses to the new e-learning platform that the different learning styles of people will be taken into consideration, making the courses visually appealing and if possible, even interactive. Also involving the workers more in the planning processes relating to OSH might bring new ideas and perspective to the table
