CHAPTER 13 Promoting Safety, Health and Well Being in the Workplace
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Chapter 13
PROMOTING SAFETY, HEALTH AND WELL BEING IN
THE WORKPLACE
Opening Case: Managing Human Resources at Deere &
Company
Deere & Company’s safety efforts have focused especially on reducing injuries
and their related costs in creating an organizational environment that values
employee safety and health. Injuries due to repetitive motions become worse and
worse if not treated. Employees who experience significant pain while working
are encouraged to summon their plant’s ergonomics team. Terry Hardy, a
toolmaker is a member of the Dubuque plant’s ergonomics team tasked to
develop solutions that reduce the incidence of workplace injuries in the plant.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. THE STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF WORKPLACE SAFETY, HEALTH,
AND WELL-BEING
The broad term workplace safety, health, and well-being refers to the
physical, physiological, psychological, intellectual, spiritual, and social
conditions of a workforce that result from the work environment provided by
the organization. All employees in an organization are affected—for better or
worse—by workplace safety, health, and well-being.
A. Enhance Productivity
By improving safety, health, and well-being in the workplace, firms
experience higher productivity. First, reduced injuries and illnesses result
in fewer lost workdays; employees that are not working cannot be
productive. Stress is the second reason productivity is related to safety,
B. Contain Costs
Improving safety, health, and well-being in the workplace helps firms
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C. Attract and Retain Talent
By providing a safe, healthy workplace that promotes employee well-
being, employers improve their reputation as an employer of choice.
D. Support Business Strategies
Effective safety, health, and well-being programs and policies can help
support an organization’s business strategies. We have already discussed
how safety, health, and well-being can greatly affect an organization’s
II. PROMOTING SAFETY, HEALTH AND WELL-BEING WITHIN AN
INTEGRATED HRM SYSTEM
Workplace safety and health refers to the physical and psychological
conditions of a workforce that result from the work environment provided by
CHAPTER 13 Promoting Safety, Health and Well Being in the Workplace
A. Other HR Activities
The feature on Ben and Jerry’s presents an example of how a company
addressed health and safety issues through a variety of HR practices.
Exhibit 13.1 presents a model that integrates safety and health and other
HR practices. Some specific examples of how other HR practices are
related to safety and health include:
1. Job Analysis
2. Performance management
3. Training and Development
4. Benefits and Services
5. Unionization and Collective Bargaining
1. Size
The size of an organization has been shown to be related to injury and
illness rates and severity. Organizations that are very small (those with
2. Technology
By introducing the latest manufacturing equipment, including robotics,
employers often can eliminate the need to expose employees to
3. Company Culture
When safety is embedded in the organization’s culture, employees
experience fewer injuries. Developing such a culture requires the
C. The External Environment
External factors that are important include laws and regulations, economic
globalization, and country culture.
1. Laws and Regulations
The federal government’s primary response to the issue of safety and
health in the workplace has been the Occupational Safety and Health
Act of 1970. OSHA provides for the establishment and enforcement of
2. Economic Globalization
Two organizations that strive to improve workplace safety and health
3. Country Culture
Many different aspects of culture seem to be related to a wide range of
safety attitudes, behaviors, and outcomes. Various aspects of culture
have been found to explain at least some of the country differences
in attitudes toward safety issues, differences in the strength of safety
CHAPTER 13 Promoting Safety, Health and Well Being in the Workplace
III. The HR Triad
The effective promotion of health and safety in the workplace requires the
ongoing commitment and involvement of HR professionals, managers, and
employees. HR professionals are responsible for monitoring and recording
workplace incidents, and for developing HR practices that promote safety and
health. Managers need to make safety and health a priority in their work units
and help to build a culture that values health and safety. Employees must be
committed to safety and health issues when performing their jobs on a daily
basis and call attention to problems when they experience them. The feature
“The HR Triad: Roles and Responsibilities in Promoting Workplace Safety
and Health” summarizes the roles of HR professionals, managers, and
employees in addressing safety and health issues in the workplace.
IV. WORKPLACE SAFETY HAZARDS
Both physical and psychological aspects of the workplace environment affect
occupational safety and health.
A. Occupational Accidents
1. Working Conditions
In general, the factors that most affect workplace accidents are:
2. Employee Characteristics
Certain psychological and physical characteristics seem to heighten
some people’s susceptibility to accidents. The characteristics of
people who are more likely to have accidents include people who are:
➢ “emotionally low”.
