Advanced Human Resource Management: Managing Workplace Health

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Advanced Human Resource Management Managing
Workplace Health Safety

• Tuesday March 7, 2006

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Agenda

• March 28th and March 30th alternate class
  sessions
• OHS
• Chapter 2 The Legal Context for HRM (pp. 54-64)
• OSHA. Add value. To your business. To your
  workplace. To your life. (Fall 2002). Job Safety
  Health Quarterly, 14 (1)
• Pearson, C.M., Andersson, L.M., Porath, C.L.
  (2000). Assessing and attacking workplace
  incivility. Organizational Dynamics, 29, 123-137.
• Hantula, D.A., Hilbert, S.M. (1997). Safety
  isnt simple. Academy of Management Executive,
  11, 82-83.
• Nelson, D.L. Burke, R.J. (2000). Women
  executives Health, stress, and success. Academy
  of Management Executive, 14, 107-121.

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Occupational Health Safety

• The identification, evaluation, and control of
  hazards associated with the work environment
• Standards to ensure safe and healthy working
  conditions and provide penalties for violators
  (e.g., OSHA)
• Based on
• OSHA (Add value. To your business. To your
  workplace. To your life.), and the film Death on
  the Job,
• Consider the following
• Identify some of the discrepancies between what
  OSHA purports to do, and what happens in the real
  world. Why might these discrepancies exist?
• What might help to rectify and/or avoid such
  problems?
• Why do you think that we so rarely hear about
  workplace fatalities and other major accidents?

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Occupational Health Safety

• Employees and employees share responsibility for
  creating and maintaining safe and healthy work
  environments
• Safety injury
• Damage, wound to body, accidents, aggression,
  etc.
• Health illness
• Condition, disorder caused by exposure, rsi, etc.
• What are the 3 key messages from Hantula
  Hilbert (1997) Safety isnt simple?

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Societal Expectations

• To some extent, every society has precisely the
  accident rate it is willing to accept
• Societal norms about seat-belt use or smoking
  changed not that long ago collective will can
  be a powerful force for change

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Managerial Perspective Challenges

• Managers must deal with a variety of workplace
  safety issues including
• Protecting the public
• Providing a safe and healthy work environment
• Comply with specific legal requirements
• Challenges
• Extent of employers responsibility to maintain a
  safe and healthy work environment
• Understanding the reasons for safety and health
  laws and the costs and obligations they impose on
  employers
• Developing an awareness of contemporary health
  and safety issues, including SARS, AIDS, violence
  against employees, stress, workplace smoking,
  repetitive strain injuries, substance abuse,
  hazardous chemicals.
• Describing the features of safety programs and
  understand the reasons for, and the effects of
  programs designed to enhance employee welfare

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Workplace Safety and the Law

• Legislation has 2 specific aims
• Concern with the injured work (Workers
  Compensation)
• Provide prompt medical care
• Provide income to victims and their dependants
• Provide a no-fault system
• Encourage employees to invest in safety
• Promote research on workplace safety
• Laws to reduce workplace injuries and illnesses
• All Canadian jurisdiction make provisions for 2
  kinds of shared responsibility activities
• Health and safety committees
• The right to refuse unsafe work

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Right to Refuse Work

• In general, the right to refuse work does not
  depend on the workers ability to prove that a
  hazard exists the standard that applies is
  having reason to believe that the situation is
  unsafe

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Question

• Maintaining health and safety on the job is a
  management function as much as a legal and
  ergonomic function, yet often, managers fail when
  it comes to their daily duties. What can
  management do?

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High quality work and injuriesData from
Barling, Kelloway and Iverson

• Focused on high quality work gt15,000 employees
• A high quality job is one which provides the
  employee with the means and the opportunity for
  doing great work
• High quality work comprised three different
  aspects
• extensive training
• job rotation
• autonomy
• Found a direct relationship with injuries

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Dupont Canada Safety Philosophy

• We are committed to excellence in safety and
  occupational health for all people on and off the
  job
• We are committed to the safe distribution and use
  of our products by our customers
• Safety management is an integral part of our
  business and it built on the belief that all
  injuries and occupational illnesses are
  preventable that we are all responsible for our
  own safety and also that of our fellow employees
  and that managers are responsible for the safety
  of those in their organizations

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Outcome of an unhealthy work environment Stress

• A Meaningless Term?
• I may not know what it is, but I sure know that
  Ive got it!
• A psychological reaction to the demands inherent
  in a stressor that has the potential to make a
  person feel tense or anxious

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What is Stress?

