To summarize the major points covered in this chapter:
Safety hazards are aspects of the work environment that have the potential of causing immediate and sometimes violent harm or even death to an employee.
Health hazards are aspects of the work environment that slowly and cumulatively (often irreversibly) lead to deterioration of an employee's health. The person may develop a chronic or life-threatening illness or become permanently disabled.
Safety and health hazards in the workplace can affect others as well as employees: the gas leak from a storage tank at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, claimed over 3,000 lives.
The major causes of work-related accidents and illnesses are the task to be done, the working conditions, and the nature of the employees.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act is the culmination of the movement for federal supervision of health safety programs. It has requirements, such as these:
Meeting safety standards set by OSHA.
Submitting to OSHA inspections.
Keeping records and reporting accidents and illnesses.
Organizational responses to safety and health can take three approaches:
Prevention and design
Inspection and research
Training and motivation
The preventive or wellness approach to health care encourages employees to make lifestyle changes through better nutrition, regular exercise, abstinence from smoking and alcohol, stress counseling, and annual physical examinations.
Stress can play a major role in the health of employees. Thus, more firms are now concerned about understanding and managing stress. Individual- and organization-based stress management programs are being used.
Violence in the workplace has become a major risk. Twenty-five percent of all workers claim that they have been harassed, threatened, or attacked on the job each year.
Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) has become a major concern. IEQ refers to the quality of the air in a business environment. Sick-building syndrome covers a wide range of symptoms employees believe can be caused by the building itself.
AIDS is a devastating disease that has become a problem that managers must address. Some firms are attempting to educate the workforce so that misconceptions and fear do not create a nonproductive work environment.
Cumulative trauma disorders, including repetitive motion or stress injuries, are being reported more frequently each day. CTDs are conditions that arise from obvious trauma or injury that occurs more than once. Repetitive motion or stress injuries refer to a repetitive activity which is not of itself harmful but which is alleged to become harmful owing to the sheer number of repetitions.
A health and safety program should be periodically evaluated to be sure it is providing both service to employees and payback to the company's bottom line.
