OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY SYSTEM

Assignment 1 - OHS5132: How An Occupational Health And Safety Management System Could Be Affected By Employment Trends

Assignment 1 - OHS5132: How An Occupational Health And Safety Management System Could Be Affected By Employment Trends

Introduction

An occupational health and safety management system (OHSMS) is a set of standards and procedures for managing health and safety in the workplace. It provides a framework to the organization to identify, assess, and control safety and health risks, reduce the number of injuries and potential for accidents, and improve the safety standard of the organization. Effective OHSMS implementation is influenced by the shift towards unstable organisational patterns and a significantly 'precarious workforce'.

Increasing orientation towards precarious workforce provides employment options that include self employed, contractors, sub-contractors, labour hire, franchisers, suppliers, casual and part-time employees (Peterson, 2005, 82). OHSMS implementation places considerable responsibility on employers to provide safe workplace and systems of work to the employees. In this context, the issue of effective occupational health and safety management systems becomes even more important to ensure the duty of care of both employers and employees is properly exercised (Peterson, 2005, 101). This report discusses positive contributing factors and barriers to effective implementation with respect to Section 4 of AS/NZS 4801 (Standards Australia, 2001) and a precarious workforce.

Precarious Workforce

Precarious Workforce is used to describe the employment non-standard employment that has low or meagre pay scales/salary packages; have insecure and unprotected working environment, and do not have regular income to support household expenses (Gunningham, 1999, 53). Precarious employment has increased in last few decades due to the globalization, functioning and widespread adoption of information technology (which has outdone human labour and expertise), and the organizational shift from the manufacturing sector to the service units (Bohle, 2000, 61). The shift to precarious employment is increasing in young and women workers. In the European Union (EU), precarious workers were found to have better health and stress-related outcomes than did full-timers, although they had more musculoskeletal problems (Benavides & Benach, 1999, 27).

Positive Contributing Factors

The productive factors of precarious workforce are that it creates a workforce diversity that is quite useful for some organisations. It increases the cooperation and coordination among employees. The productivity of the employees is even quite high due to the favourable atmosphere, which is there in the organisation. Various employment areas including self-employed, contractors, sub-contractors, labour hire, franchisers, casual and part-time employees even turn out to be very beneficial for the organisation. Employment of precarious workforce and its implication for the OHS plan implementation defines the significance in terms of benefits employees draw from the standard (Folkard, 2006, 953). Needs of precarious workforce related to OHSM contributes positively to the implementation of the Section 4 of AS/NZS 4801. Under Section 4 of AS/NZS 4801:2001 regulation, employers at the workplace ensure the health, safety, and welfare of their employees. Employers ensure that substances and items use by the employees at work are safe and without risks to health when properly used (Karwowski, 2006, ...