• Reactions to events
• Not being sure of what is expected in a situation
• Feeling anxious or uptight
• Feeling pressured
• Worrying about the future

• Perceived causes of feelings
• Fighting traffic
• Having too much to do ( too little time to do
  it)
• Trying to balance work family responsibilities
• Dealing with difficult people at work

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Stress

• Usually defined in terms of a situation that
  creates excessive psychological or physiological
  demands on a person
• The situation is referred to as a stressor
• Environmental events or conditions that have the
  potential to induce stress
• Stressors at Work Diversity, Work/Life Conflict,
  Sexual Harassment, Job Insecurity, Monotony, Lack
  of Control, Interpersonal Stressors, Change
• The outcome is strain
• Physiological, Psychological, Behavioural,
  Organizational Symptoms
• Stress is the individuals subjective experience
  of the stressor

STRESSOR
STRESS
STRAIN
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Work Stress Prevalence and Costs

• 15 experience daily work stress on any given
  day
• Costs of stress are undoubtedly tremendous
• work absenteeism, accidents, productivity
• social health, depression, self-esteem
• 25 of white-collar workers and 40 of
  blue-collar workers had a stress-related absence
  in 1998
• In the US the cost of stress has been calculated
  at 350 billion per year
• Stress levels in Canada nearly double the rate
  reported a decade ago
• One-fourth of employees view their jobs as the
  number one stressor in their lives. Northwestern
  National Life
• Three-fourths of employees believe employees have
  more on-the-job stress than a generation ago.
  Princeton Survey Research Associates

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Stress Prevention Job Performance

• St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company
  conducted studies on the effects of stress
  prevention programs in hospital settings
• Program activities included (1) employee and
  management education on job stress, (2) changes
  in hospital policies and procedures to reduce
  organizational sources of stress, and (3)
  establishment of employee assistance programs
• The frequency of medication errors declined by
  50 after prevention activities were implemented
  in a 700-bed hospital
• There was a 70 reduction in malpractice claims
  in 22 hospitals that implemented stress
  prevention activities
• There was no reduction in claims in a matched
  group of 22 hospitals that did not implement
  stress prevention activities

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Women executives Health, stress, and
successNelson Burke (2000)

• Diversity increasing need to understand impact
  of stress on different groups of employees
• Stressors related to women
• Barriers to achievement, Tokenism, Overload,
  Downsizing, Expectations, Relationships,
  Politics, Social-sexual behaviour, Work-home
  conflict, Workaholism
• Prevention
• Primary, secondary, tertiary organizational and
  individual mechanisms

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A cause of and reaction to stress workplace
aggression

• Workplace aggression All individual behavior
  aimed at harming others in and around a place of
  work (Neuman Baron, 1997).
• Key to this type of counterproductive work
  behavior is that it is interpersonal in nature,
  and there is an intent to harm on the part of the
  perpetrator.
• National statistics suggest that workplace
  aggression is on the rise. These findings are
  based on numbers of grievances filed over time.
• 64 of Canadian workers perceive that their
  workplace is not as safe from aggressive persons
  as it once was.

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Workplace aggression can include

• Homicide
• Robbery
• Wounding
• Kicking
• Biting
• Spitting
• Mobbing
• Bullying
• Intimidation
• Threats

• Ostracism
• Ignoring
• Rude Gestures
• Yelling
• Insulting
• Incivility
• Gossiping
• Sexual Harassment
• Discrimination
• Terrorism

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Statistics and trends in workplace aggression

• United States
• Homicide is one of the leading causes of death on
  the job
• Estimated that approximately 1000 workers are
  murdered on the job each year (Bureau of Labour
  and Statistics, 2000)
• Nearly 1.5 million people endure non-fatal
  assaults each year, including acts of harassment,
  intimidation, and physical attacks (over 5500
  incidents daily). This averages out to one in
  every 68 workers (based on a workforce of 135
  million NIOSH, 1996)
• Canada
• Data suggests that while workers in Canada are
  less likely to be murdered on the job than
  workers in the US, workers in Canada are more
  likely to be the victim of a non-fatal assault
  (International Labor Organization, 1998).
• These statistics have suggested that 4-5 of
  workers have been assaulted over the last year at
  work (ILO, 1998).
• 80 of nurses in Nova Scotia have reported being
  the victim of violence at work over their careers
  (Nova Scotia Department of Labour, 2003).

