UNIT VI

Safety and Health at Work

No one comes to work to be

insured or killed.
 Occupational Health & Safety (OHS)
• All workers have the right to return home each day
safe and sound. Preventing work-related illness and
injury is the most important job at any workplace.
• Workplace safety has become the prime responsibility
for the HR managers in the modern organization.
• Labor legislations have made it mandatory on the part
of employers to take necessary steps to ensure safe
and healthy work environment for their employees.
• Workplace safety can be defined as a means for
freedom from the occurrence of risk of injury or loss.
 Legal Requirements for Safety & Health
• Every country has developed its own acts and regulations to protect
health and safety of employees.
• Every organizations must meet the minimum legal requirements/
framework designed and directed by the government.
• It should cover or address matters intended to:
 Prevent or mitigate both human and economic losses arising from
accidents, adverse occupational exposure, & environmental factors.
 Build health &safety considerations into all phases of operations
 Achieve and maintain compliance with laws and regulations
 Continually improve health and safety performance
 The health and safety policy should be review, revalidated, and
where necessary, revised by top management as often as necessary.
 Need for Safety/ Importance of OHS
• Cost Saving: Compensation payable to the dependents of the victim
if the accident is fatal and medical expenses incurred in treating the
patient if the accident is non-fatal. This is to be done when the
victim is uninsured by the company.
• Increased productivity: Employee in safe plant can devote more
time to improving quality and quantity of output and spend less
time worrying about their safety and well-being.
• Increase in Moral: Happiness depends upon the health and well-
being of the workers. Manager must take accident prevention
measures to minimize the pain of worker and his family.
• Less legal complication: Focus to safety issue will reduce the legal
difficulties, in circumstance of severe cases.
Cause of Accidents
 Unsafe conditions: Improperly guarded equipment,
defective equipment, unsafe storage, overloading,
improper illumination: insufficient light, improper
ventilation: insufficient air change, impure air
source, etc.
 Unsafe acts on the part of employees: When
people are impulsive, anger, aggressive
 Work related factors: Job itself, the work schedules,
and the psychological climate of the workplace
(high job satisfaction improves safety indirectly).
 How to Reduce Accidents?
• Work related accidents are common in all parts of the world and
often have many direct and indirect negative consequences for
employees and their families. A single accident can mean enormous
financial loss to both employees (workers) and employers. Methods
to reduce accidents:
• Proper Training : Human factor is responsible for more than 80%
accidents, and if safety protocols and procedures are well educated
among workers, accidents reduces.
• Safety Propaganda Work : Using posters, slogans, magazines for
safety publicity in the organization reduces accidents.
• Safety Program : Developing different safety programs based on
past experience and happening could help reducing accidents in the
organization.
 Why is Occupational Health and Safety Important?

• By keeping Workplace healthy and safe helps to save the lives of

workers by reducing consequences. Keeping organization healthy
have positive effects for both employee morale and productivity;
which are important benefits for the organization.
• Few suggestions to make work place healthy:
 Make sure that employee have enough fresh air
 Avoid suspect building materials and furnishings
 Test new buildings for toxins before occupancy(use)
 Provide a smoke-free environment
 Always clean office area including work space
 Keeping air ducts clean and dry
 Paying attention to worker’s complaints
Issues in Occupational Health & Safety (OHS)

