WORKPLACE HEALTH AND SAFETY QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Workplace Health and Safety Quality Management



Workplace Health and Safety Quality Management

Introduction

Safety and health issues are an important concern throughout the world. Employees who work in the United States and out of the states need to feel safe and obtain a sense of security. Before 1970, there were no regulations for safety hazards in the workplace, and no accountability for accidents which occurred on the job. Companies controlled the workforce and the environment. The passing of the Workplace Safety and Health Act (OSHA) changed the future for employees. The law gave protection to workforce and forced employers to provide a safe and healthy workplace, plus created accountability.

Discussion

Workplace Health and Safety is associated with the physical, physiological and psychosocial conditions of an organisation's workforce, allied to aspects of work and the work context (De Cieri & Kramar, 2003, pp. 99). Workplace health and safety is a necessary and fundamental aspect in any productive organisations. Work-related injuries, diseases and stress and quality of the working-life of the employees are related to the employees' effectiveness. (Stone, 2002, pp. 646). Barling (2004) stated that Workplace health and safety is a major issue for employees, and how management deals with this issue of both academic and practical significance. The most frequent organizational approaches used to produce a sufficient level of safety have focused on the optimal design of equipment (i.e., an ergonomic approach), adherence with government-imposed standards (i.e., a legislative approach), or compliance with the terms of collective agreements. Therefore, systematic approaches to Workplace safety and health are rapidly emerging internationally as the pre-eminent strategy for employers to reduce Workplace illness and injury. In addition, Schulte (2002) stated that the aim of the pre-eminent strategy is to improve knowledge, increase understanding, and apply information to specific problems. There are three topics that are emerged in this paper, those are: the significance of Workplace Health and Safety management and planning, Workplace Health and Safety Hazard example (work-related stress) and the development Workplace Health and Safety cultures in each organization as the solutions in preventing the Workplace Health and Safety Issues.

The nature of major causes of work-related ill health makes Workplace health fit more closely than ever before into the public health agenda. The government has been quick to recognise the role of Workplace health nurses in reaching the public health targets set in recent public health policy such as Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation (1999). Securing Health Together (HSC 2000) is one of the latest government strategies to reduce ill health caused by work and aims to meet the government's agenda to reduce health inequalities within the workplace. This long term Workplace health strategy is one of several public health targets within the United Kingdom that has roots within Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation (1999). The appropriateness of the current policy environment and the associated initiatives such as Securing Health Together will now be discussed in order to identify how they evolved and whether the strategies currently in place are in ...