Occupational health and safety
Discuss about the Leadership of Organization for EEE Transactions on Visualization.
Organizational stress is a common issue that every organizations employee faces nowadays due to the increased competition in the market. The management is trying hard to increase the productivity of the employee by giving them extra pressure (Quick et al. 2013). Occupational health deals with health and safety aspects in the organizational workplace and focuses on the prevention of the toxic hazards that are present in the organization. Occupational health also includes the stress factor that employee deals in the workplace. This may happen due to the untimely schedule, extra work pressure, tight deadlines etc. A good working environment leads to optimum use of the labor forces and it increases the productivity of the organization and gives them a competitive advantage (Alexander 2013).
The unit manager of the organization and the Division head met for reviewing the services demand to prepare the funding submission for the upcoming financial year. Clients have increased in numbers and there is a limited opportunity to increase the funding. Managers had to come up with their case individually and then the management will work out and identify their priorities. The meeting had been postponed twice and the deadline is coming so the managers and the group have finally settled to discuss the funding of the next financial year. It is expected that no one is leaving today in time and the task that will be completed with least breaks.
The session will be long and this may cause many health issues for the employee. For example, Paula is suffering from diabetes and if she does not get some food in time then it may affect her health. Lennie is wondering, if he could deliver is ideas before everyone so that he can leave to collect his children from the childcare. These are some of the issue that the employee of the organization deals with that will eventually affect the working condition of the organization.
The aim of the organization should be the well-being of their employees. If the employee of the organization faces issues then it will hamper their performance and will cause unnecessary stress in the organization. Stress leads to deadline failure and this will affect the goodwill of the company. The aim of the occupation health and safety should be:
- The maintenance and promotion of the mental, social and physical well being of the employees in the organization (Faragher, Cass and Cooper 2013)
- The prevention of the adverse effects of health due to the working condition
- The protection of the workers who are affected due to the unhealthy working environment (Hood, Hardy and Simpson 2016)
- Providing high technologies with proper safety standards to avoid any accident in the organization
- Stress: The workplaces nowadays is full of deadlines, demands etc. There are employees who work through this pressure and there are people who are not able to handle the pressure and succumb to this pressure (McTernan, Dollard and LaMontagne 2013).
- Heavy workloads: If there is increased workload in the organization, it degrades the quality of the work and affects the health of the employees (Trivellas, Reklitis and Platis 2013).
- Inadequate resources: Time and material should be available adequately so that they can perform their task easily without bandy stoppage. Inadequate resources will cause loss in the working hours and this will lead to failed deadlines (Goetsch and Davis 2014).
- Poor leadership: A leader motivates his subordinates, provides confidence and increase the enthusiasm among the employees. But, if the same leader engage into punitive and aggressive behavior, it may results to harassment at the work (Ryan and Tipu 2013).
- Lack of clarity of the roles: This occurs when different workers are given different roles and responsibilities that are not compatible to them. The lack of clarity in the objectives and the expectations of the workers create a huge tension between the employees and this resulted in conflicts.
- Transparency: When the employees are not aware of the decision, they tend to make their own prediction and assumption that can spread rumors. This will ultimately hurt the image of the organization and will also hamper the trust towards the management.
- Poor performance management: Ineffectively conducted performance appraisal can cause a lot of problem in the workplace as well as it will affect the performance of the employee. If an employee with a huge productivity is under rated then it tends to create inferiority complex among the employee.
Poor workplace condition has a negative impact in the health and the production of the organization. The effects of poor working condition are:
- Decreased productivity: The production of the organization decrease when the working conditions of the organization are unhealthy. Employees tend to suffer more from diseases and this leads to loss of working hour.
- Chances of accident: Unhealthy work environment and ineffective equipments increases the chance of accident in the workplace.
- Leads to bad health: Workplace may lead to many health diseases. It may cause severe brain damages and chronic diseases. The health standard of the organization should highly focus on providing a safe working environment for their employees.
- Delay in task: If an organization failed to provide adequate resources within time then it may cause delay in work. This will make it tough for the employees to finish the task in time and it will ultimately affect the image of the organization (Liu and Heer 2014).
- Low employee retention: In today’s world, the competition is increasing due to the increase in the organization. If the working environment is unhealthy then the employee tends to leave the organization and find some better workplace to work in. This resulted in the organization’s loss as they lose skilled and trained employees from the organization (Davis 2013).
Causes of poor working condition
The workplace environment should be the top priority of the organization. To better the workplace condition the organization can follow these steps:
- Providing realistic deadlines should be the first towards the healthy working environment. This will reduce the stress from the employee and they will be more focused in achieving the goals (Kenner and Pressler 2014).
- Prior notice should be given before any organizational policy change and according to that proper training should be provided, so that the employee does not get uncomfortable and confused in adjusting the new changes.
- Deadlines that are set initially should not be missed, as it will delay the next target and this way the organization will continue missing all the deadlines.
- Proper safety guidelines should be maintained by the organization as well as by the employees. The equipments should be upgraded time to time so that it reduces the risks of accidents in the organization (Dabrowski 2015).
- The employees should be well informed about the meetings that the organization will organize. This will help to finish their personal tasks before the meeting is started.
In this assignment, the employee is facing problem with the timing of the meeting. The meeting has been postponed many times and the deadline has come. The unit manager has decided to sum up the meeting without taking many breaks. The session will be too long and the employees do not have any idea when it will end. Due to this employees are facing many problems like Paula is worried that she will not get time for having her food, which may affect her health as she has been suffering from diabetes. This problem can be solved if there is a proper break for the employee. Lennie have to collect his children from the childcare so he wants to put his case earlier. These problems happened due to the delay of the meeting. The issue should not have risen if the meeting was not postponed.
However, these issues can still be solved if the organization allows a break and record all that have been discussed in the organization. The organization should inform their employees from next time before organizing such lengthy sessions.
References:
Alexander, K., 2013. Facilities management: theory and practice. Routledge.
D?browski, A., 2015. An investigation and analysis of safety issues in Polish small construction plants. International journal of occupational safety and ergonomics, 21(4), pp.498-511.
Davis, T.L., 2013. A Qualitative Study of the Effects of Employee Retention on the Organization. Insights to a Changing World Journal, 2013(2).
Faragher, E.B., Cass, M. and Cooper, C.L., 2013. The relationship between job satisfaction and health: a meta-analysis. In From Stress to Wellbeing Volume 1 (pp. 254-271). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Hood, J., Hardy Jr, B. and Simpson, L., 2016. Workers’ compensation and employee protection laws in a nutshell. West Academic.
Kenner, C.A. and Pressler, J.L., 2014. Stress within the academic workplace. Nurse educator, 39(3), pp.105-106.
Liu, Z. and Heer, J., 2014. The effects of interactive latency on exploratory visual analysis. IEEE Transactions on Visualization & Computer Graphics, (1), pp.1-1.
McTernan, W.P., Dollard, M.F. and LaMontagne, A.D., 2013. Depression in the workplace: An economic cost analysis of depression-related productivity loss attributable to job strain and bullying. Work & Stress, 27(4), pp.321-338.
Quick, J.C., Wright, T.A., Adkins, J.A., Nelson, D.L. and Quick, J.D., 2013. Preventive stress management in organizations. American Psychological Association.
Ryan, J.C. and Tipu, S.A., 2013. Leadership effects on innovation propensity: A two-factor full range leadership model. Journal of Business Research, 66(10), pp.2116-2129.
Trivellas, P., Reklitis, P. and Platis, C., 2013. The effect of job related stress on employees’ satisfaction: A survey in health care. Procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 73, pp.718-726.