JOB SAFETY AND HEALTH

DEFINITION OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH:

Since 1950, the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have shared a common definition of occupational health. It was adopted by the Joint ILO/WHO Committee on Occupational Health at its first session in 1950 and revised at its twelfth session in 1995. The definition reads: "Occupational health should aim at: the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations; the prevention amongst workers of departures from health caused by their working conditions; the protection of workers in their employment from risks resulting from factors adverse to health; the placing and maintenance of the worker in an occupational environment adapted to his physiological and psychological capabilities; and, to summarize, the adaptation of work to man and of each man to his job."

NEED FOR MORE RESEARCH ON HEALTH AND SAFETY OF EMPLOYEES:

Compared to other elements of the HRM model, workplace health and safety is under-researched by HRM scholars and has been largely neglected in the HRM discourse. This is one reason – together with the rising cost of health, new laws and the ‘deregulatory’ proposals – why more research should be devoted to workplace health and safety by HRM specialists. However, there is another important reason why HRM scholars and practitioners need to pay more attention to health and safety. It is this: If strategic HRM means anything, it must encompasses the development and promotion of a set of health and safety policies to protect the organization’s most valued asset, its employees.

THE CHANGING APPROACH TO WORKPLACE HEALTH AND SAFETY:

The traditional approach to safety in the workplace used the ‘careless worker’ model. It was assumed by most employer and the accident prevention bodies that most of the accidents were due to an employee’s

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failure to take safety seriously or to protect herself or himself. The implication of this is that work can be made safe simply by changing the behavior of employees by poster campaigns and accident prevention training.

In the 1960s, something like a thousand employees was killed at their work in the UK. Every year of that decade about 500,000 employees suffered injuries in varying degrees of severity, and 23 million working days were lost annually on account of industrial injury and disease. Such statistics led investigators to argue that ‘for both humanitarian and economic reasons, no society can accept with complacency that such levels of death, injury and disease and waste must be regarded as the inevitable price of meeting its needs for goods and services’ (Robens, 1972). Since the Robens report, there has been a growing interest in occupational health and safety. Moreover, it has been recognized that the ‘careless worker’ model does not explain occupational ill-health caused by toxic substances, noise, and badly designed and unsafe of work. Nor does this perspective highlight the importance of job stress, fatigue and poor working environments in contributing to the causes of accidents. A new approach to occupational health and safety, the ‘shared responsibility’ model, assumes that the best way to reduce levels of occupational accidents and disease relies on the cooperation of both employers and employees: a ‘self-generating effort’ between ‘those who create the risks and those who work with them’ (Robens, 1972).

HEALTH AND SAFETY AND THE HRM CYCLE:

The employer has a duty to maintain a healthy and safe workplace. The health and safety function is directly related to the elements of the HRM cycle – selection, appraisal, rewards and training. Health and safety considerations and policy can affect the selection process in two ways. It is safe to assume that in the recruitment process potential applicants will be more likely to be attracted to an organization that has a reputation for offering a healthy and safe work environment for employees. The maintenance of a healthy and safe workplace can be facilitated in the selection process by selecting applicants with personality traits that decrease the likelihood of accident. The appraisal of a manager’s performance that incorporates the safety record of a department or section can also facilitate health and safety. Research suggests that safety programs are more effective when the accident rates of their sections are an important criterion of managerial performance. Safe work behavior can be encouraged by a reward

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system that ties bonus payments to the safety record of a work group or section. Some organizations also provide prizes to their employees for safe work behavior, a good safety record or suggestions to improve health and safety. Training and HR development play a critical role in promoting health and safety awareness among employees.

COSTS OF HEALTH AND SAFETY OF EMPLOYEES:

Workplace health and safety raises the question of economic costs. The economic cost of occupational health and safety to the organization is double-edged. On the one hand, health and safety measures which protect employees from the hazards of the workplace can conflict with management’s objective of containing production costs. On the other hand, effective health and safety policies can improve the performance of employees and the organization, by reducing costs associated with accidents, disabilities, absenteeism, or illness.

There are also indirect costs associated with work-related accidents. The indirect costs include overtime payments necessary to make up for lost production, cost of retaining a replacement employee, a wage cost for the time spent by HRM personnel recruiting, selecting and training the new employee and, in less typical cases and the cost associated with loss of revenue on orders cancelled or lost if the accident causes a net long-term reduction on sales.

A healthy and safe work environment helps to reduce costs and improve organizational effectiveness. If work-related illness and accidents can be transposed on to the balance sheet the organization can apply the same management effort and creativity to designing and maintaining a healthy and safe workplace as managers customarily apply to other facets of the business. As Robens stated ‘accident prevention can be integrated into the overall economic activity of the firm’ (1972).

THE IMPORTANCE OF HEALTH AND SAFETY:

In addition to improving and reducing costs, maintaining a healthy and safe work environment helps to facilitate employees’ commitment to quality and improve industrial relations. One of the side effects of a proactive health and safety policy is that it leads to improved productivity

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and quality. Collard (1989) reports that in two foreign companies studies, a CAP (cost and productivity) program was continually emphasized by top management and ‘one major aspect of this was the highest standards of housekeeping’ (19849). Further it is argued that employee and union-management relations can be improved when employers satisfy their employees’ health and safety needs.

