Organisational Health and Safety Practices - Case Study Example

Organisational Health and Safety Practices Prepared by Submitted to Word count 2734 words (excluding content and reference pages) Part A 1. Introduction The organisation taken for study in this paper is Diana Plaza Hotel in Australia. It is established in 1995. The corporate group that owns it is Sambo Corporation Pty Ltd. The hotel complies with some of the organisational health and safety standards of Australia. The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the processes in the hotel regarding OHS and to point out the up gradation needed. This needs surveys or interviews of the staff working in the hotel and who are familiar with the policies of the hotel. The interviews are conducted and the evaluation and the up gradation needed is calculated and estimated according to it. The need of the organisational health and safety measures and the past and present measures followed are considered for analysis. The back ground of the organisational health and safety will be discussed for the present needs of OHS measures. The need for the increase of the OHS measures The selected HRM activity is regarding the safety measures for the staff involved in the housekeeping activities and other services in the Diana plaza hotel. The training given for the staff and the need of further training will be evaluated. The problem found in the interviews is that the training provided is not sufficient for the staff as they are not clear about the problems and their solving. There is no special training provided for dealing with chemicals, gas connections and heavy load lifting activities. Moreover the heavy load lifting activities need automation to reduce or minimise the physical hardship. There are no such instances mentioned regarding that activity. The secondary research question is regarding the general organisational health and safety measures. (Department of Consumer and Employment Protection, 2003) The research process for the evaluation and analysis of the organisational health and safety measures starts with the interviews of the staff involved in housekeeping and other services in the hotel. The training methods and the aspects lacking in them will be searched for. Any defects are there and if this needs correction or up gradation, it will be mentioned. The basis of the up gradation of the training process and the safety measures in the hotel will be examined. This will provide a study regarding the safety measures needed for the staff involved in hazardous and heavy load lifting activities. (Tourism department, 2007) 2. Background 2.1 Literature Review: According to the national occupational health and safety commission there should be a framework declaring occupational health and safety standards through Australian safety and compensation counsel. This provides a deterrent for the organisations that try to avoid the installation of safety measures. The Australian OHS law was revolutionised according to the United Kingdom parliamentary inquiry on health and safety at work. This was followed by a report of the committee of inquiry on occupational health and safety in 1972, which was known as Robens committee report. This was made as legislation in 1974 in UK and the Australian states followed the legislation in 1980s. The committee felt that the infrequency and long latency of work place hazards indicates that the personnel do not have sufficient personal experience regarding injuries. This prompted for the awareness of occupational health and safety. The committee stressed on self regulation of safety in the varied enterprises across industries. According to the committee’s recommendations, the occupational health and safety could be realised if it is tripartite matter. The Government, management and employees must be made jointly responsible. Regarding the commitment of the employees it was advised that they have to participate fully in the making and monitoring of arrangements for safety and health at work. The committee proposed a statutory duty on the employer to consult the employees or their representatives at the work place on measures for promoting safety and health at work. Robens committee stresses on the freedom of association principles recognising the unique role of the representatives of employees and individual employees. These individual employees may not have the personal experience regarding the health and safety adverse conditions, the collective organisations can take the responsibility of the OHS. This knowledge can be termed as corporate knowledge. This led to the establishment of national occupational health and safety council in Australia. After the establishment in 1984, the approaches of 1970s gained momentum from in 80s. The approaches reduced the high national record of occupational death, injury and illness. The working conditions improved as a basic objective of the prices and incomes accord came into existence. The government encouraged the subsidisation of the selected organisations that introduce the practices that involve the employees in installing safety measurements. The active participation of workers in installing health and safety can come through active participation of workers and their representatives in decision making regarding OHS. The establishment of NOHSC resulted in additional beneficial activities like information collection, dissemination at national level. This included the safe handling of asbestos. The national chemical notification and assessment scheme provided mechanism for evaluating new chemicals before they enter. (News correspondent, 2001) After the development and promulgation of national OHS standards and codes, the NOHSC has come under the council of ministers. The council set the prior agreement by Labour Ministers Council of the states as the peak of the OHS policy body. The monitoring system focussed on the system of OHS jurisdictions under the auspices of NOHSC. The endorsement of the future directions for NOHSC provides a continuing response to a number of recommendations of the industry commission’s 1995 report. In 2003 the report of the royal commission recommended the steps to ensure the uniform national standards, time table and accountability for the progress and completion of OHS implementation. In the outlines of National OHS strategy 2002-2012, the initial OHS targets are to sustain the continual reduction in the incidence of work related fatalities