Miners In China Issues - Case Study Example

Running Head: Case Study on Miners in China Human Resource Management Name Institution Date Business ethics is a form of applied ethics that deals with the examination of the moral as well as ethical principles and problems respectively that tends to arise within a business environment. Business ethics is useful in the maintenance of a good business conduct and the conduct of the individuals at the work place as well (Kornberger, 2007). The business ethics mainly offers the principles and the standards that will go a long way to offer the guidance to the behavior in the world of business. There are various dimensions of business ethics and they would range from applied normative and the descriptive dimensions. The descriptive dimensions tend to deal with the understanding of the behavior by using academics whereas normative dimensions will deal with career specialization and corporate practice (Parkan, 2009). Human resource professional/employment relations is a manager within the organization who has the mandate to deal with the employment issues of the workers such as recruitment, training and orientation and once the employee has been hired and comes aboard, the human resource manager is able to assess the performance of the workers by using the performance appraisals. Human resource manager will also be involved in the labor relations where it will be concerned with the development of positive interaction among the workers .human resource manager will also address the issues pertaining to the health and the safety of the workers and also ensuring the environment at the place of work does not put the employees’ health at risk and also does not expose the employee to work related accidents. Human resource manager will also go a long way in the innovation of new ideas as well as strategies which are to be used in the minimizing of the risks at the work places (Sullivan, 2011). China relies on the mining industry in the production of its energy in which almost 70% of its energy will be gotten from the mining of coal. The mining of coal still continues to pose a threat to the miners since it has claimed most of the lives of the miners. The mines in china still remain to be the most dangerous in the world. The Chinese government has tried to the mining accidents. Most of the workers who are working in the mines are the immigrants who are basically unskilled hence are exploited and their needs with regards to their safety not given the attention it deserves by the managers of the mining companies. The working conditions within the mines in china are never of importance to the management teams in the mines hence least priority is given to provide safety to the workers (Sullivan, 2011). The three options that are available for the human resource management which would include employment of the workers and this shall be centered on their recruitment, training and orientation. Enlightened the workers are enlightened on various safety guidelines and how to conduct themselves at the work place. Secondly, safety to the workers will involve the provision of guide lines that are to be followed to prevent and to manage illnesses and health conditions. Communication will be the third option and this will entail Encouragement of positive interaction amongst workers and the management team (Velasquez, 2010). However, several factors could have led to the accident occurring that could have been minimized if the human resource manager was doing the work properly. The mining operations in the company are said to have begun even when the place was not even ready for the mining to be started. Working conditions and environment was poor because the workers had to go on with the work despite the concentration of the gases in the mine being 40 times higher than the recommended levels. The management is not concerned with the welfare of the workers since the safety of the workers is not part of their main priority and all they care about is the continued production of the gas and even on the fateful day of the accident the management still continued with the mining operations in the other platforms to first deal with the accident that had occurred. The functions of the human resource manager that could have been vital would include the provision of safety, for the health workers with regard to the working environment, their health and exposure to risks (Sullivan, 2011). The option of the workers safety will be vital in the prevention of the accident occurring as well as offering timely and well-coordinated response to rescue the trapped workers. The human resource is responsible for coming up with safety guide lines which will be used at the work place to prevent injuries to the workers. Guidelines for the human resource will be mainly tailored towards preventing work related injuries as well as illnesses (Fung et al, 2010). The human resource manager will also go a long way in the ensuring that the health and the safety policies and procedures are well adhered to and that they always remain applicable to the safety of the workers. This will be achieved by the human resource manager establishing the procedures that are well spelled out to enable the enforcing of the mining companies safety rule. The human resource management will also provide the adequate training to the health workers to enable them conduct the first aid procedures in the eventuality of an accident or injury. The human resource management will also be in charge of offering the management with the adequate advice on how the safety issues at the work place will be tackled (Lewis, 2008). Responsibility of human resource manager is to for ensure that the place of working conditions and environment to be ideally safe and provides a comfortable working environment to the workers with limited risks of exposure to injuries, accidents or illnesses at the work place. This could have been ensured by the human resource department facilitating for better working conditions or environment for the workers. For instance, the human resource department could have made the workers to be able to work only when the level of gases are not high as they were (40 times above the normal).this would have gone in the long run to prevent the disaster that had occurred. The