Question

Give more details / explanation about the below three most common of these circumstances include the following:

1. Where the harm is the result of reckless behavior by an employee.

2. Where it is physically or economically impossible for the employer to comply with a safety requirement.

3. Where compliance with a requirement presents a greater harm than not complying (greater hazard defense).

** I need the answer with computer typing..

Course: Employee Relations

Answer 1

I assume there is no preceding paragraph which has been missed out here, and that these three questions are independent questions to be answered with the knowledge of employee relations.

Let us now get to your questions, where I will give you guidelines along which you can elaborate further for your actual answer.

1. Where the harm is the result of reckless behavior by an employee.

This is a common case which occurs in many organizations, typically where they have to employ field force. For example, if you consider a bank, their most important source of income is through loans. Now, once the loans are disbursed, there will always be a certain percentage of people who default. In order to ensure money is collected from everyone, there might be collection agents employed. Now, it is impossible for the bank to ensure proper and professional behaviour of all of their collection agents. If a collection agent manhandles a customer to collect dues, it can result in severe tarnishing of the brand in the eyes of the public, as it tends to go viral on all forms of social media. The amount of resources that will be required to correct this kind of an issue will be far more than the incremental income which would have arisen from that customer. You can have multiple such cases around. The best way to handle this is to have a "no tolerance" policy for reckless behaviour, so that collateral damage is minimized.

2. Where it is physically or economically impossible for the employer to comply with a safety requirement.

The examples can be many here. If you consider a Small Sized Industry, which employs ~200 people for its field force. Suppose the local regulations require all of its employees to wear Grade 1 helmets while on their motorbikes, this could be tricky if the field force is not paid well (if they are not part of the developed world). This then tends to form a fairly significant portion of their wages, and they might not absorb this cost. At the same time, procuring so many grade 1 helmets might make it very difficult for the organization, as it will leave a huge hole in their balance sheets. This requires careful handling and, often, it might not make sense to operate in such an environment.

3. Where compliance with a requirement presents a greater harm than not complying (greater hazard defense).

This is a situation where careful negotiations, talks and mediation is required at the upper echelons of the various committees/government/corporate leadership teams. For example, if there is a regulation which is required by the government (say, to wear a certain type of chemical masks), which actually causes more harm to its employees than good, it does not make sense to comply with it just for the sake of doing so. It will only result in irreversible damage being done in the long term. Such regulations are bound to be reversed later as they will receive backlash once people see light of the matter. It makes sense and is more pragmatic to ensure these regulations are brought down/modified with the right level of talks.