and the reduction of work place injury. Finally the Australian Parliament ratified the ILO’s convention no. 155 that requires national health and safety policy to be implemented in consultation with representatives and workers. As a result the NOHSC was replaced by Australian safety and compensation Council. (Katrina Smith et al, 2001) The ASSC is forum for better national discussion and coordination and the Australian government will fund the body. After that the national occupational health and safety commission bill was introduced in 2005 that repealed the schedule 1, part 1, item 1 of the NOHSC bill. The remaining items come under the proposed new subsection 3 (a) and the powers are vested with the common wealth. This council will have the powers and functions of the body chosen by the government. This resulted in the written code of conduct for the principles regarding OHS. (Australian Parliament, 2006) The Diana plaza hotel is not having enough measures and standards in place for OHS according to the above mentioned and discussed points and statutes. The employees of the organisation interviewed are not aware of the rules and regulations about organisational health and safety and are not properly trained for the executing the activities they are meant for. There are no proper arrangements to enhance the working conditions and to reduce the physical hardship of the staff. (Australian Government, 2004,) 3. HR process in the Organisation The HR process in the organisation is not according to the standards of the OHS. There are no automation for reducing the physical hardship for the persons involved in working with heavy loads. The interviews revealed that there is no training for them to deal with the heavy loads. There are only personal insurance policies for the staff and if there is any injury or accident the loss of career and health are not considered by the company. This amounts to negligence of the standards of the safety and health measures that are statutorily compulsory to implement. This provides no safety for the employees working with hazardous chemicals and the works that involve physical hardship. There is no proper training about the chemicals used as the employees only mentioned about the training but not the details of them. As they are not aware and experts in using the chemicals it can be decided that the training provided by the company is not sufficient and there are no safety measures in place to reduce or minimise the hazardous effects of the chemicals used. The employees are using the chemicals without proper arrangements to avoid hazards by misplacing or misusing them. There may be a loss for the health of the employees and for the property of the hotel if the chemicals and the gas and heating instruments are misused and misplaced. The safety specific training and health and safety specific measures are not present in the infrastructure, the workers are working with. The instruments and machinery that minimise the negative effects of the chemicals and other machinery are not a part of the infrastructure of the hotel. The staff involved in the house keeping activities of the hotel belong to different nationalities and they are not aware of the occupational health and safety measures that are prevailing in Australia. This made the company to escape the installation of health and safety measures. 4. Methods Adopted for Collecting Information About Safety measures The methods adopted for gathering the information about the safety measures in the hotel are the interviews with the staff. These include the staff at lower level and at the managerial positions. More facts came out from the interviews of the lower level staff as the managerial level staff did not respond much and provide the information regarding the safety and health measures. This is due to the lack of training facilities about handling the chemicals, heating instruments and heavy load lifting. One cannot rely on training for heavy load lifting as it requires physical strength. Every person cannot attain that much physical strength to lift heavy loads and still that necessity is a part of housekeeping activities in the hotel. This can be met by introducing the machinery that can lift the heavy loads and the staff can be trained in operating that machinery. This avoids the necessity of physical lifting of the loads by the people and they are not present in the hotel infrastructure. There is lack of training and machinery in the hotel. If we think about which should be introduced first, the inter relation between them will come to the fore.( NSW team, 2003) With out the training the personnel cannot handle machinery and without the machinery the hotel cannot give training for its recruited personnel. So the installation of the machinery and the training facilities need to be introduced simultaneously. This ensures proper training for the personnel and work place safety and health standards. Before this the workers in the hotel must be made aware of the health and safety requirements in the work they do in the company. This must be a duty of the company to make aware the people working for the company. As this is absent it is evident that there is no collective mechanism for the workers in the hotel to make them aware of the health and safety practices at the work place and can install them. (Rockfeller foundation, 2001) Part B 1. Theoretical Point of View of the Literature As per the theoretical point of view, the occupational health and safety measures works for disease control and prevention. Some diseases will be result of continuous exposure for chemicals and for the machinery involved in the works. These diseases cannot give any direct evidence for the fact that the disease is due to the working conditions. As a result the employee cannot get any support from the company if there is no statutory provisions in doing so. The overall purpose of the OHS should be develop knowledge that can be used in preventing occupational diseases and injuries. This can be implemented better if the employees and employers are aware about the hazards and adverse effects of not implementing the OHS measures. The purpose can be shared by the components of the public health services to help the employers in implementing health regarding measures of OHS. In case of safety regulations also both the employees and employers interests are involved as any accident may cause damage to the infrastructure along with injuring