In some cases, new provisions covering health and safety have been negotiated into collective agreements. When employers take a greater responsibility for occupational health and safety it can change employee behavior and employees might take a less militant stance during wage bargaining if management pay attention to housekeeping. Attention to workplace health and safety can have a strong, positive effect on employee commitment. When employees work in healthy and safe workplace, higher levels of motivation, performance and loyalty will result.

LAWS OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY:

Pakistan, at present, like many developing countries of the world, does not have comprehensive occupational health and safety laws. The incidence of injuries and illnesses is probably very high in Pakistan because thousands of workers are routinely exposed to hazardous chemicals and many more work in hazardous industries such as construction and agriculture. However, there is no reliable data on occupational safety and health injuries and illnesses because a majority of accidents are not reported to the regulatory agencies. The regulatory agencies do not have an effective enforcement policy or strict requirements for reporting injuries and illness at workplaces.

An overview of current laws/regulations related to occupational safety and health shows that there are several laws on the book, such as Factories Act, 1934; Provincial Factories Rules; Hazardous Occupations Rules, 1963; Mines Act, 1923; West Pakistan Shops and Establishments Ordinance, 1969; Provincial Employees Social Security Ordinance, 1965; Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923 and Dock Laborers Act, 1934.

The current regulations are, however, fragmented and there is no single comprehensive piece of legislation dealing with occupational safety and health. There is no formal legislative process for setting up new standards, codes of practice and occupational exposure limits.

Whatever exists on the book is frequently hampered with repeated martial laws. The current outdated Factories Act, established in 1934,

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requires only a very basic level of safety and health measures. There are no guidelines for minimum qualifications or employment of health and safety professionals in the industry. Several important sectors, such as agriculture, construction and informal/self-employed are not even covered under any law.

Although, several occupational diseases, such as anthrax, Byssinosis, compressed air illness, poisoning by lead tetraethyl, poisoning by nitrous fumes, lead poisoning, phosphorus poisoning, mercury poisoning, poisoning by benzene & homologues, chrome ulceration, arsenic poisoning, pathological disorders due to X-rays, radium or radioactive materials, primary epithliomatous cancer of skin, silicosis, etc., are covered under theSocial Security Ordinance and Workmen’s Compensation Act but the reporting mechanism is so poor that very few get the benefits.

TERMINOLOGIES USED IN OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH:

The terminology used in OSH varies between states, but generally speaking: * A hazard is something that can cause harm if not controlled. * The outcome is the harm that results from an uncontrolled hazard. * A risk is a combination of the probability that a particular outcome will occur and the severity of the harm involved.

“Hazard”, “risk”, and “outcome” are used in other fields to describe e.g. environmental damage, or damage to equipment. However, in the context of OSH, “harm” generally describes the direct or indirect degradation, temporary or permanent, of the physical, mental, or social well-being of workers. For example, repetitively carrying out manual handling of heavy objects is a hazard. The outcome would be a musculoskeletal disorder (MSD). The risk can be expressed numerically, (e.g. a 0.5 or 50/50 chance of the outcome occurring during a year), qualitatively as "high/medium/low", or using a more complicated classification scheme.

COMMON WORKPLACE HAZARDS:

Chemical agents, include solvents Biological agents

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Psychosocial issues include: Work related stress, whose causal factors include excessive working

time and overwork Violence from outside the organization Bullying (sometimes called mobbing) which may include emotional,

verbal, and Sexual harassmentOther issues include:

Reproductive hazards Work environment factors, such as temperature, humidity, lighting,

welfare Avoidance of musculoskeletal disorders by the employment of good

ergonomic design Particulate inhalation

Prevention of fire often comes within the remit of health and safety professionals as well.

ROLE OF MANAGEMENT IN IMPROVING WORKPLACE SAFETY AND HEALTH:

Perhaps more than any other HR activity, health and safety offer HR manager an opportunity to be more proactive than reactive. This, if ineffective action followed, would increase the HRM department’s contribution to improving the health and safety of the organization’s employees. There are a number of strategies that can be used by organizations to ensure a healthy and safe workplace and ensure compliance with legal requirements. Some are:

Design Safe and healthy systems of workExhibit Strong management commitmentInspect Workplace for health and safety problems

Establish Procedures and controls for dealing with health and safety issues

Develop Training programsSet up Health and safety committees

Monitor Safety policiesDraw up Action plan and checklist

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Design safer systems of work:The most direct approach to ensuring a safe and healthy workplace is

to design systems of work that are safe and without risk to health. This can often only be done satisfactorily at the design, planning or purchasing stage. It may be far more difficult to modify existing machinery or systems of work to eliminate or reduce hazards, than at the investment stage. Thus, management must take cognizance of long-term organizational changes to control hazards. Simply trying to persuade employees, for instance by poster campaigns, to adapt their behavior to unsafe systems of work is unacceptable. ‘Most accidents involve an element of failure in control – in other words failure in management skill. A guiding principle when drawing up arrangements for securing health and safety should be so far as possible work would be adapted to people and not vice versa’. As managers identify processes, machines and substances that are hazardous to the health and well-being of employees, they must modify the process to eliminate or reduce the hazard and risk ‘at source’. The provision of protective equipment is the typical means used by organizations to reduce physical hazards, and it is also an employer responsibility.