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B. Occupational Injuries
Because workplace injuries are frequently due to accidents, its not
surprising that many of the same factors that lead to accidents also lead to
increased injuries. For example, longer working hours increase accidents
C. Workplace Violence
Each year in the United States, more than 500 homicides occur in the
V. WORKPLACE HAZARDS TO HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
A. Occupational Illnesses
The following workplace disease-causing hazards have been detected
through the work of several federal agencies: arsenic, asbestos, benzene,
B. Hazards to Mental Health
C. Workplace Stressors
1. Organizational Change
Organizational change is often stressful because it is accompanied by
uncertainty.
2. Physical Environment
3. Poorly Designed Jobs
Poorly designed jobs can be a source of both psychological and
physical stress. Job characteristics theory states that employees are
more satisfied and motivated when their jobs are meaningful, create a
4. Stress Prone Employees
Individual differences exist in how people respond to various stressors.
Type A and Type B behavior is an example of an individual difference
variable.
D. Job Burn-Out
Job burn-out is a particular type of stress that seems to be experienced by
people who work in health care, education, police work, customer
response centers, and the airline industry. This type of reaction to one’s
work includes attitudinal and emotional reactions that a person goes
through as a result of job-related experiences. Aspects of burn-out include
emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, lower personal accomplishment,
and performance deterioration.
1. Emotional Exhaustion
Often, the first sign of job burn-out is a feeling of being
2. Depersonalization
One common coping reaction is to put psychological distance
3. Low Personal Accomplishment
4. Performance Deterioration
Burned-out employees may perform more poorly on the job compared
to their counterparts who are still “fired up.” Because burn-out tends to
VI. INTERVENTIONS TO IMPROVE WORKPLACE SAFETY
A. Measuring and Monitoring Safety
OSHA requires organizations to maintain records of the incidence of
injuries. Three indices include the incidence rate, severity rate, and
frequency rate. The incidence rate measures the number of injuries and
illnesses in a year. This is considered to be the most explicit measure of
B. Accident Prevention
1. Work Environment Design
Designing the work environment to make accidents unlikely is perhaps
the best way to prevent accidents and increase safety. Among the
2. Safety Performance Management
Research has shown that safety incentives substantially reduce the
3. Improved Working Conditions
Shift work may be unavoidable, but its negative consequences might
not be. Many studies have investigated the issue of how to design shift
4. Health and Safety Committees
Health and safety committees typically take responsibility for identifying
issues that need to be addressed in the workplace and then
5. Alcohol and Drug Testing
Employers drug test employees for a number of reasons. Some
employers believe that it weeds out poor performers and those most
prone to accidents. Others believe that drug testing may signal to
employees that the organization is serious about safety, helping to
CHAPTER 13 Promoting Safety, Health and Well Being in the Workplace
C. Injury Prevention
OSHA has targeted injury-prone industries and offered to collaborate with
them on developing voluntary guidelines to reduce specific types of
D. Violence Preventions
Workplace violence, including homicides, can be triggered by a number of
forces, including being treated unfairly, an organizational culture that
VII. INTERVENTIONS TO IMPROVE WORKPLACE HEALTH AND WELL-
BEING
Once workplace hazards to health and well-being are identified, interventions
can be developed for eliminating or reducing them. Popular interventions to
improve workplace health and well-being include measuring and monitoring
health and well-being, illness prevention, stress management, wellness
programs, and EAPs.
A. Measures Monitoring Health and Well-Being
Aspects of measuring and monitoring that tend to apply to health and
wellbeing include record keeping of workplace chemicals and monitoring
exposure to hazardous substances.
1. Record Keeping of Workplace Chemicals
At a minimum, OSHA requires employers to measure the chemicals in
the work environment and keep records on these measurements. The
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2. Monitoring Exposure to Hazardous Substances
The obvious approach to controlling chemically induced workplace
B. Illness Prevention
Occupational illnesses and diseases can be far more costly and harmful
than occupational accidents. As already noted, however, illnesses often
take a long time to develop, so dangerous working conditions may go
undetected for several years. Developing interventions to reduce the
incidence of illnesses is generally more difficult than developing
interventions to reduce accidents and injuries. Here, we focus on reducing
presenteeism and genetic screening.
