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Chapter 12 Safety, Health, Well-Being, and Security Learning Objectives After studying this chapter, the student should be able to: 1. Identify and discuss the central elements associated with employee safety and health. 2. Describe the basic issues involved in the physical work environment. 3. Discuss stress and stress-management programs in organizations. 4. Identify and describe the most important HR-related security issues in organizations. Chapter Outline Opening Case: A Disturbance in the Work Force According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the incidence of workplace violence has actually been trending down over the past few years, in part because employers have paid more attention to the problem and taken successful preventative measures. More and more companies, for example, have set up employee assistance programs (EAPs) to help workers deal with various sources of stress. However, EAP providers report that, in the current economic uncertainty, they’re being asked to deal with a different set of problems than those they’ve typically handled in the past. In particular, financial problems have replaced emotional problems as employees’ primary area of concern, and with unemployment totals remaining high in some industries and in some parts of the country, American workers appear to be more worried about the future than about such conventional stressors as pressing deadlines and demanding bosses. There are as yet no hard data to connect workplace violence with economic downturns, but many professionals and other experts in the field are convinced that the connection is real. Introduction This chapter is about ways in which organizations and human resource (HR) managers can make the workplace environment safe and healthy. I. Employee Safety and Health Safety hazards are those conditions in the work environment that have the potential to cause harm to an employee. Health hazards, on the other hand, are elements of the work environment that more slowly and systematically, and perhaps cumulatively, result in damage to an employee’s health. Table 12.1 lists some of the most dangerous occupations in the United States in terms of fatal accidents at work, as well as a few less dangerous ones. A. Common Workplace Hazards and Threats One major category of factors that can cause accidents in the workplace is the characteristics of the physical environment. At a general level, of course, of course, accidents can happen anywhere. But in manufacturing settings, several specific conditions of the work environment might prove to be potentially dangerous. Among the more common are unguarded or improperly guarded machines. In this instance, “guarding” refers to a shield or other pieces of equipment that keeps body parts from contacting moving machine parts such as gears and conveyor belts. Defective equipment and tools can cause accidents. Poor lighting and poor or improper ventilation can also be dangerous. Improper dress poses a hazard; loose clothing presents the risk of getting caught in the moving parts of a machine. Finally, poor housekeeping that results in dirty or wet floors, improperly stacked materials, and congested storage areas can result in accidents. Some personal actions of individual employees also present common workplace hazards. Among the more frequently described and identified personal actions that lead to accidents are taking unnecessary risks, failing to wear protective equipment such as goggles or gloves, using improper tools and equipment for specific jobs, taking unsafe shortcuts, and simply engaging in foolish horseplay. A separate set of workplace factors may produce negative health effects that appear more gradually. Chemicals, toxic fumes, and similar workplace elements may fall into this category. Secondary smoke may also be a factor. Some buildings themselves have relatively unsafe characteristics, including asbestos insulation and carpeting that has been treated with improper combinations of chemicals and dyes. For example, people who work in coal mines and pesticide plants may be especially prone to exposure. The U.S. Department of Labor has identified seven major categories of occupational illnesses: Occupational skin diseases or disorders Dust disease of the lungs Respiratory conditions because of toxic agents Poisoning Disorders resulting from physical agents Disorders associated with repeated trauma Other categories of occupational illnesses B. Organizations and OSHA Widespread concern about employee safety and health led to the passage in 1970 of the most comprehensive law regarding worker safety. This act is technically known as the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 but is most frequently referred to by its initials: OSHA. OSHA authorized the U.S. government to create and enforce various standards regarding occupational safety and health. The responsibility for enforcing the provisions of OSHA was assigned to the Department of Labor. In concert with the Department of Labor, the Department of Health was also given the task of sponsoring research to establish the criteria for various tasks and occupations and for training employees to comply with the act. Most of this work is conducted by an agency within the Department of Health called the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH); that is, NIOSH conducts research to help establish appropriate safety and health criteria. A sample of the guidelines developed from this work is shown in Table 12.2. Each year, new standards, revisions of old standards, or extensions or reinterpretations of various existing standards are published by OSHA in volumes that total hundreds of pages in length. Thus, managers frequently feel that OSHA represents unnecessary regulation of their activities. To ensure compliance with OSHA, inspectors from the U.S. Department of Labor visit places of employment either randomly or by invitation from an employer, an employee, or a union. An employer can be fined $10,000 per violation for willful or repeated major violations. In addition, company officials may be personally fined for failure to comply with OSHA regulations and can conceivably be sentenced to jail time. OSHA requires that employers keep highly specific and standardized records of illnesses and injuries that occur in the workplace. In addition to routine record keeping, employers must also report immediately and directly to OSHA all accidents and illnesses that result in deaths in the work place or that pose serious health hazards to all