Based upon your knowledge about health and safety matters and your actual observations

of operations that are similar to theirs, make a list of the potential hazardous conditions

employees and others face at LearnInMotion.com. What should they do to reduce the

potential severity of the top five hazards?

Dot-com companies like LearnInMotion.com have many potential hazards at workplace that may

cause problem and stress for employees. Although there are no heavy machines to move from

one place to another but there are other potential hazardous conditions that may cause problems.

Some of them are discussed below.

1. One of the top accident-causing conditions is long and bundles of wires and cables

travelling in the whole office. Although in today’s world much work is done wireless, for

example with the use of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology but still there are certain tasks

that can only be done through wires, for example huge data sharing. So there is a need to

connect one PC to another and all the PCs with the main sever. So long wiring at

LearnInMotion.com is one of the biggest safety hazard for the employees.

2. Another potential hazard is the tripping of wires during work. Lots of electrical wires, for

example power cables, may cause safety problems for employees. As discussed in the

case as well a programmer tried to repair the main server while the electric was not shut

down for the server, thus the programmer got a big electric shock. So such electrical

wires snaking around the office also create a hazardous conditions for the employees at

work.

3. Ergonomics is another important factor to understand with regard to the safety of

employees at LearnInMotion.com. Employees at LearnInMotion.com have to sit in front

of their monitors for more than 8 hours a day with hardly one time break. Continuous
 working on a system reduces the performance of employees gradually. An employee’s

productivity in the first hour of his job is far better than his productivity in the last hour of

the job.

4. Stress is also another factor that may cause potential hazardous conditions in

LearnInMotion.com. Working in a dot-com company is a stressful job because new ideas

are expected to be brought by the programmers. So they are in constant pressure to bring

something new instead of repeating something old.

5. Continuous work in a stressful environment burns-out the employees and their

performance decline gradually. Working in stressful environment for a longer period of

time with the same amount of stress increases the chances of mental breakdown of

employees.

To overcome on these five top hazards at LearnInMotion.com can take many important actions

so that the work environment can be made safer and less stressful. Wires and cables in the office

should be managed properly with the help of an experienced electrician. The wires should be

moved through ceiling or under the carpeted floor of the office so that these are not visible to any

employee. Safety procedures should be formulated and implemented to work on wires by the

employees. For example it should be made necessary to plug the power cable out of electricity

socket before working on any system. Experiment technician should be hired who should be

asked to fix the problems related to electricity instead of employees (Stranks).

To make the environment less stressful, the employees should be provided frequent breaks

during an 8 hour shift. They should be provided a break of at least 20 minutes after every 2

hours. Employees should be trained on regular basis as how to bring new ideas and how to

manage the stress so that they learn how to work in a stressful situation (Hughes and Ferrett).
By taking these actions LearnInMotion.com may increase the performance and productivity of

its employees.

Would it be advisable for them to set up a procedure for screening out stress-prone or

accident-prone individuals? Why or why not? If so, how should they screen them?

Yes it is advisable to screen those employees who are stress-prone or accident-prone. But the

solution is not to screen them out and fire right away. The purpose should be to identify such

individuals and to help them in changing their stress-prone and accident-prone behaviors. As

discussed in the above question as well, related training to those individuals may improve the

situation. By training employees regarding their problems, for example stress, may help them

improving their behaviors. Employees can be trained as how to manage the stress at work so that

their productivity is increased under stressful situation (Amponsah-Tawiah and Dartey-Baah).

Further guidance and training can be provided to accident-prone employees as how to perform a

certain task in order to avoid any potential accident. Some incentives can also be offered to

employees if a certain duty is performed without any accident. In this way these employees can

be saved from any stress or accident.

Simply screening out stress-prone and accident-prone employees can create legal problems for

LearnInMotion.com. Employees can file a complaint against the company. So if after providing

training and offering monetary incentives the productivity is not improved, then the employee

can be screened-out.

Write a short position paper on the subject, “What should we do to get all our employees to

behave more safely at work?”

The first and most important thing is the job description of employees. The document of job

description should include the behaviors required to perform a certain job. If a job description is

designed effectively then it will answer all the questions related to behaviors for a certain job at

work.

Second important thing is employee training. Continuous training related to their work reduces

the chances of any accident or stress at work. Employees should be trained for increasing

demand of their responsibilities so that they are able to fulfill them in a better way (Ridley).

Code of ethics should be prepared and implemented in the company. All employees should be

directed to follow the code of ethics at work to make sure that all the activities are safe.

Employees should be punished in monetary or non-monetary means if they do not follow the

code of ethics.

Safety procedures should be outlined and communicated to all employees. Standard operating

procedures (SOP) should also be outlined and followed in case of any emergency. All such

activities should be well communicated to employees and employees should perform them on

regular basis to make sure that they understand it well (Ridley).

Based on what you know and on what other dot-coms are doing, write a short position

paper on the subject, “What can we do to reduce the potential problems of stress and

burnout in our company?”

Stress and burnout is very significant in dot-com companies. One of the main reasons is that the

employees are required to sit in front of their PC for long hours that burns out their energy with

the passage of time. Also the employees are asked to bring something new in their work which
makes the environment stressful for them. Thus stress and burnout seems to be very significant

for employees working in dot-coms.

In order to reduce such hazardous conditions employees should get regular breaks in their

working hours. Usually only one break of almost one hour is provided. The complexity of work

requires at least 2-3 breaks in 8 to 9 hours work. It is not recommended at all to provide 3 breaks

of one hour in an eight hour shift. However 1 hour break can be divided into 20 minutes break

after every 2 hours. In this way the employees will get a chance to feel relax and take some time

out for themselves after every 2 hours of work (Karimi and Alipour).

To reduce the stress, creative ways should be adopted by the companies to reduce the stress and

increase the productivity. For example the same idea of 20 minutes after every 2 hours will help

in reducing the stress for employees.

Supervisors’ support also helps in reducing the stress. When employees will know that they will

be guided and helped in any stressful situation by their supervisors, they will less likely to take

the stress on them. So supervisors should take care of their subordinates in order to reduce the

negative impact of stressful situation.

Personal conflicts should also be reduced in the organization to reduce the stress. If employees

will know that their idea will be rejected compared to its colleague then he will he more stressful.

On the other hand employees should be trained and guided to work as team and help each other

in stressful situation (Karimi and Alipour).

References

Amponsah-Tawiah, Kwesi, and Kwasi Dartey-Baah. "Occupational Health And Safety: Key

Issues And Concerns In Ghana". International Journal of Business and Social Science 2.14

(2011): 119-126. Print.

Hughes, Phil, and Ed Ferrett. Introduction To International Health And Safety At Work. Oxford:

Butterworth-Heinemann, 2010. Print.

Karimi, Roohangiz, and Farhad Alipour. "Reduce Job Stress In Organizations: Role Of Locus Of

Control". International Journal of Business and Social Science 2.18 (2011): 232-236. Print.

Ridley, John R. Safety At Work. London: Butterworths, 1986. Print.

Stranks, Jeremy W. Health & Safety At Work. London: Kogan Page, 2010. Print.