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Risk factors and Antecedents

• Risk Factors
• People who work late shifts, carry money, deal
  with the public, work alone, in a position to
  deny a request or service, on the front lines,
• Places that are easy to access/have limited
  security.
• May occur when consumer is dissatisfied with
  service.
• Workplace Conditions
• Perceptions of injustice
• Over-controlling and/or abusive supervisors
• Sanctions
• Previous acts of lower-level aggression
• Aggressive Culture
• Individual Factors
• Trait anger, Negative affectivity, Attitudes
  toward revenge, History of aggression,
  Alcohol/drug abuse

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Outcomes

• Individual Outcomes
• Direct and vicarious targets
• Diminished psychological well-being and physical
  well-being.
• Organizational
• Decrease in employee productivity due to 1
  diminished functioning of affected employees, and
  2 blaming organization for the aggression and
  wanting to retaliate.
• Withdrawal behavior (absenteeism turnover).
  Estimated that in the US, people are absent an
  average of 3.5 days of work for every incident of
  workplace aggression ( 55 million dollars in
  lost wages annually doesnt include people who
  are vicariously exposed).
• Health care/counseling costs, Compensation/Legal
  costs, Negative publicity/reputation.
• Any positive outcomes?

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What can organizations do?

• Screening applicants (?)
• Straightforward performance reward criteria to
  clarify expectations and reduce the potentially
  aggressive employee's ability to 'blame' the
  system or supervisor for failures
• Training employees about what kind of behavior
  is/ is not appropriate Training about
  organizational policies against aggression
• Zero-Tolerance Policies to provide employees with
  guidelines of acceptable behavior and conduct
• Improved channels for expressing grievances
• A formal disciplinary process ensures that all
  employees are treated fairly and with respect and
  dignity, especially in the case of terminations
• Assessing risk. Identify problem areas (e.g.,
  sectors where layoffs are common or imminent,
  locations that are difficult to secure), problem
  people (e.g., employees with a history of
  reprimands, suspensions), and problem jobs (e.g.,
  jobs that include a high degree of contact with
  the public, low supervision, and access to
  weapons)

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Wellness at Work

• New interest in workplace wellness
• Research in North America and elsewhere
• Major psychological and behavioral journals
  devoted to the topic
• Becomes even more critical during turbulent
  times, both for employees and organizations
• Little changes do make a big difference in the
  long term
• Wellness programs
• Focus on preventing health problems
• Helps to identify potential health risks
• It educates employees about health risks
• It encourages employees to change their
  lifestyles

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Elements of a Healthy Workplace
Work roles (clarity, no ambiguity)
Work schedule
Workload and pace
Job security/ future
Reduced Status distinctions
Healthy and Productive Work
Social environment
Extrinsic factors
Commitment and trust
Workplace monitoring
Control at work
Workplace justice
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Toward Healthy and Productive Work Some
Concluding Thoughts

• Becomes even more critical in turbulent times,
  both for employees and organizations
• Large organizational and job changes are
  unnecessary, and perhaps counterproductive given
  social and economic changes
• Given these changes, enhancing employee
  perceptions of control is critical
• Little changes do make a big difference in the
  long term
• It is easier, and more effective, to focus on
  jobs than people
• Despite major social and economic changes, it is
  possible to move toward healthy and productive
  work
• Little changes make a big difference over the
  long term

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Next Class

• Next Class Performance Management
• Text Chapter 7 Managing Employees Performance
• Reserve (1) Silverman, S. B., Pogson, C. E.,
  Cober, A. B. (2005). When employees at work dont
  get it A model for enhancing individual employee
  change in response to performance feedback.
  Academy of Management Executive, 29, 135-147.
• (2) Cannon, M.D., Witherspoon, R. (2005).
  Actionable feedback Unlocking the power of
  learning and performance improvement. Academy of
  Management Executive, 19, 120-134.