employees in the organization. Many experts believe that OSHA has not been terribly effective. They argue, for example, that its standards are often too comprehensive, too technical, and often too arbitrary. Critics also point out that enforcement of OSHA standards is relatively uneven. Although awareness of safety issues has undoubtedly increased, the number of occupational accidents and occupational illnesses has not been significantly diminished. C. Controlling Accidents at Work Safety engineers are experts who carefully study the workplace, try to identify and isolate particularly dangerous situations, and recommend solutions for dealing with those situations. In addition, organizations can sometimes help control workplace accidents by providing protective clothing and safety devices to employees. Among the more common kinds of various types of head protection, eye goggles and face shields, hearing protection for excessively noisy environments, gloves for hand protection, safety shoes for foot protection, waist support belts for people lifting heavy objects, and belts and lifelines for employees who work in high places. In today’s technology driven workplaces, safety equipment also include wrist and elbow supports and screen filters for people who keyboard several hours a day, as well as properly designed chairs and desk surfaces for people who sit for most of their workday. Employees should be taught the safest work procedures that the organization can identify, and they should be taught to follow safe work procedures and report unsafe conditions to managers. Finally, providing safety incentives and behavior modification training to employees has also been found effective in reducing the number of accidents on the job. An organization can try to make the workplace safer in one or two ways. First, it can emphasize a reduction in the number of accidents or in the number of workdays lost to accidents. Second, the organization also can focus on safe behaviors—that is, making the workplace safer—rather than on accidents themselves. Both approaches can work, but they operate in much different ways. D. Controlling Occupational Diseases The effects of occupational diseases are often observable only after extended periods of time, so it may be difficult for the organization to know if its disease-prevention efforts are effective. If the hazardous conditions can be reduced, or eliminated, the organization should do so, but it still must take precautions even if the hazards cannot be eliminated. These include informing all employees of the exact nature of the various risks and hazards associated with their jobs. This information should enable them to take a larger role in maintaining their own health. Again, in many cases, proper equipment might be helpful. Respiratory shields for breathing, pressurized or rubberized body suits, and appropriate safety materials and equipment such as gloves, and masks might be helpful. II. The Physical Environment The actual physical environment in which an employee works is also extremely important and obviously can affect safety, health, and well-being. A. Hours of Work There are some trends toward nontraditional workweeks as techniques to enhance performance; however, the hours worked and how they are distributed can also affect employee safety and well-being. For example, 4 days on, 3 days off a week may be attractive to some people, but not others. This work schedule can create problems too. For example, one study found that young males were much more receptive to compressed workweeks than were any other group. Preference aside, studies of compressed work schedules have also found that construction accidents are more likely to occur later in the day (which would be 10 hours long) because of fatigue on construction jobs, generally mixed results were found for productivity in jobs with compressed work schedules. In many industries, the problem of shift work presents another challenge to managing the work environment effectively. All human beings are subject to circadian rhythms, which tells one’s body when to eat or sleep. When employees work a night shift, their bodies must adapt to sleeping during the day and staying awake at night. Although, this change is disruptive, the body adapts to switch day and night. But employees who must work on rotating shifts are never able to establish a new rhythm. As a result, they are more likely to have ulcers than other employees because their bodies struggle to find equilibrium. Nonetheless, other research has indicated some workers, especially older, more experienced employees, may like the variety and can cope with the changes in biological rhythms. B. Illumination, Temperature, Office and Work Space Design Considerable evidence shows that extremes of temperature (in either direction) can affect both attitudes and decision making on the job. It has even been suggested that ambient temperature helps explain national differences in stress on the job. Research has also shown that different tasks require different levels of optimal lighting and that employees who perceive their work environments as dark are generally less satisfied with their jobs. Other aspects of the physical work environment that have received attention over the years include the use of music in the workplace. These studies, many of them going back more than 50 years, have indicated that almost any type of background music can improve employee attitudes and performance on the job. The physical layout of office space and the use of dividers and cubicles also have been found to influence attitudes and behavior at work. Even when light, temperature, or office layout did not influence performance, these factors were associated with differences in how employees felt about their jobs and where they worked. III. Stress and Stress Management at Work
HR in the 21st Century: Is Anybody in Control Here? The jobs of Airline pilots and air traffic controllers are extremely stressful. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mandates retirement ages for both. Pilots, however, can stay on the job until they are sixty-five, while controllers must in most cases call it quits at age fifty-six. Why? Because being an air traffic controller, it seems, is considered by the FAA as more stressful than being a pilot. At any given point, there are about 5,000 airplanes in the skies over the United States. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) reports that, on an average day, controllers handle 87,000 flights. In a year, they manage 64 million take-offs and landings. In addition, not all aircraft are travelling at the same speed, or at the same altitude, and very few of them are travelling at a steady perpendicular to the ground. Then, there’s the weather. Controllers record weather data every hour and have to be constantly aware of changing conditions. At present, there are about 15,000 fully trained air traffic controllers in the United States—the lowest number in 17 years. “And so we have a rise in operational errors,” both at regional and national airports, admits Melvin Davis, who’s been directing air traffic in southern California for more than 20 years.
