Employee Safety and Health

1
Employee Safety and Health
2
Safety, Health, and Competitive Advantage

• Reduce Costs
• Costs of workplace illnesses and injuries
• Medical and insurance costs
• Workers compensation
• Survivor benefits
• Lost wages
• Damaged equipment and materials
• Production delays
• Other workers time losses
• Selection and training costs for replacement
  workers
• Accident reporting

3
Safety, Health, and Competitive Advantage

• Programs designed to minimize health problems can
  create cost advantages by
• Reducing absenteeism
• Reducing turnover
• Reducing medical costs
• Increasing productivity
• All of these things will help a company reduce
  costs and gain competitive advantage.

4
Government Regulation

• The Occupational Safety and Health Act (1970)
• Employee Right-to-Know Law (1984)
• The Americans with Disabilities Act (1990)

5
Occupational Safety and Health Act 1970

• Act aims to ensure safe working conditions for
  every American worker
• Sets and enforces workplace safety standards
• Promotes employer-sponsored educational programs
  that foster safety and health
• Requires employers to keep records regarding
  job-related safety and health matters

6
Occupational Safety and Health Act 1970

• Three separate agencies were created by the act.
• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration
  (OSHA)
• Develops and enforces health and safety standards
• The Occupational Safety and Health Review
  Commission
• Hears appeals from employers who wish to contest
  OSHA rulings
• The National Institute for Occupational Safety
  and Health
• Conducts health and safety research to suggest
  new standards and update previous ones

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Occupational Safety and Health Act 1970

• OSHA Standards
• Areas of basic concern
• Fire safety
• Personal protection equipment
• Electrical safety
• Basic housekeeping
• Machine guards

8
Occupational Safety and Health Act 1970

• Enforcement of OSHA Standards
• Inspection priority classifications
• Imminent danger
• Fatality of catastrophe investigations
• Employee complaint investigations
• Targeted industries
• Construction, shipbuilding, food processing,
  logging, and nursing homes

9
Hazard Communication Standard

• Employee Right-to-Know Law
• Congress enacted law in 1984.
• Gives workers the right to know what hazardous
  substances they are dealing with on the job.
• A substance is considered hazardous if exposure
  can lead to acute or chronic health problems.

10
Accidents and Accident Prevention

• Causes of workplace accidents
• Employee error
• Misjudged situations distractions by others
  neuromuscular malfunctions inappropriate working
  positions and knowingly using defective
  equipment
• Equipment insufficiency
• Use of inappropriate equipment safety devices
  being removed or inoperative and the lack of
  such things as engineering controls, respiratory
  protection, and protective clothing
• Procedure insufficiency
• Failure of procedure for eliciting warning or
  hazard inappropriate procedure for handling
  materials failure to lock out or tag out and
  the lack of written work procedures

11
Accident Prevention Strategies

• Employee selection
• High-risk personality characteristics
• Risk taking High risk-takers actually seek out
  danger rather than trying to minimize or avoid
  it.
• Impulsiveness Impulsive individuals fail to
  think through the consequences of their actions.
• Rebelliousness Rebellious individuals tend to
  break established rules, including safety rules.
• Hostility Hostile individuals tend to lose their
  tempers easily and thus engage in aggressive
  acts, such as kicking a jammed machine.

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Accident Prevention Strategies

• Employee training
• Training on safe and proper job procedures to
  reduce the number of accidents
• Safety incentive programs
• Aim to motivate safe behavior by providing
  workers with incentives for avoiding accidents
• Accident investigations
• Determine cause of accident so that changes can
  be made to prevent the future occurrence of
  similar accidents

13
Accident Prevention Strategies

• Safety committees
• Assist with inspections and accident
  investigations
• Conduct safety meetings
• Answer workers questions about safety programs
• Bring workers safety concerns to managements
  attention
• Help develop safety incentive programs
• Develop ideas to improve workplace safety
• Prepare evacuation plans
• Prepare procedures for disasters

14
Repetitive Motion Disorders

• Repetitive stress injuries that affect tendons
  and become inflamed from the strains and stress
  of repeated, forceful motions
• Types of repetitive motion disorders
• Carpal tunnel syndrome
• Synovitis
• Tendinitis
• Tenosynovitis
• Bursitis
• Raynauds Phenomenon

15
Repetitive Motion Disorders

• Organizational interventions
• Organizational strategies for dealing with
  repetitive motion disorders include
• Ergonomics
• Employee training
• Physical fitness training

16
Lower Back Disorders

• Ranks high as a leading health problem at the
  workplace.
• LBDs account for approximately one-fourth of all
  workdays lost in the U.S.
• In 1997, 2,700 ADA complaints were lodged at the
  EEOC based on claimants lower back disorders.
• Nationwide, back injuries cost employers between
  15 and 20 billion dollars per year.

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Lower Back Disorders

• Organizational interventions
• Prescreen individuals who either have existing
  back problems or are prone to develop such
  afflictions
• Job training to teach employees proper lifting
  techniques
• Fitness training to strengthen the lower back

18
AIDS

• Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a
  leading public health problem in the United
  States.
• Organizational interventions
• An employer cannot allow itself to be influenced
  by employee preferences and prejudices.
• An employer must hire and retain qualified
  HIV-infected victims unless the debilitating
  effects of the disease impede their job
  performance.
• An employer must educate employees about how the
  AIDS virus is transmitted (and how it is not
  transmitted).

19
Employee Wellness

• Seeks to eliminate certain debilitating health
  problems that can be caused by a persons poor
  lifestyle choices
• Examples of health problems include
• Cancer, heart disease, respiratory problems, and
  hypertension
• Examples of poor lifestyle choices include
• Smoking, poor nutrition, lack of exercise, and
  obesity
• These ailments can cause workplace problems such
  as
• Absenteeism, turnover, lost productivity, and
  increased medical costs

20
Employee Wellness

• Organizational interventions
• Employee wellness programs
• Physical fitness facilities
• On-site health screening
• Programs to help employees quit smoking
• Stress management
• Programs to help improve nutritional habits
• Employee wellness programs can be quite
  effective.
• Wellness programs must successfully enlist
  high-risk individuals.
• Employers must find ways to motivate high-risk
  individuals to participate.

21
Workplace Violence

• Most violent acts are committed by employees
  against
• Other employees
• Supervisors
• Customers
• Non-employees also commit violent acts at the
  workplace.

22
Workplace Violence

• Organizational interventions
• Workplace violence can cost employers a lot of
  money
• Victims medical and psychiatric care
• Repairs and clean-up
• Insurance rate hikes
• Increased security measures
• Increased absenteeism

23
Workplace Violence

• Legal test for determining employer liability
• It knew or should have known that a criminal act
  was probable.
• It could have reasonably protected the employee
  from criminal assault, but failed to do to.
• Its failure to protect the employee caused the
  subsequent injuries to occur.

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Reducing Workplace Violence

• Improved lighting
• Employee escort services to and from parking lots
• Reception areas can be locked when no one is on
  duty
• Policy stipulation (at least two people on duty)
• Security systems
• Policies regarding visitor access
• Curved mirrors at hallway intersections or
  concealed areas
• Bullet-proof glass