Health and Safety Management within an Organization Reported in the Media - Essay Example

The human resource department should implement individual management policies.
 The human resource department of organizations should establish effective pathways to meet with safety and health responsibilities.
 The HR department of an organization should ensure the safety and health responsibilities of the employees.
Managing records of injuries and deaths, coordinating in occupational safety and health training programs and providing advice to the employers and employees will help the organizations to practice effective occupational health and safety management.
Description
An explosion in the Foxconn factory in Chengdu in May 2011 left four people dead and many more injured. Over the last decade or so Apple had become one of the largest and most successful companies in the world and hence their millions of people want to be a part of the organization. Among these, there exists one certain Mr. Lai Xiaodong who was badly injured in the blast.
As mentioned before there is little doubt over the achievements of Apple. But there is also no denying the fact that various workers assembling the products of Apple such as the iPhones, iPads have to work in quite harsh conditions. Various reports have suggested that the problems are quite serious; as a matter of fact, some are known to be deadly. Sometimes the workers have to do overtime and have to work seven days a week. Some reports also suggested that some of the workers of the company happened to underage also. Another major course of concern has been the disregard shown by the suppliers of the company towards the occupational hazard. A few years back more than a hundred workers of the company were badly injured as the workers were forced to use poisonous chemicals to clean up iPhones. There have been various reports in which the employees of Apple, both current and formed said that there were various cases where Apple was the first to report such abuses. ( Duhigg and Barboza 1).
However, it seems that some major problems are still at large. According to reports since 2007 more than 50% of the suppliers were found to have violated the suppliers’ code of conduct. In the year 2010, few months prior to the explosion Mr. Lai joined the Foxconn factory, he was noticed by his shifts ran almost 24 hours a day. Mr. Lai was promoted quite quickly as he was made the in-charge of the maintenance group (Fox News 1). It is believed that just two weeks prior to the explosion an advocacy group in Hong Kong published a report regarding unsafe conditions at the plant in Chengdu. A copy of the report was sent to the authorities in Apple also. Unfortunately, there was no response. It was believed that aluminium dust could be found all over the factory.
Conclusion
To conclude it can be said that health and occupational hazard are a major course of concern and need to be treated seriously. However, lack of monitoring and presence of ignorance among the authorities still looms at large across various companies, which includes multinational giants like Apple also. The case is a classic example of how negligence and lack of monitoring can lead to lethal accidents. Hence it is to be said the just like healthy payouts respect for health and safety issues at work is of equal importance and needs to be treated respectfully by the organizations to avoid such deadly accidents.
Recommendations
It is evident that lack of monitory and negligence is the major reasons behind the workplace hazard in the Chinese manufacturing plant of Apple. The workplace environment was not healthy and safe for the employees. The supervisor has repeatedly sent a notice about the inadequate situation of the workplace to Apple’s headquarter. Due to the poor quality of the raw materials that are supplied by the suppliers, the explosion had taken place. The official of Apple’s headquarter has neglected the complaint. In order to overcome these types of situations and increase health and safety in the workplace in future, the following recommended plans need to be implemented by the organizations.
The organization needs to follow the Occupational Safety and Health Act in order to control the hazards and risks that are associated with the workplace environment. Employers and employees need to act collaboratively in order to minimize occupational threats. Employers should be responsible to follow the rules and regulations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Effective training programmes and providing awareness about the PPE will help the employees to act safely in the workplace.
In terms of Apple, the organization should transparently follow the organization’s values, guidelines and business ethics. Inadequate and unsafe work environments will affect the business process of the organization. Employees are the biggest asset of an organization. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the organization to take care of the safety and health issues of the employees in the workplace. It is recommended that the employees should aware of the worker’s rights and information about the OSHA act. If the employees feel that, the workplace environment is becoming worse to work, then the employees can file a complaint against the employer or the organization to OSHA administrative body (Moran 15). They can file complaints through telephone and e-mail.