IMPORTANCE OF HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK PLACE AND ITS BENEFITS

Ensuring the health and safety of the employees by improving the working conditions and protecting from hazardous situations is health and safety at work (Abromeit et al., 2007).  According to healthy workplace model of WHO, leader has the highest responsibility to ensure the health and safety at work. 

Figure 1- Healthy Workplace Model

Source : https://www.who.int/occupational_health/healthy_workplace_framework.pdf

Benefits of Health and Safety at Work

A safe work place will improve the motivation of the employees as they are confident to work. A safety workplace shows that the organization care for its employees. Hence, the employees will provide their best for the organization (Chappell and Martino, 2006). Through ensuring health and safety at work, the organization can gain a higher reputation. The health and wellbeing of the employees is improved which results in the improvement of productivity at workplace. The work participation of the employees will be improved and the social inclusion will be increased. The labor turnover will be minimized as the employees will be highly satisfied of the organization (Siegrist, 2006).

Work Health and Safety Initiatives

The organizations like Toyota, KFC, McDonalds follow the health and safety acts which provides guidelines to ensure health and safety at work. With the assistance of these acts, the organizations are able to establish a safer environment for the employees. The management and the supervisors are held liable for ensuring health and safety at work and to identify any hazardous situation which can impact the health and safety of the employees. The employees are provided with special kits, equipment and tools which needed for conducting their jobs safely (Bachmann, 2002). 

At Mas, the employees are provided with a special work health and safety training so that the employees have knowledge on how to ensure their safety at work. Also, the supervisors are also trained on identifying health and safety threats and to take necessary precautions for them (Kawakami et al., 2004).

Challenges for Work health and safety

Although the employees are provided with regular trainings, some of the employees do not follow health and safety guidelines at work which impact adversely on themselves and on the health of other employees as well. The organization has to rely on its supervisors and the managers to identify hazardous situations at work which is a huge risk (Kogi et al .,2006). 

Conclusion

The work health and safety is a legal requirement as well as a ethical requirement. Every organization should take necessary steps to ensure the health and safety of the employees, as it impacts the reputation of the organization and improves productivity and the satisfaction of the employees (Burton, 2004).  

References

Abromeit A, Burton J and Shaw M. (2007). Healthy workplaces in Canada. Global Occupational Health Network (GOHNET) Newsletter, WHO, 2007/08(14);16-20.

Bachmann K. (2002). Health promotion programs at work: a frivolous cost or a sound investment? Ottawa: Conference Board of Canada. 

Burton J. (2004). Creating healthy workplaces. Industrial Accident Prevention Association.

Chappell D and Di Martino V. (2006). Violence at work. Third edition. Geneva, International Labour Office 2006, page 62.

Kawakami T et al. (2004). Participatory approaches to improving safety and health under trade union initiative - experiences of POSITIVE training programme in Asia. Industrial Health, 43(2):196-206.

Kogi K. (2006). Low-cost risk reduction strategy for small workplaces: how can we spread good practices? La Medicina del Lavoro; 92(2):303-311.

Siegrist J. (2006). Adverse health effects of high-effort/low reward conditions. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology ;1(1):27-41