A. Causes of Stress at Work Stress is a person’s adaptive response to a stimulus that places excessive psychological or physical demands on him or her. The stimuli that cause stress are called stressors. Task demands are stressors associated with the specific job a person performs. By nature, some occupations are more stressful than others. The jobs of surgeons, air traffic controllers, and professional football coach obviously are more stressful than those of a general practitioner, an airlines baggage loader, and a football team equipment manager, respectively. On the other hand, if job security is threatened, stress can increase dramatically. Overload is another task demand stressor. It occurs when a person simply has more work to do than he or she can handle. Physical demands relate to job setting. Many of the physical aspects of the work environment such as working in extreme temperatures, have been associated with stress on the job. Also, office design can be related to stress if its end result is isolation or boredom or too much interaction with co-workers. Strenuous labor such as loading heavy cargo or lifting packages can also lead to stress, as can poor lighting and inadequate work surfaces. Role demands can cause stress, too. A role is set of expected behaviors associated with a position in a group or organization. Stress can result from either role ambiguity or role conflict that people experience in groups. Another set of organizational stressors consists of three interpersonal demands. Group pressures include pressure to restrict output, pressure to conform to the group’s norms, and so forth. Leadership style can cause stress. Suppose an employee who needs a great deal of social support from his leader. The leader, however, is quite brusque and shows no concern or compassion for the employee. This employee will likely feel stressed. Conflicting personalities and behaviors may cause stress. Conflict can occur when two or more people must work together even though their personalities, attitudes, and behaviors differ. Table 12.3 provides a subjective list of the most and least stressful jobs. B. Differences in How One Experiences Stress Regardless of the stressors present on any job, different individuals will experience the stress differently. One factor that is important is personality. Some years ago, a group of medical researchers noticed that patient with certain personality characteristics were more likely to suffer early heart attacks. They identified these patients as having a Type A personality. They are highly competitive, highly focused on their work, and have few interests outside of work. These individuals are contrasted with the Type B personality. They tend to be less aggressive, more patient, and more easygoing. Type A personalities experience more stress and are more likely to suffer some type of illness due to stress than are Type B personalities. Another personality variable that appears to be related to how people experience stress is called hardiness. A high degree of hardiness actually reduces the experienced stress associated with stressful events, and so hardy personalities experience less stress overall and are more effective in dealing with the stress they do experience. Individuals high in self-esteem are also less susceptible to the problems associated with stress. Gender appears to be an important factor in determining how one experiences stress. C. Consequences of Stress at Work Stress can lead to several positive and negative consequences. Individual consequences are as follows: Behavioral consequences of stress are responses that may harm the person under stress or others. One such behavior is smoking. Other possible behavioral consequences are accident tendencies, violence, and appetite disorders. Psychological consequences of stress relate to an individual’s mental health and well-being. When people experience too much stress at work, they may become depressed or find themselves sleeping too much or not enough. Stress may also lead to family problems and sexual difficulties. The medical consequences of stress affect a person’s well-being. Heart disease and stroke, among other illnesses, have been linked to stress. Other common problems resulting from too much stress include headaches, backaches, ulcers and related stomach and intestinal disorders, and skin conditions such as acne and hives. Clearly, any of the individual consequences can also affect the organization, but other consequences of stress have even more direct consequences for organizations. One clear organizational consequence of too much stress is a decline in performance. For operating workers, such a decline can translate into poor-quality work or a drop in productivity. For managers, it can mean faulty decision making or disruptions in working relationships as people become irritable and hard to get along with. Withdrawal behaviors such as absenteeism and turnover can result from stress on the job. Another direct organizational consequence of employee stress relates to attitudes. Job satisfaction, morale, and organizational commitment can all suffer, along with motivation to produce at high levels. Finally, burnout, another consequence of stress, has clear implications for both employees and organizations. It is a general feeling of exhaustion that develops when an individual simultaneously experiences too much pressure and too few sources of satisfaction. Other consequences of stress include various dysfunctional behaviors that detract from, rather than contribute to, organization performance. Two of the more common are absenteeism and turnover. Turnover occurs when people quit their jobs. Other forms of dysfunctional behavior may be even more costly for an organization. Theft and sabotage, for example, result in direct financial costs for an organization. Sexual or racial harassment are also costly to an organization, both indirectly (by lowering morale, producing fear, and driving off