HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT

Safety, Health & Environmental (SHE) challenges in relation to employing a multi-cultural workforce, and its potential soulutions- UK Construction Industry

Safety, Health & Environmental (SHE) challenges in relation to employing a multi-cultural workforce, and its potential soulutions- UK Construction Industry

Section (1) Introduction

The phrase "multicultural workforce" refers to the changing age, sex, ethnicity, physical ability, race, and sexual orientation of employees across all types and places of work in the United States. Multicultural workforce as a descriptive term or phrase, however, has largely replaced the term "diversity" in the description of the increasing heterogeneity of the workplace through the inclusion of different groups of people. While "multicultural workforce" is still sometimes used in reference to employees of varying social, racial, and ability characteristics, the scope of diversity goes further and includes not only the personal characteristics of an organization's employees but also the way an organization responds to a multicultural or diverse workforce (Hinze, 2003, 159).

The last 10 years has seen a significant increase in the number of ethnically diverse workforces operating in various trade sectors across UK construction industry. This in turn has produced a number of challenges for employers. One of the most significant is to manage Health and Safety and ensure that concerns, communication, consultation, supervision and training is properly addressed for ethno linguistic groups (Findley, 2004, 14).

The foregoing is based largely on current best practice and should not be considered as an alternative to consulting experts in employment law, language or multicultural aspects of different nationalities. UK construction employers have existing legal duties to provide information, instruction, training and supervision in a comprehensible format for all employees, irrespective of their nationality, lingual ability, or level of literacy. There is an increasing concern that many employees are unable to communicate effectively in either written or spoken English language and in construction sector tend to rely on other employees whose own lingual skills and translation ability is an unknown quantity(Goldenhar, 2001, 237). These potential problems make delivery of training ineffectual and tend to prevent communication of urgent problems in the working environment in UK construction industry.

Section (2) Literature & Research On The She Challenges

Factors that influence health are only partially under our control as the environment in which we live and work, along with the inherited potential of individuals, can affect health; responsibility for health cannot therefore lie solely with the individual. As such the environment in which we work can have a major impact on our health. Recognition of this fact has resulted in the growth of interest in workplace health promotion (Cotton, 2005, 617). Research carried out into workplace health promotion initiatives has found numerous economic benefits. Companies actively involved in health promotion have noted an improvement in the health of their workforce that has manifested itself as a decline in the level of absenteeism increased productivity and improved staff morale. Whilst the majority of health initiatives have fallen into the category of single health habit interventions, increasingly corporate holistic healthcare strategies are ...