operations at the mine could also have been started at the right time that was stipulated to prevent the accident from occurring. The human resource manager could have enabled the safety measures to be reviewed before the operations beginning in the mine. Human resource manager should have gone ahead to ensure that the safety issues and the working conditions are safe for the miners to be able to engage in the mining operations and this could have been achieved by the survey of the area the mining process is to be conducted and also ensuring that the mining procedures to be undertaken will be safe for the miners to be able to work with (Macdonald, 2009). Human resource manager will ensure that the safety guidelines are adhered to the later in their practice as well as their implementation. This will help even the management to be considerate to the safety of the workers and this could have prevented the accident at the mine since all safety guidelines would have been followed. For instance the workers could not work in the mines with both the management and the human resource manager having in mind the levels of gases being forty times higher than the normal being a risk to the health of the workers (Du Plessis, 2010). Human resource manager could also have been active in the coordination of safety and health activities for this could have enabled the rescue of the trapped miners not taking many days it were when the accident occurred in the mines. The early response as a result of the coordination of the human resource could have reduced the mortality chances of trapped miners since a rapid rescue would be formed. The human resource manager could have also prevented the occurrence of the incident by ensuring that the miners are aware of the existing risks within the working environment as this would in the long run have made the patients to be always careful in their work to avoid accidents at the work place (Cowton, 2011). Human resource manager could also have offered a reviewed mechanisms of dealing with accidents for example ensuring that the management provides education to the workers on the various safety drills to the workers for this could have enabled more people to have made it from the site of the accident and even would have enabled ease of conducting the rescue operations within the site of the accident. They could also go ahead to offer the training of the miners on how they can be able to prevent and deal with the accidents when they occur. The human resource department is also mandated to offer enlighten meant to the workers to be aware of their safety and the challenges they are likely to face during the mining operation (Treadway et Al, 2009). The human resource manager is in charge of recruitment of the workers and hence it will be responsible for suggesting to the management for the hiring of employees who will be able to implement issues of safety within the mines. The mining operation will have to consider recruitment of the personnel trained on safety and rescue operations. Recruitment done by the human resource would have also entailed or considered the hiring of the medical personnel and also the fast response teams as this would have helped in terms of disaster preparedness .the rescue response could have been rapid and this would have enabled the reduction in the number of fatalities from the accident due to the rapid and fast coordination of a rapid or immediate rescue response for those miners who had been trapped (Du Plessis et al, 2008). The human resource will also ensure the recruitment of the workers who are qualified for the mining job since it would require some technical expertise and the mining therefore should not be done by the unqualified personnel just with the aim of saving the costs of mining but rather should be done by a more professional manner by the skilled personell.The use of skilled personnel will also lower the possibility of accidents occurring since the skilled workers will know the steps to be taken while carrying out their operations. The human resource will also ensure that the miners will be able to recognize safe behaviors at the work place (Trevino et al, 2006). In conclusion, performance of the mining company will be greatly influenced by the human resource as it will be able to always keep abreast the company in its vision and mission to deliver to the market their products. However the success of the human resource will need the interdisplinary and collective responsibility of the workers as well as the management team (Truss, 2008). When the three units are linked, the success of a company will be realized. The provision of safety for the mining company will greatly be influenced by the human resource since the human resource is the main link between the management of the company and the workers. When the human resource establishes a good link, disasters such as the one that happened in the mine would be greatly avoided. The human resource should always endeavor to cater for the welfare of the workers in terms of their safety and also work closely with the management team in order to help provide the adequate plans to avoid accidents and also formulate policies with regard to the safety of the workers that should be followed to the later. This will ensure that the management does not overlook the safety of the workers in relation to their own interests (Truss, 2008). References Parkan J, (2009). Business ethics .Approaches to Business Ethics on Multinational Corporations and the Provision of Positive Rights , Journal of Business Ethics. Treadway D. et Al, (2009) .Bullying in The 21st Century Global Organization: An Ethical Perspective, Journal of Business Ethics. Kornberger M & C. Rhodes, (2007) Business Ethics as Practice’, British Journal Of Management. Macdonald C, (2009). Conflict of Interest, Oxford Handbook of Business Ethic. Fung G et al, (2010). Business Ethics Research: A Global Perspective, Journal of Business Ethics. Trevino K. & Gary W. Et Al. (2006).Behavioral Ethics in Organizations: A Review, Journal of Management. Du Plessis, (2010), International Human Resource Management: An Overview of its Effect on Managers in Global Organizations, Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business. 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