Lecture 13

Human Resources Management Lecture 13 Safety, health and well-being Discipline, disputes and grievances This lecture: - Discusses the importance of safety, health and employee well-being; - Outlines the principle safety and health legalization; - Discusses contemporary issues in safety and health management; - Outlines procedures and practices for dealing with discipline problems; - Discusses workplace disputes and how to handle them; - Describes statutory procedures for handling disputes and grievances; - Discusses harassment in the workplace.

There has always been tension between the employer’s desire to increase output and improve efficiency and the employee’s need for protection against any adverse effects of work and the workplace. The dangers have changed over the time. These days dangers come from new technologies, from pressures in the contemporary world of work, and from society outside the workplace. The traditional preoccupation with matters of physical health and safety must now be joined by an understanding of new health and well-being issues. These include stress, ergonomics and the physical working environment, occupational overuse syndrome, substance use and abuse, AIDS, and violence in the workplace. Health and safety legislation There are two different points of view on the necessity of involving the legislation into the health and safety regulations at workplaces. Supporters of self-regulation argue that both employers and workers have a self-interest in collaborating to achieve better standards of occupational safety and health, and that they are best placed to make changes and improvements. But, historically, only large organisations in the conventionally dangerous and unionised industries like construction, forestry or the waterfront – were likely to appoint specialist safety offices, establish safety committees, or place any emphasis on accident prevention and safety management. Smaller organisations typically gave little attention to these issues.

While self-regulation has been encouraged in New Zealand, legislation has long provided an underpinning – starting with the Employment of Females Act 1873 – of minimum standards in occupational safety and health to protect workers and put pressure on employers who refuse to take their responsibilities seriously. Current legislation, led by the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992, does not prescribe in great detail how safe and healthy working conditions are to be achieved. Rather, it puts the obligation on employers – and workers – to ensure that their workplaces meet certain standards of health and safety. Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 aims: -To promote excellence in health and safety management by employers; -To impose specific duties on employers and others to prevent harm to employees; -To provide for the making of regulations and approval of codes of practice relating to hazards. The Act covers people in all places of work, but does not covr people who do not work for hire or reward (volunteers).

Key definitions in the Act include: -Accident – an event that causes, or might have caused harm to any person; -Harm – illness, injury or both; -Hazard – an activity, arrangement, circumstance, event, occurrence, phenomenon, process, situation, or substance (whether arising or caused within or outside a place of work) that is an actual or potential cause or source of harm. -Safe – means a person is not exposed to hazards or that a place is free from hazards. Duties of employers -Provide and maintain a safe working environment; -Ensure that machinery and equipment are safe for employees to use; -Ensure that employees are not exposed to hazards in the course of their work; -Develop procedures for dealing with emergencies in the workplace; -Ensure that employees have sufficient knowledge and experience of their work, or are well supervised, so that they do not cause harm to others; -Ensure that employees are adequately trained in the safe use of plant, substances, protective clothing and equipment; -Take all practicable steps to ensure that employees do not cause harm to any other people who might be in the workplace.

Hazard management Employers must have systems for identifying hazards to employees at work. All employees must take all practicable steps: -To eliminate a significant hazard, or -To isolate a significant hazard from employees if it cannot be eliminated, or -To minimise the likely harm to employees, if the hazard cannot be totally eliminated or isolated. Employers must also: -Ensure that protective clothing and equipment are readily available and used, and -Monitor employees’ exposure to the hazard and, with the informed consent of the employees, monitor employees’ health as well. Employees must have the opportunity to be fully involved in the development of procedures for managing hazards and dealing with emergencies or imminent dangers.

Information for employees Employees must be: -Given information about what to do in the event of emergencies in the workplace; -Told where safety clothing and equipment are kept; -Told about hazards to which they might be exposed, or which they might create while at work, and told how they should minimise the likelihood of those hazards causing harm and others; -Given the results of any safety and health monitoring of the workplace or of their own health. Duties of employees Employees are required to take all practicable steps to ensure their own safety while at work, and to ensure that nothing they do, or fail to do, causes harm to others. Duties of other people The person who has control of a place of work must take all practicable steps to ensure that people in the workplace of its vicinity are no harmed in any way. Self-employed people are principles of contractors or subcontractors have similar duties to ensure that they do not cause harm to themselves or others.

Health and safety regulations Regulations made under the Health and Safety in Employment Act are important. They prescribe detailed requirements for such things as first aid facilities, cleanliness and sanitary facilities, lighting, ventilation, temperature, access and egress, machinery maintenance, and storage of materials. Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 This legislation aims to protect the environment, and the health and safety of people and communities, by preventing or managing the adverse effects of hazardous substances and new organisms. Accident compensation -Provides no-fault and comprehensive coverage for all workers who may suffer accidental injury-both for their medical and related expenses and to maintain their income; -Offers incentives to employers to improve their safety and accident prevention performance and records; -Gives the Accident Compensation Corporation a central role in supporting the development of safety programmes in the workplace and providing rehabilitation services for the victims of work-related (and other) injuries.

Managing safety and health Many organisations have safety and health practices which go well beyond the minimum standards required by law. There are a number of reason for this: -The organisation wants to be regarded as an employer-of-choice and sees positive HR practices as part of this strategy; -The employer accepts a moral and social obligation to ensure that employees are not adversely affected by their work or the workplace; -The bargaining power of its employees has led the organisation to agree to collectively negotiated standards which exceed the minimum requirements; -The employer recognises that significant economic benefits can flow to the organisation if it maintains a safe and healthy work environment and a safe and healthy workplace. 160 people die from the work-related injuries every year in New Zealand, while another 400 die from work-related illnesses.