Exhibit commitment:No matter how much activity on health and safety is initiated by HR

professionals, health and safety should be an integral part of every manager’s responsibility, from the chief executive officer down to the lowest level supervisor. Anything less than total support from top management raises questions about sincerity of the organization’s commitment in the eyes of employees, government agencies and the public at large. To exhibit commitment, managers’ salaries and promotion might be tied to a satisfactory safety record and compliance. Larger organizations have also appointed specialists in the area, including health and safety officers, safety engineer and medical technicians. If the safety officer is to be effective she or he must be given adequate authority in the management hierarchy to implement changes.

Inspect the workplace:Another proactive approach to the management of health and safety is

regular formal inspections of the workplace, regular monitoring of the work environment and regular physical examination of employees. For example, construction sites and manufacturing plants require regular inspections to check the application of safety standards and relevant laws. Organizations

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may monitor a wide range of matters relating to employees’ health, from routine eye tests and chest X-rays to screening for breast and cervical cancer and incidents of infertility and abnormal childbirths. A ‘health’ survey of employees can also help identify hazardous and unhealthy processes.

We can identify three main types of formal inspection, accident, special and general. Accident inspections will follow an accident or dangerous incident in the workplace. Special inspections might concentrate on a particular work station, system of work or hazard. The safety committee might decide that it is necessary to examine the training of fork-lift truck operators or dust problems; this would be the first step in a plan of action. A comprehensive survey of the entire workplace is the purpose of general inspection.

Establish procedures and controls:A healthy and safety policy is likely to fail unless there are effective

procedures and controls established. The procedures for handling and safety problems need to meet some basic requirements:

1. Allow employees and union representatives to talk directly to the managers who can make decisions.

2. Operate without undue delay.3. Be able to handle emergency problems and4. Permit discussion about long-term decisions affecting health and

safety.

Clearly, these recommendations have important implications for HRM policy and action. Problems might occur if line managers are expected by senior management to be responsible for safe working practices, but at the same time are denied the authority to make decisions and implement changes. In principle, organizational procedures should ensure that the responsibility of each level of management to make decisions. The appointment of a safety officer may be a necessary prerequisite to establishing effective procedures and controls, but it is not sufficient. The position must be placed into the management hierarchy with clear lines of reporting and accountability, which will enable procedures for raising problems to operate without undue delay and avoid other managers absolving themselves from responsibilities.

Develop training programs:One way to obtain compliance with health and safety regulations is

through enhancing employees’ knowledge, understanding and commitment,

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which can be achieved through healthy and safety programs. The purpose of safety training is generally the same as that of any other training program: to improve job knowledge and skills and to ensure optimum employee performance at the specified level. In health and safety training, specified performance standards include attention to safety rules and regulations regarding safe work behavior. Like any other training, health and safety training should be developed systematically. First, problems or training needs are identified by inspection, by accident reports, and through discussion at the health and safety committee. Next, planning, execution and evaluation of the training take place. Top management support is a key ingredient in the availability and success of health and safety training.

Set up health and safety committees:When health committees are not initiated by the union, organization

often have safety committees which have employee members and are chaired by the safety or HRM specialist. Making the committee effective is mainly in the realm of senior management. A safety committee may develop into a ‘talking shop’ with no effective decision-making authority. To avoid this, a senior member of management team, with executive authority, should be a member of the committee.

The functions of the committees, their terms of reference, depends on individual company policy, relevant safety legislation and the employee-union relations situation. Employers or their representatives are primarily responsible for compliance with health and safety laws. The existence of this committee does not diminish the employer’s duty to ensure a healthy and safe workplace. The work of the safety committee should supplement management’s arrangements for regular and effective monitoring for health and safety precautions; it cannot be a substitute for management action. All forms of safety matters reduce the incidence of accidents.

Monitor policySafety specialists argue that the safety policy should reflect the

employer’s commitment to develop safe systems of work, and to pursue a healthy work environment. Apart from giving details of the specialist safety services provided by the organization, the safety policy also outlines the safety responsibilities of all levels of management within the hierarchy. This part of the safety policy is particularly important for identifying which member of the management hierarchy should be involved when a health and safety problem arises in the workplace. A proactive approach would involve HRM professionals regularly checking to ensure that safety policy;

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management procedures and arrangements work, and are changed to suit new developments or work structures in the workplace.

Draw up action planThorough preparation, including designing a comprehensive set of

checklists covering all aspects of the workplace, is essential if managers are to discover physical hazards. HRM professionals can be more proactive in the area of health and safety be developing an action plan and checklist.

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