HRM Chapter 11: A Safe and Healthy Work Environment

A Safe and Healthy Work Environment

• Identity theft is a major concern in the 21st century, with losses totaling $52.6 billion and affecting 9.3 million people each year.
• Identity thieves are now targeting job hunters who have posted their resumes on websites.

The Nature and Role of Safety and Health

• Safety refers to protecting employees from injuries caused by work-related accidents.
• Health refers to employees' freedom from physical or emotional illness.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

• Created in 1970 to ensure worker safety and health in the US.
• Aims to work with employers and employees to create better working environments.
• Requires employers to provide a safe and healthy workplace and extends to providing safe employees.

General Duty Clause

• Employers have a responsibility to furnish a workplace free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm.

Current Mission of OSHA

• Reduce occupational hazards through direct intervention.
• Promote a safe and healthy culture through compliance assistance, cooperative programs, and strong leadership.
• Maximize OSHA's effectiveness and efficiency by strengthening its capabilities and infrastructure.

OSHA's Changing Role

• Give employers a choice between partnership and traditional enforcement.
• Inject common sense into regulation and enforcement.
• Eliminate red tape.

Possible Financial Penalties

• Serious hazard citation has a maximum penalty of $7,000.
• Willful citation has a maximum penalty of $70,000 per violation.
• If multiple employees are exposed to a hazard, the penalty amount can jump to $700,000.

Those Who Repeatedly Violate Health and Safety Standards

• Authorized stricter enforcement measures.
• Increase oversight of firms that have received high-gravity citations.
• Mount criminal prosecutions against employers where fatalities are involved.

OSHA Inspection

• Average employer is unlikely to see an OSHA inspector unless an employee instigates an inspection.
• 70% of OSHA inspections resulted from employee complaints.
• Employer has the option to deny inspector access to the work site and requires a warrant.

Employee Can Legally Refuse to Work When

• Employee reasonably fears death, disease, or serious physical harm.
• Harm is imminent.
• There is too little time to file an OSHA complaint and get the problem corrected.
• The employee has notified the employer about the condition and requested correction, but the employer has not taken action.

Perceptions of OSHA

• Have not always been positive.
• OSHA has overcome most of the past criticisms.
• 87% of workers and employers rated OSHA staff professionalism, competence, and knowledge as satisfactory.

Safety: Economic Impact

• Job-related deaths and injuries extract a high toll in terms of human misery.
• Significant costs are passed along to the consumer.
• Everyone is affected, directly or indirectly, by deaths and injuries.

Focus of Safety Programs

• Unsafe employee actions: Create a psychological environment and employee attitudes that promote safety.
• Unsafe working conditions: Develop and maintain a safe physical working environment.

Reasons for Management Support of Safety Programs

• Personal loss.
• Financial loss to injured employees.
• Lost productivity.
• Higher insurance premiums.
• Possibility of fines and imprisonment.
• Social responsibility.

Developing a Safety Program

• Job hazard analysis: Key to determining and implementing the necessary controls, procedures, and training.
• Superfund Amendments Reauthorization Act (SARA): Requires businesses to communicate more openly about hazards associated with materials they use and produce, and wastes they generate.

Evaluation of Safety Programs

• Reduction in the frequency and severity of injuries and illnesses.
• Effective reporting system is needed.

Repetitive Stress Injuries (RSI)

• Caused by placing too much stress on joints, resulting in conditions such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS).

Ergonomics

• Study of human interaction with tasks, equipment, tools, and physical environment.
• Congress and OSHA have worked to develop new ergonomics standards.
• Ergonomics payoff: Clear payoff in using ergonomics.

Workplace Violence

• Vulnerable employees: Those who work in high-risk jobs, such as gas stations, liquor stores, and taxi drivers.
• Vulnerable organizations: Those with a history of labor/management disputes, frequent grievances, and large numbers of workers' compensation claims.
• Legal consequences: Negligent hiring and retention.

Preventive Actions

• Ban weapons on company property.
• Require employees to submit to weapons searches or examinations for mental fitness for work.
• Policy of zero tolerance toward violence or threats of violence.
• Have employees report all suspicious or violent activity.

Domestic Violence

• Spillover from domestic violence is an unexpected threat in the workplace.
• Costs employers $3 to $5 billion annually in higher turnover, lower productivity, and health and safety expenses.

Nature of Stress

• Body's nonspecific reaction to any demand made on it.
• Potential consequences: Diseases, even leading to suicide.
• Stressful jobs: Lack of employee control over work.

Managing Stress

• Exercise.
• Follow good diet habits.
• Know when to pull back.
• Put stressful situations into perspective.
• Find someone who will listen.
• Establish structure in your life.
• Recognize your own limitations.
• Be tolerant.
• Pursue outside diversions.
• Avoid artificial control.

Burnout

• Individuals lose sense of basic purpose and fulfillment of work.
• Costs: Reduced productivity, higher turnover.
• Individuals in helping professions are most susceptible to burnout.
• Danger: It is contagious!

Wellness Programs

• Traditional view of health is changing.
• Optimal health can be achieved through environmental safety, organizational changes, and healthy lifestyles.
• Firm conducts needs assessment to find appropriate health needs.
• Chronic lifestyle diseases are prevalent today.

Physical Fitness Programs

• Most commonly offered in-house corporate wellness programs.
• Efforts to promote exercise and fitness.
• Reduce absenteeism, accidents, and sick pay.

Substance Abuse

• Involves use of illegal substances or misuse of controlled substances.
• 40% of workplace fatalities and 47% of workplace injuries are related to alcohol consumption.
• Half of those who test positive for drugs in the workplace report using drugs on a daily basis.

Substance Abuse Free Workplace

• Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988 requires federal contractors and grantees to provide drug-free workplaces.
• Steps to establishing a substance abuse free workplace: Establish a drug and alcohol-free policy, provide education and training, implement a drug-testing program, and create an employee assistance program.

Signs of Possible Substance Abuse

• Excessive absenteeism.
• Radical mood swings.
• Decline in personal appearance.
• Smell of alcohol or other physical evidence of substance abuse.
• Accident proneness and multiple workers' compensation claims.
• Lack of coordination.
• Psychomotor agitation or retardation.
• Thought disturbances.
• Grandiosity or a sense of profound thought.
• Other indicators.

Employee Assistance Programs (EAP)

• Comprehensive approach to deal with problem areas such as burnout, alcohol and drug abuse, and other emotional disturbances.
• Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988 requires access to EAPs for federal employees and employees of firms with government contracts.

Smoke-Free Workplaces

• Secondhand smoke can increase the risk of cancer.
• Workplace smoking is hazardous to employees' health and detrimental to the firm's financial health.
• Some states ban smoking in the workplace.
• Some business owners have taken a personal stand against smoking.

A Global Perspective: Global Safety Programs

• Global companies face global safety risks.
• Shift to a single safety management system that applies to all operations throughout the world.
• Easier to teach someone the company's global standards than the local mores.