the employee. The employer cannot rely on just the insurance to neutralise the loss the insurance can only pay for the loss but not for the business loss the accident incurs. This loss of business can be avoided by installing safety measures that avoid the accidents and give safety to the employees. In making the employers complying to the safety measurements the authorities may face the problem of answering them about the extra costs involved in the installing the safety measures. In that case the authorities can convince the employers by drawing their attention to the loss of business due to the accident and what the installation of the safety measures for employees can do for avoiding the loss of business. (Alan Clayton, 2002) This requires the identification and investigation of the relationships between the hanards and the conditions in the company. The occupational diseases have a connection with the working conditions of the company. The cancer institutes can support training and research related to the causes, detection, prevention, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of cancer due to working conditions. The employers can have an insurance agreement with the cancer institutes to install the safety measures in the company and to treat the employees if they still are caught by the diseases despite the safety measures. Similarly the companies can have agreements with heart, lung and blood institutes to install safety and health measures to avoid the hazardous diseases. The companies can enter into agreement such that if the safety measures fail to avoid diseases, the relevant institutes can bear the treatment charges if the companies pay them charges for installing the safety and health measures. These types of agreements can give rise to new type of business between industries and health organisations. (DHHS, 2003) 2. Results of the Interviews 2.1 Results of the Survey: The main result of the interviews with the survey conducted by the interviews of the employees of the hotel is that they don’t have enough awareness about the OHS measures. They are telling that they are given training regarding cleaning and fire fighting measures but not dealing with the hazardous chemicals. Though there are the employees that are satisfied with the training of the using of hazardous chemicals but are not able to explain how their training was useful in their work. This means that they lack awareness and knowledge about the OHS measures and the diseases they may face due to the unhealthy and unsafe working conditions. The employees involved in the lifting heavy loads mentioned that they are not given training for lifting heavy loads. Actually the company need to install the machinery to lift heavy loads on regular basis and the absence of training indicates that there is no enough machinery to deal with the heavy load lifting by the employees. 2.2 According to the principles of the OHS, the government organisations like PHS and the safety implementation organisation should work in tandem with the employers and employees (unions). In case of Diana plaza hotel that type of coordination is absent as the employees are not able to mention how the training is useful for them in doing their duty. They are completely unaware of the OHS measures and this may result in carelessness in taking precautions to prevent adverse conditions for their health. These unhealthy and unsafe conditions are the target of the principles of OHS proposed by the Australian parliament in various drafts and by different councils and bills. The working conditions in the Diana plaza hotel did not comply with the conditions mentioned in the 2005 bill of the Australian government regarding the OHS. The employees are not complaining about OHS conditions prevailing in the hotel. This indicates that there is no collective responsibility from the side of employees or the employer is not permitting it. This is against the Robens committee recommendations, which are implemented by the committees, councils and legislations followed it. 3. Recommendations for OHS implementations The recommendations regarding the OHS conditions in Diana Plaza hotel are regarding 1. Heavy load lifting, 2. Use of chemicals 3. Preventive measures for diseases cause due to house keeping activities 4. The training and educating the employees about complete OHS measures and standards that are to be implemented by the company at the work place by collective responsibility of employees and employers. References 1. Australian Parliament, 2006, National Occupational Health and Safety Commission (Repeal, Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2005, Parliament libaray, , electronic, 24-5-07, http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/BD/2005-06/06bd038.htm#Pa 2. DHHS, 2003, OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY RESEARCH, DHHS, ,electronic, 24-5-07, http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-04-038.html 3. 3. Department of Consumer and Employment Protection, 2003, Annual report, Department of Consumer and Employment Protection, ,electronic, 24-5-07, http://www.docep.wa.gov.au/Corporate/media_include/Publications/AnnReports/2003/full_report.pdf 4. Tourism department, 2007, Tourism accommodation and training, pc.gov.au, ,electronic, 24-5-07, http://www.pc.gov.au/ic/inquiry/50touris/finalreport/50tourispartd.pdf 5. News correspondent, 2001, labor to move on outsourcing scams, Workers online, ,electronic, 24-5-07, http://workers.labor.net.au/85/print_index.html 6. Katrina Smith et al, 2001, Comparative Performance Monitoring, WRMC, ,electronic, 24-5-07, http://www.workplace.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/0D61779F-28AF-4B2F-8D08-1535C76830FD/0/CPMreportDecember2001.pdf 7. Australian Government, 2004, Act Government, jcs.act.gov.au, ,electronic, 24-5-07, http://www.pco.act.gov.au/library/2004vol1JCSAR.pdf 8. NSW team, 2003, Policy and Framework Guidelines, ambulance.nsw.gov.au, ,electronic, 24-5-07, http://www.ambulance.nsw.gov.au/docs/zero_tol_guide.pdf 9. Rockfeller foundation, 2001, work and health, Rock feller foundation, ,electronic, 24-5-07, http://www.calendow.org/reference/publications/pdf/workforce/TCE0315-2001_New_Relationsh.pdf 10. Alan Clayton, 2002, The Prevention of Occupational Injuries and Illness: The Role of Economic Incentives, national research centre of OHS regulation, ,electronic, 24-5-07, http://ohs.anu.edu.au/publications/pdf/wp%205%20-%20Clayton.pdf Read More