TOPIC 8: EMPLOYEE HEALTH

& SAFETY
 The Concepts
1. Health is defined as the state of complete
physical, mental and social wellbeing
• It is not merely the absence of diseases
2. Safety is the relative freedom from or
protection against hazards
• A person is said to be safe, if he or she is
free from physical harm.
 The Concepts
• Generally, employee health and safety are
outcomes of interaction of an individual
and his/her environment.
• The study of employee health and safety
is therefore concerned with:
 The prevention and maintenance of
physical, mental and social wellbeing of
employees in organizations.
 The Concepts
Physical health v/s mental health
• Physical health is concerned with bodily
and biological health
• Mental health is concerned with mental
soundness and emotional stability
 Importance of employee H&S
• The importance of employee H&S bases
on the effects of poorly managed H&S as
follows:
 Industrial unrest and disputes
 Low and poor production
 More accidents
 Costly
 Poor organizational reputation
 Protection of Employee H&S
1. Preventive measures:
• Pre-employment medical examination
• Periodic post-employment medical examination
• Removal of hazardous conditions to the possible
extent
• Emergency treatment in case of accident
• Education on health, safety and first aid
• Proper job and workplace design
2. Curative measures:
• Adequate and timely medical treatment
• Adequate compensation
Management of Physical Welfare
The common tools/approaches:
1. Health and Safety policy:
 Should state the management attitude
and commitment to health and safety
 Should specify the responsibilities and
accountabilities for health and safety
 Should show the operational
arrangement for health and safety issues
 Management Physical Welfare
 Should reflect the hazards and risks that are
available in the workplace (as per the results of
risk assessment)
2. Risk assessment
 A risk assessment is a thorough look at a
workplace to identify those things, situations,
processes, etc that may cause harm, particularly
to people and deciding the measures to be
taken to effectively prevent or control the harm
from happening.
Management Physical Welfare
 Importantly, risk assessment should:
Concentrate on predicting industrial
accidents
Propose the ways for dealing with
industrial hazards basing on cost-benefit
models
 Management Physical Welfare
3. Making the work place safe:
 Proper workplace and job design
 Modification and/removal of all old equipment and
machinery
 Provision of necessary safety gears
4. Enabling employees to work safely:
 They must exactly know what to do
 They should be persuaded to comply with the safe
working procedures
 They must understand the nature of hazards at the
workplace
 They must be aware of the safety rules and
procedures.
 Management of Stress and
Emotional Welfare
• Stress is a condition or feeling
experienced when a person perceives that
the demand put on him/her exceeds the
personal and social resources he/she can
mobilize
• It is a psychological condition experienced
when individuals feel unable to cope with
demands being made on them
 Management of Stress and
Emotional Welfare
Workplace Sources of Stress
i. Task and role demands
ii. Role ambiguity
iii. Role conflict
iv. Interpersonal demands
v. Organizational structure (excessive rules,
unclear jurisdiction, lack of participation etc)
vi. Organizational leadership
 Management of Stress and
Emotional Welfare
viii. Organizational life stage
Managing stress: orgnal approaches
 Proper employee selection and placement
 Training
 Goal setting (clear tasks and provide feedback)
 Job redesigning
 Communication clarity
 Clarity of authority and responsibility
relationships
 Management of Stress and
Emotional Welfare
Harassment at work
• It is any unwanted conduct that has effect
of violating dignity or creating a
threatening, hostile, degrading, humiliating
and offensive environment.
• There is no fixed list of what is or is not
harassment because it is defined by the
recipient of the behaviour
 Management of Stress and
Emotional Welfare
• However, the following are good
examples:
 Offensive jokes
 Offensive gestures
 Offensive physical contact
 Sexual favours
 Social isolation
 Management of Stress and
Emotional Welfare
Dignity at work policy
• Dignity at work policy is a policy designed
to cover all types of harassment in work
places
• Reasons of having a dignity policy:
 To set boundaries of employee behaviour
 To create an environment in which
employees feel safe
 Management of Stress and
Emotional Welfare
 To create an open and transparent
environment
 To encourage employees to report
incidents and potential harassers
 To provide the procedures to be followed
in cases of harassment