Health and safety policies -State the organisation’s commitment to proactive management of health and safety; -Define the safety responsibilities and obligations of the organisation, its managers, and individual employees; -Describe how the organisation will plan, monitor and review its health and safety activities, including the identification and elimination or management of workplace hazards; -Describe the major hazards, the risks associated with them, and the preventive measures in place; -Outline the steps to be taken in the event of an emergency; -Describe arrangements for consultation on safety and health matters. Workplace safety committees -Highlight safety and health problems in the workplace; -Recommend corrective action; -Help investigate accidents; -Conduct periodic safety audits; -Raise the personal safety consciousness of its members, which then flow on to other employees; -Demonstrate to employees that management is interested and concerned with safety and health issues; -Involves a range of employees in accident prevention activities, especially if the committee’s membership rotates from time to time.

Health and safety programmes Managers are responsible for health and safety in their own departments, but effective implementation of an organisation-wide health and safety programme needs the direction and support of top management. Unfortunately many organisation disregard the importance of health and safety controls and they realise how serious it is only after there has been an injury accident and the organisation has, as a consequence, been prosecuted, convicted and heavily penalised by the courts. Secondly, flatter and leaner organisations have fewer managers or supervisors to oversee safety and health matters closely, and may not have done enough to impress on all employees the need for them to take their safety and health responsibilities seriously.

Hazard management A key feature of the Health and Safety in Employment Act is the responsibility it puts on employers to manage hazards – to identify, assess, eliminate, isolate or minimise them. It required employers to have ‘effective methods’ for idenditifying hazards, and to assess regularly whether each hazard is significant. All practicable steps must be taken to eliminate significant hazards; -If a significant hazard cannot be eliminated, all practicable steps must be taken to isolate it from employees; -If a hazard cannot be totally eliminated or isolated, employers must take all practicable steps to minimise the likely harm to employees. -

Identifying hazards -Examine an area of the workplace and the activities undertaken there (hazards should be grouped by type or location, otherwise it is difficult to control or know about all hazards from a long list); -Analyse different occupations and their tasks; -Analyse the total process.

Accident prevention Provide direction and support. Survey the problem. Set standards. Establish recording procedures. Corrective action. Give feedback. Recognise results. An approach to accident investigation 11. Who should investigate. 12. Gather all the facts. 13. Identify all the hazards involved. 14. Assess the hazard control in place. 15. Decide on future action. 16. Inform all those affected. 17. Follow up.

Computer technology -Work station design; -Work design (use of keyboards, monitors); -Eyes tests; -Information and training. Occupational overuse syndrome (OOS) Umbrella term for range of conditions which are characterised by pain and/ or other sensations in muscles, tendons, nerves , soft tissues and joints. Conditions may be caused, or significantly contributed to, by work factors. Shift work - Plan rotating shift cycles so that they move in a clockwise direction (i.e. day-eveningnight); - Eliminate weekly shift rotations: some research suggests cycles of more than three weeks on each shift are best; - Ensure that workers with medical conditions like asthmas or diabetes are put on day or evening shifts; - Provide hot, nutritious meals for night workers; -Ensure that lighting, ventilation, temperature and noise controls are adequate on all shifts.

Violence in the workplace The possibility of violence should be regarded as a workplace hazard and managed accordingly. Violence does not only take the form of physical attacks. It may also be oral (making threats, shouting or swearing), visual (with gestures, drawings or posters), written (using threatening notes or pornographic literature). Policy on violence. The safety and security of our employees, customers, suppliers, contractors and the general public are of vital importance. Therefore, acts of made by an employee against another person’s life, health, well-being, family, or property will not be tolerated. Employees who are found to have acted with violence will be subject to discipline, which may involve immediate dismissal. Employees must report any behaviour which compromises the company’s ability to maintain a safe work environment. All reports will be investigated immediately and kept confidential, except where there is a legitimate need to know.

Stress and fatigue It is not situations that are stressful: people cause their own stress by the way they relate to those situations. -Environmental factors (noise, poor lighting, poor ventilation and temperature control, fumes and/ or smoking, overcrowding, isolation, vibration, static, badly designed furniture or machines); -Job design factors (poor job design and conflicting objectives, role conflict, too much or too little work, monotonous and repetitive work, under-utilisation of skills, too little or too much supervision, lack of job control, lack on involvement in decision making, constant sitting, inadequate breaks, constant use of machines. -Contractual factors – low pay shift work, unsocial hours, excessive hours or overtime, job insecurity, poorly thought-out or unfair promotion procedures, lack of recognition; -Relationship factors – poor relationships with colleagues at any level, impersonal treatment, sexism or racism, ageism, poor communication, client/customer complaints.

How to recognise stress? -Mood changes (anger, unease, guilt, hopelessness); -Cognitive changes (poor concentration, not remembering things); -Behavioural changes (more errors, double checking everything, extra smoking). Avoiding stress -Minimise unpredictability and ambiguity at work; -Minimise uncontrollable events; -Minimise physical stressors; -Avoid recurring (daily) stresses; -Watch for negative effects (boredom and apathy, anger and hostility, etc.) Handing stress -Counselling; -Training.