• There are several problems & issues drafting and implementing

OHS in real life situation. Some of the major issues are stated
below:
 Workplace Violence (emerging safety issue)
 Issues from not implementing OHS acts.
 Issues arise from psychological factors of employees
 Issues of ageing workforce
 Changes in employment relationship
 Proactive safety training programs
 Ethical issues in OHS programs (Eg: smoke free zone!)
 Organizational Safety Audit
• Workplace Violence (emerging safety issue)
 Employee sometimes do not use safety measures violating
workplace rules, and this negligence create safety issues in the
organization.
• Issues from not implementing OHS acts
 OHS acts are differ from country to country, organization to
organization, and occupation to occupation; and those acts have
direct and significant effect on almost every business in the world,
including Nepal. Even from strict observation from authorized body
(ILO, and government authorities) acts are violating and it is not
properly implemented in some of the organizations.
• Issues arise from psychological factors of employees
 Psychology factors affect the employees thinking related to physical
body. This creates less focus on tasks; and if not focused, there is a
high risks of accident.
• Issues of ageing workforce
 Physical changes in older workers (employees) who may also have chronic
disease can lead to an increased risk of injury due to reduced muscular
strength and aerobic capacity.
• Changes in employment relationship
 When employees took new role, new relationship happens in new
department, or in team, and this could lead accidents.
• Proactive safety training programs
 Employee not sincere on participating and engaging on safety training
programs is a major issues these days. So the management of the
company should develop an attractive training delivery method so that to
make employee feel ownership in such training program.
• Organizational Safety Audit
 A safety audit will examine the whole organization in order to test
whether it is meeting its safety aims and objectives. In most of the cases,
employee representative, trade union representatives and external
experts are not involved in organizational safety audit.
Sexual Harassment at Work
• Unwelcome verbal, visual, or physical conduct of a
sexual nature that is severe or pervasive and affects
working conditions or creates a hostile work
environment is known as sexual harassment.
• Conduct is NOT sexual harassment if it is welcome.
For this reason, it is important to communicate
(either verbally or in writing) to the harasser that the
conduct makes you uncomfortable and you want it to
stop.
 Types of Sexual Harassment
• Sexual harassment is a type of discrimination against
sex, which is a protected characteristic in
 Hostile work environment: It is a form of sexual
harassment in which victims are subjected to
unwelcome, unfriendly, inappropriate touching, sexual
jokes, repeated requests for dates, intimidating, etc.
 Quid pro quo: It means “this for that”. Victims are
required to provide sexual favours in order to be hired,
promoted, granted a pay raise, or to avoid some
termination or demotion, etc.
Dealing Sexual Harassment
• From organizational side, there should be well defined sexual
harassment policy, proper investigative guidelines for
harassment, and should have separate committee for
investigation.
• From individual perspective, ways to deal harassment are:
 Talk to the person directly
 Find other victims and witnesses
 Inform your supervisor
 Contact HR manager
 Contact senior management
 File lawsuit
 Talk to the person directly (if harasser continues displaying the
same behaviour, inform your harasser that you plan to file a
report if the behaviour continues)
 Find other victims and witnesses (you may find that some other
victims have filed complaints in the past)
 Inform your supervisor (write a formal letter to your supervisor
detailing the events that took place)
 Contact HR manager (even if you inform your supervisor, you
should also contact your HR manager)
 Contact senior management (if your supervisor refuses to take
action, you can file a formal complaint with your company’s
senior management)
 File lawsuit (after you file a complaint with the HR and Senior
Management, you can possibly file a lawsuit)
Drug and Alcohol Related Problems
• A drug is any substance that, when inhaled, injected, smoked,
consumed, absorbed via a patch on the skin, or dissolved under
the tongue causes a temporary physiological (and often
psychological) change in the body.
• Alcohol is formed when yeast ferments (breaks down without
oxygen) the sugars in different food. For example, wine is made
from the sugar in grapes, beer from the sugar in malted barley (a
type of grain), cider from the sugar in apples, vodka from the
sugar in potatoes, beets or other plants.
• Drug and alcohol related problems are very common in the
society as well as in the work places. Over use of any kind of
drug or alcohol which produces negative consequences at work
is called “Drug Abuse” and “Alcoholic Problems” in the office.
• Overuse of any kind of drug which produces
negative consequences at workplace is called drug
abuse, and using restricted drugs in restricted
places and time also falls in this category.
• Alcohol is a depressant drug that can slow down
the messages to and from the brain and body.
Alcohol can affect problem solving skills, judgment,
concentration, reaction times and coordination.
Alcohol can have negative consequences on
‘fitness for work’ and individual health and well-
being in the short term and long term.