Employee Wellbeing and Health and Safety at Work

Key points:

• Understanding safety and health laws, responsibilities, compensation systems, and the method to maintaining a safe and healthy work environment.
• Learning about the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
• Being aware of health and safety issues, such as AIDS, violence, traumas, chemicals, etc.

Key contents:

There is two types of workplace safety laws:

1. Workers compensation, an insurance system that is funded by the employers and operates at a state level. It is intended to ensure good medical care to employees, and also income for them and their dependents. It also requires higher insurance premiums from employers who have a bad history of workplace accidents and injuries in order to encourage them to invest in safety.
2. OSHA: Occupational Safety and Health Act, a federal level law that dictates the safety standards in the workplace. It keeps record of work injuries and illnesses, and it is enforced through inspections, fines, criminal penalties and citations.

AIDS, violence in the workplace, trauma disorders, etc… are the main issues for employers. To deal with those issues the employers must be able to balance individual rights with the needs of the company.

Employee assistance programs help employees deal with physical, mental, or psychological problems that have an effect on their job performance. Wellness programs help employees identify health risks and deal with them before they become a big problem.

For example, one of the cases reports about Moritz Erhardt, a Merrill Lynch intern that died from an epileptic attack in the shower after working three days in a row in a bank. The employers hadn’t checked his medical history, even though Erhardt had a past of epileptic fits, and also, the employers weren’t able to recognize anything wrong with Erhardt during his work.

Source:

Gomez-Mejia, L.R., Balkin, D.B. and Cardy, R.L. 2016. Managing Human Resources. Global Edition 8/E. Pearson. London, Chapter 16.