Injuries In The Workplace - Essay Example

Active work participation and good supervision are some of the important aspects in ensuring hazards are identified and tackled. Nevertheless, it is important to train workers on ways of ensuring safety in their workplaces. In this study, an investigation will be conducted in respect to the relationship between injury rates and different conditions in the workplaces. Although many organizations have some means of preventing and controlling hazards in workplaces, the effect of some conditions such as the total hours allocated for working and the impact of sensitization on high risk work places compared to less sensitization in low risk work places is ignored in many studies (Kennedy et al, 2010).

Therefore, this study will investigate the impact that variation in the number of working hours and lack of protective sensitization in low risk workplaces , have on injury rates in workplaces. Research question 1. Does giving workers more time to complete their work reduce injuries in work places? 2. Does workers operating in high risk workplaces experience low injury rates than workers who operate in less risky workplaces because of high sensitization in high risk work environments? Hypothesis Null hypothesis: More working hours and working in risky working environments do not have any effect on the injury rate.

Alternate hypothesis: More working hours and working in risky working environments have significant effect on the injury rate. Method and results The number of actual hours worked by all employees in the area/team for the 12 month period ending 12/31/2009 were taken and recorded in an excel spreadsheets. Also, operations for supervisors differed in terms of activities and risks. Risk ranged from low (1) office related to high (7) manual material handling activities. This data was taken and recorded in an excel worksheet as well.

Finally, the average rate of injuries per 100 employees over 12 month period was recorded on the excel worksheets. Among these variables, the injury rate was taken as the dependent variable while the level of risk and hours worked was taken as the independent variables. The aim of the study is to find out the relationship between injury rate on the one hand and hours worked and risk, on the other hand. In other words, the researcher formulated a statistical model to find out whether the risk and hours worked can be used to predict the rate of injuries in workplaces.

The data collected in the excel worksheets are then imported into an SPSS for statistical analysis. In this case, a regression analysis was run and the following output was established. Table 1: Model summary Model R Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate Change Statistics 1 0.455191 0.432491 13.16423 F Change Sig. F Change 20.05217 0.000000 Table 2: Coefficientsa Model Unstandardized Coefficients t Sig. B Std. Error 1 (Constant) 55.65025 6.654373 8.362959 .045 HOURS_WORKED RISK -0.000619 -2.080234 0.000128 0.988191 -4.855031 -2.105094 .000 .0405 a. Dependent Variable: INJURYRATE Discussion and conclusion From table 2 above, the coefficient of hours worked is -0.

000619 and that of the risk is -2.08. This means that the two independent variables are inversely related to the dependent variable. It also means that, when the hours worked and the level of risk is increased, the rate of injuries in the workplace is reduced (Morita, Lee & Mowday, 1993). The essence of this is twofold. First, when the workers are allocated adequate time to complete their tasks, there is a likelihood that they will concentrate and be more careful hence avoid injuries in the w