Question

EMPLOYEE HEALTH AND SAFETY IN THE ORGANIZATION

Organization officials have a legal and moral responsibility to ensure that the workplace is free from unnecessary hazards. Employers hold responsibility for understanding what is necessary to keep workers safe from harm. Conditions surrounding the workplace must be secure for employee’s physical and mental health. As many organizations have implemented wellness program, that focus on smoking cessation, weight control, stress management, early diagnosis of health problems, prevention and education about life-style related and contagious illness. Wellness program can cut Employers health cost and lower absenteeism by preventing health related problems.

Reference: Textbook- DeCenzo, D. A., & Robbins, S. P. (2013). Human resource management , Chapter 13 Health and Safety.

Assignment Questions:

Use scientific journals from the or textbook in your answers

1. Describe the role of HR in offering Healthy and safe work environment to the workers. Also write the ways that Occupational Safety and Health Administration OSHA assist employers in creating a safer workplace.

2. Discuss the purpose and significance of Wellness Programs/Disease Management in the Organization. Support your answer with the example of two companies that provide these programs to their workers.

3. If you’re HR Manager, how can you support your employees during the Public Health Emergency/Outbreak? Present your HR planning to run the organization effectively along with employees’ safety.

Answer 1

A traditional role Human Resource manager/officer is tasked with administrative matters such as acquisition of talent keeping in view the strategic and the tactical objectives of the entity, developing training modules , developing a work culture , conflict resolution , employee relations (including employee welfare), maintaining work place statutory compliances,  so on and so forth.

Statutory work place compliance is a vital function of the HR team , primarily since not only does non-compliance invite sanctions ( punitive or fines) for example the case of Joon LLC (operating as Ajin USA), Alliance HR Inc. (operating as Alliance Total Solutions LLC) and Joynus Staffing Corp. [1] being fined 2.6 M $ for work place violations leading to a fatality.

    Such unfortunate worksite accidents can be prevented through a robust Company Work , Health and safety policy. Implemented by the HR . Such a policy may broadly consist of the following.

1) Keep abreast of the up to date regulations of OSHA ( National and regional)

2) Develop training modules for the employees.

3) Develop a system and an escalation matrix for the anonymous reporting of violations, audit observations and incident reports.

4) A robust internal audit system .

Such a system would enable a safe working environment and develop a robust work culture.

OSHA plays a vital role in ensuring the above in partnership with the employers.

OSHA provides vital information as

1) Setting industry benchmarks work place safety

2) Provides workplace information (through the Bureau of Labor and Statistics ) with regards to violations, workplace related injuries , incidents and fatalities.

3) Provides workplace hazard alerts and recommendations to eliminate or reduce the hazards

4) OSHA also provides materials for training and education through digital platforms

5) Conducting audits , to ensure compliance of its standards and regulations.

A safe and secure working environment promotes a robust work culture which in turn ensures that the entity or company does not have any downtime and financial loss due to non-compliance of statutory regulations or due to work place incidents.

In order to boost productivity ,efficiency and reduce absenteeism among the personnel, HR plays an important role. Such can be achieved through providing fringe benefits (from providing group transportation to parking slots) , recognition of good work ( trough appraisals among others) , compensation as well as looking after the welfare of the employees.

A wellness program is primarily aimed at workplace disease prevention, such a program can be viewed as an investment by the employer, which helps the employer in two primary ways

1) Prevention of diseases which not only eases the financial burden of the employee , especially with soaring health care costs but also helps in reducing the premium of the employer.

2) Improves productivity , reduces absenteeism [2]

Several companies as Citibank , Bank of America among others have published sizeable benefits for implementing workplace wellness programs.

An engaged employee is an asset to the organization, in fact certain research shows that an engaged employee is 38% [3] more likely to have above average productivity.

   Any response or plan must have the following measures:

1) Update on daily news

2) Transmitting such news/ intelligence information over the company network and encouraging interaction

3) Empowering individuals / a core team to take decisions and ensuring sufficient support for such a team.

4) Communicating with the employees and providing contextual information and detailing the rationale behind any policies being implemented.[4]

5) Restriction on travel will place stain on the employees who need access to healthcare , education, sustenance so on and so forth. The HR may co-ordinate a network that may allow at the very least dissemination of information with regards to such activities.

6) A clear , cohesive and transparent policy with regards to the work from home . The objective of such a policy , it’s implementation and the expectation from the employees.

Such a plan may help in minimizing the disruptions to business operations whilst keeping the employees engaged.

  

[1] https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/16362-oshas-top-10-most-cited-violations-for-2017?page=2

[2] file:///C:/Users/avisek.bhattacharjee/Downloads/Baicker_2010.pdf

[3] https://www.connectsolutions.ch/blog/10-eye-opening-employee-productivity-statistics

[4] https://hbr.org/2020/02/lead-your-business-through-the-coronavirus-crisis