1. Reducing Presenteeism
Employees going to work even though they are sick is known as
presenteeism. Presenteeism is detrimental to organizations for three
2. Genetic Screening
Because genetic screening measures a predisposition to an illness and
not the actual presence of the illness, however, it could lead to
C. Stress Management
Increasingly, organizations are looking for ways to reduce stress on
employees. Some of the interventions to improve safety that we have
already discussed, such as changing working hours, job design, and
CHAPTER 13 Promoting Safety, Health and Well Being in the Workplace
D. Wellness Programs
The cost of an effective wellness program is small relative to the economic
benefits of a healthy workforce, so companies are investing in wellness
programs at record rates.
1. Weight Loss
Health care costs for obese employees are about one-third higher than
2. Smoking Cessation
For employers, the costs of smoking include lost productivity due to
3. HIV/AIDS
Treatment for HIV/AIDS generally involves providing daily supplies of
4. Health Assessments
Health assessments pose some legal risk, because they provide
employers with information about disabilities and genetic background
5. Wellness Incentives
Some employers also have considered providing incentives for
wellness program participation, knowing that incentives usually get
results. However, those with disabilities may be discriminated against
by such incentives, raising concerns that wellness incentives violate
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E. Employee Assistance Programs
EAPs can improve well-being by helping employees with a broad range of
F. Assessing Intervention Effectiveness
Any intervention’s effectiveness is unlikely to be maximized when it is first
implemented. Monitoring can identify problems that can be fixed, issues
that can be addressed, or interventions that simply aren’t right for the
company.
1. Evaluate
The safety, health, and well-being metrics mentioned earlier in the
2. Revise
VIII. CURRENT ISSUES
Of the issues that are current in safety, health, and well-being today, the two
described here relate to privacy and dealing with the use of medical
marijuana.
A. Privacy
A well-crafted privacy policy can help establish appropriate expectations of
privacy. A good privacy policy should communicate the company’s policies
and employee expectations regarding personal information, medical
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B. Dealing with the Use of Medical Marijuana
Zero tolerance policies send a clear message about what is expected and
signal an employer’s concern for safety. However, treating medical
CHAPTER 13 Promoting Safety, Health and Well Being in the Workplace
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION AND REFLECTIVE THINKING
1. Describe the legal responsibility of employers for providing safe
workplaces. Do you think employers should invest more than is legally
required in workplace safety, health and well-being? Why or why not?
Employers must comply with all federal, state and local safety and health
standards. These include OSHA at the federal level, and workmen’s
2. Describe the responsibilities employees have for improving workplace
safety, health and well-being.
3. Explain how each of the following HR practices can be used to maintain
safe and healthy workplaces: job analysis, selection, training,
performance measurement, and incentives.
Job analysis can identify aspects of a job that contribute to workplace injuries
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4. Wellness programs often target illnesses and diseases that are not
caused by aspects of the workplace itself. Do you think it is appropriate
for employers to intervene to improve their employees’ personal health
and wellness? Explain.
5. What are the benefits to employers and employees of drug testing?
What are the costs? Under what circumstances would the benefits
outweigh the costs?
6. How do you think employers should treat employees who use medical
marijuana? Should extenuating circumstances affect employer actions,
if so, what would those circumstances be?
Answers may vary. However, issues involved may include compliance with
laws, whether the use was prescribed by a recognized competent medical
authority, and whether the nature of an employees job would create a risk.
CASE STUDY: MIDWEST TELEPHONE COMPANY (MTC)
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. Can Steve really change the behavior of the operators?
While not everyone will agree, as we have gone through the text we have
identified some things that have a good chance of impacting behavior. They
2. How can Steve succeed in getting the operators to say, “Thank you for
using MTC”? Should he involve the union in his attempts to do so?
See the response to Question One above. Part of that response involves
financial incentives and to the extent such incentives must be implemented
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3. Is computer monitoring the answer?
4. Should the operators really decide on the change?
Whether the students support or oppose having the operators make the decision,
CHAPTER 13 Promoting Safety, Health and Well Being in the Workplace
VIDEO CASE STUDY: BuyCostumes.com
Instructors: The following video case can be found on the companion DVD. The
video can be used in class as an introductory activity or a post-lecture activity, as
well as an online assignment for those students using CourseMate.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
5. The firm seeks to promote health and wellness both on and off the job.
Even though what the employee does off the job can affect performance
on the job, should the employer try to control the employee’s behavior
when at home? How far should an employer be allowed to go in
coercing healthy behavior?
2. If you were employed by the firm, would you be more concerned about
physical dangers or data theft and privacy issues?
3. Do you think that firms are motivated more by their concern for their
employee’s safety or for their desire to avoid costs such as lawsuits?
4. Why don’t all organizations have the type of programs that this firm has
to protect health and safety?
