CASE ONE: ROK BUILDING-The Southampton Job Centre Plus contract

I. Overview

This case study is about the actions that employers can make to improve their

worker’s health and safety in the workplace. Some problems and solutions were

also raised on how to give the employees a positive workplace atmosphere. Health

and Safety standards for the workers were given priority in this study.

II. Executive Summary

The owners of Rok Building, a construction company, decided to put

importance on the need of health and safety standards while conducting a certain
project. It is because while the construction is on going, some other works like
decanting, fixtures and fitting. The building must have control on noises and
disturbance and must keep other parts of the building be accessible to the public.
The logistics of receiving lorries or trucks and unloading of goods at the site,
material storage and distribution to each floors, working at height and out-of-hours
working, were also part of the concerns of the health and safety standards.

Some steps were made to ensure the heath and safety of the workers. They
planned the detailed layout of the site to make sure that their employees are strictly
following the site health and safety system from day one, they had a road closed to
allow a one-way system for deliveries.

Induction was also became a way to inform new employees about the health
and safety system. All workers are required to attend a whole day training to get a
safety passport for DWP Job Centre Plus site. The site manager also used this as
an opportunity to have a conversation with the employees to know what were the
health and safety condition on their last job or to have insights from the employees
that can help improve their health and safety system.

Communication is also an important factor to have a safe workplace. The

employers should have communication with the workers to ensure that they
understood certain messages. To communicate to the workforce some methods
were used such as providing Hazard board, Information points, Targeted toolbox
talks, and Working well together roadshow. Hazard boards record new, ongoing
and significant hazards specific to a site - along with information on how those
hazards are controlled. It is used to draw attention to health and safety hazards,
to point out hazards that may not be obvious, and to provide general information
and directions. Information points on each floor were also provided. It is a board
placed on each floor which provides the information needed by the workforce.
Targeted toolbox talks are for those who are involved in higher risk activities. This
involves a DVD or a representative from the manufacturer to deliver the talk.
Working Well Together roadshow involves bringing in a range of manufacturers
and service providers to demonstrate best practice. The Rok practice is to visit
their site everyday and talk to their workers to know if there are new problems to
be encountered. One of the example is when their worker asked if they can wear

shorts due to the hot weather. This issue was discussed as soon as possible and

they end up to approve their request but still keeping them safe by removing
hazards that can harm them while their working wearing shorts. It is also
important to have a positive atmosphere at work. Employees who genuinely enjoy
their work are more productive, happier, and more successful. This increases
self-confidence and inspires greater performance and greater success for both
employee and employer. The project manager stated that it is important to be
approachable at work so they feel able to challenge him and he can encourage
them to contribute and take ownership on the health and safety systems on the site.
As a result a positive working environment explained by a worker as a “good
welfare, good safety standards and good working conditions.”
III. Introduction

Rok plc was a British construction company, based in Exeter, a cathedral city
in Devon, England. The company, which began as Exeter Building Contractors
Ltd, was formed in 1939 to take on government contracts at the start of the Second
World War. This company became EBC Group, and was relaunched as Rok in
2001, with the slogan ”The Nation's Local Builder”.

Rok's largest acquisition was in 2006, when they bought Inverness-based

Tulloch Construction for £31.3 million, with Tulloch's 875 staff transferred to Rok.
This included The Corrie Group, Tulloch's engineering, plumbing and electrical
division. Rok went into administration in November 2010, after reporting a £3.8
million loss for the first half of the year. Rok's affordable housing and construction
businesses were bought by Balfour Beatty for £7 million. Balfour Beatty said the
businesses and 381 employees would become part of Mansell, its regional
construction business.

The owners of the company saw the need to conduct health and safety system
during their project because of some problems. Their main problem is how to keep
their building accessible for the general public while having an on going
construction and on how to control the noise and disturbance to live operational
areas. Another problems are logistics receiving of trucks and unloading of goods at
the site, and the distribution of materials to each floor, controlling slips and trips,
working at height and out-of-hours working. And this case study will help provide
solutions for the enumerated problems.

IV. Analysis

There are several problems that made the employer prioritize the health and
safety system for the employees. First is the security and access inside the building.
This can affect the people who wants to enter the building. They also encounter a
problem about the roadway for the deliveries and the distribution of materials
which can cause delay on their work. Unloading goods is another circumstance
that affect the workers and also the safety within the site. Storage and distribution
of materials also became hard for the employers to control. The employer also
wants to minimize accidents like slips and trips especially when working at height
or out-of-hour working. Solutions were also provided to lessen the effects of these
problems. The project manager provided a detailed layout of the site to ensure that
the workers were aware and strictly following the health and safety system in the
workplace. They managed to implement a road closure to provide a one-way
system so that the goods’ delivery and distribution of material will not be that hard.
They also used their canteen or cafeteria as a central information centre which
made it easier to give everyone awareness about the latest safety initiatives.
Another problem was raised while the project manager was having an inspection
in the site, some worker asked if they can wear shorts while working due to the hot
weather. The management discussed the problem immediately because they need
to consider several things before making a decision especially the safety of the
workers. But after a brief discussion they decided to give the workers the right to
wear shorts while working but they removed relevant hazards to make sure that
their workers could do their work with comfort but at the same time they can do it
safely.