valuable employees) and directly (through financial liability if the organization responds inappropriately). Workplace violence and aggression are also growing concerns in many organizations. It is also possible that stress has some positive effects on behavior at work. Also, it has been argued that without some stress, employees can become bored. D. Wellness Programs in Organizations Two basic organizational strategies for helping employees manage stress are institutional programs and collateral stress programs. Institutional programs for managing stress are undertaken through established organizational mechanisms. For example, properly designed jobs and work schedules can help ease stress. Shift work, in particular, can cause major problems for employees because they have to adjust their sleep and relaxation patterns constantly. The organization’s culture can also be used to help manage stress. Some organizational cultures, for example, have a strong norm against taking time off or going on vacation. In the long run, such norms can cause major stress. To avoid this, the organization should strive to foster a culture that reinforces a healthy mix of work and nonwork activities. A supervisor is a potential major source of overload. Those who are made aware of their potential for assigning stressful amounts of work can do a better job by keeping workloads reasonable. In addition, to their institutional efforts aimed at reducing stress, many organizations are turning to collateral stress programs, or programs created specifically to help employees deal with stress. Organizations have adopted stress-management programs, health-promotion programs, and other kinds of programs for this purpose. Organizations try to help employees cope with stress through other kinds of programs. For example, existing career-development programs like that at General Electric are used for this purpose. Other companies use programs promoting everything from humor to massage as antidotes for stress. Of course, little or no research supports some of the claims made by advocates of these programs, so managers must take steps to ensure that any organizational effort to help employees cope with stress is at least reasonably effective. E. Other Interventions In 2009, while unemployment inched closer to 10 percent and major banks disappeared from existence (both causing significant stress), Americans began concerning themselves with a new threat to their well-being. Originally and unfortunately called swine flu, the H1N1 influenza reached pandemic proportions in 2009, indicating that it had spread across significant areas of the country (technically, a pandemic indicates a disease prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world). OSHA began issuing statements and testifying before Congress on ways to deal with the H1N1 virus at work. OSHA guidelines called for ordering respirators, fitting employees for these respirators, and training employees in the use of respirators and gloves as well as programs urging employees to regularly wash their hands and providing sufficient stores of vaccine. For the past 25 years or so, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) has become a major problem in the world in general—and at work. Individuals who publicly disclose their condition increase the potential for retaliation from coworkers: Many people fear the disease and may shun those who have it. And the organization faces various privacy-related issues. An organization that wants to deal with this issue must start by developing and implementing a comprehensive AIDS policy. As a premise for developing a policy, however, all employers must keep in mind certain points. First, it is illegal to ask an applicant if she or he has AIDS. Some but not all states allow organizations to require applicants to take an AIDS test. Regardless of the test outcome, an employee can be denied employment only if it is determined that the applicant cannot perform the job. As long as the individual who is already hired is capable of performing the job, then he or she cannot be terminated or placed on leave. In general, organizations can adopt three strategies in trying to deal with AIDS from a management perspective. One strategy is to categorize AIDS under a comprehensive life-threatening-illness policy. In this instance, AIDS is treated like terminal cancer or any other life-threatening illness. The organization can then apply the same sorts of insurance coverage provisions, early retirement and leave provisions, and so forth. Another strategy is to form an AIDS-specific policy. This action is completely legal for an organization to contemplate as long as neither the intent nor the implementation of the policy results in discrimination against people on the basis of an AIDS condition. The essence of such a policy is to affirm the organization’s stance that employees with AIDS are still entitled to work, receive benefits, and be treated comparably to all other employees. The third approach that some companies is to have no AIDS policy at all, an approach taken by far too many companies. In any of these events, managerial ignorance can potentially result in serious problems for both the employer and employees. IV. Workplace Security The need to live in a safe and secure environment is a basic driver of human behavior. But security can be threatened (or guaranteed) in many different ways at work. Even individuals working on relatively dangerous jobs, however, can feel more secure if the organization (or someone else) is concerned about their safety. On the other hand, announcements about impending or actual layoffs are likely to increase feelings of insecurity concerning employees. In addition, some organizations are active in allaying employee’s fears about an uncertain future in other ways. The whole idea behind private pension plans to provide employees with some assurance that they will have enough money to live on when they retire. Finally, insurance programs are also designed to provide security in various forms. A different type of security issue has become much more salient to employees in the United States since September 11, 2001. The threat of bombings or kidnappings is not new to the world, but Americans have traditionally felt these concerns only when they were travelling abroad, not when they were at their jobs. Concerns over security have also made many Americans less willing to travel abroad—especially to the areas that are potentially dangerous. Instructor Manual for Human Resources Angelo Denisi, Ricky Griffin 9781285867571