V. Alternatives and Design Criteria

Employees may be motivated on the job by many things, such as a sense of

achievement, recognition, enjoyment of the job, promotion opportunities,
responsibility, and the chance for personal growth. Employee motivation and
performance are tied directly to the style of management that is applied and to
principles of positive or negative reinforcement. Employee engagement is the level
of commitment and involvement an employee has towards their organization and
its values. An engaged employee is aware of business context, and works with
colleagues to improve performance within the job for the benefit of the
organization. It is a positive attitude held by the employees towards the
organization and its values. The paper focuses on how employee engagement is an
antecedent of job involvement and what should company do to make the
employees engaged.

There are ways to ensure that workers are following the safety procedures.
These are Create a Plan for Improving Health and Safety, Inspect Your Workplace,
Train Your Employees, Keep an Open Dialogue, Investigate Accidents, Maintain
Records.

VI. Recommendation and Implementation of Plan

New information sets ought to be developed that comprise targeted facts on

workers' employment histories and the specific demands of their jobs,
as well as objective records on the health and security dangers to people in the job.
If price makes it not possible to create a nationally representative,
survey focused on place of work health and safety, a less luxurious alternative is to
create a new longitudinal statistics set the use of a comfort sample in
which information gathering is much less luxurious.

Ongoing longitudinal surveys (for example, the Health and Retirement Study
and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics) have to both make
bigger the facts they acquire on fitness and safety chance factors of the place of
business or boost periodic modules to do so. Many older workers have existing
chronic illness or disorder and disease risk factors that are under various levels of
personal and clinical management and control, including mental illnesses or
disorders. Research is needed on how potentially adverse workplace
exposures—physiochemical, biological, biomechanical, and psychosocial—affect
the status, control, and outcomes of these chronic conditions. Make safety your top
priority. Job site safety should be placed above everything else: costs, productivity,
time lines, etc. Your employees are your number one asset, proving to them that
their safety is your top concern on every project instills confidence and builds trust.
Properly training your workers is the easiest way to help improve your company’s
safety culture. It shows your workers that you are committed to keeping them safe
and healthy. Put together a safety committee that includes employees from all
levels of your business. They should be involved in reviewing and updating your
company’s safety program, crafting job site-specific safety plans during the pre
construction phase of each project and helping identify potential hazards and
safety concerns. Everyone who steps foot on the job site is responsible for safety,
not just your safety managers and those in charge. Workers should know that
unsafe practices put not only themselves in danger, but those around them. Make
sure safety rules are clearly defined and explained to everyone on the site and that
the consequences for failing to follow the rules will be strictly enforced. Jobsites
should be inspected before and after each workday to address any safety concerns
such as tools left lying around or damaged equipment. Job sites should also be
inspected throughout the day to identify any potential hazards and monitor
workers to make sure they are working safely.

VII. Conclusion

Accidents are costly to the individuals, families, their organizations and the
nation as a whole. Creating a healthy and safe workplace is therefore crucial. For
this reason, occupational health and safety is important to everyone. Employers
and workers should help each other to prevent accidents. Accident prevention
starts with effective internal responsibility system for occupational health and
safety. Construction should be stimulated to benchmark its safety practices and
performances against other industries, and greater opportunity should be taken to
learn from failures, with implementation of accident investigation procedures in
order to reveal contributing factors earlier in the causal chain. As the world has
become smaller through technology and through cooperative, border-crossing
arrangements, construction worker safety has become a concern that is shared
worldwide. Because construction safety problems are very similar from country to
country, they can be addressed and solved on a global scale. Solutions to safety
problems in one country can, in this regard, readily be adopted in other countries
to generate further improvements.
VIII. Citing Sources

Silawve GW. Management of Human Resources in the Copper Mining Industry of

Zambia. Mission Press, Ndola, 1995.

Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines Safety Policy Occupational Zambia

Consolidated Copper Mines Safety Policy Occupational Health and Safety Policy.
Falcon Press, Kitwe, 1997.

IX. References

https://www.sitesafe.org.nz/products-and-services/posters-signage/

https://m.indiamart.com/proddetail/safety-sign-boards-12572471788.html

https://www.inc.com/rhett-power/10-reasons-why-it-is-important-create-a-happy-

workplace.html
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256027874_Employee_Engagement_and
_Motivation_A_Case_Study

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207711/

https://www.constructconnect.com/blog/6-ways-improve-construction-companys-s
afety-culture