Workplace Safety Practices

Table 2.1 Contents of Minnesota Workplace Safety Practices (MWSP) Survey... 

If a company s supply chain does not obey comprehensive workplace safety practices, it can cause negative consequences, e.g. tragic loss of life or serious injury, higher insurance costs, financial and legal consequences, loss of corporate goodwill and difficulty to attract customers and recruit employees (Cantor 2008). 

On balance, the applied research investigating napping provides evidence for the utility of workplace napping. To the extent that naps are beneficial in the workplace, they have important practical implications for many individuals and industry alike. With particular regard to industry, management may avoid the adverse effects of impaired performance, productivity, and workplace safety that accompanies sleepiness (15) by allowing employees to inteiject a nap into their work routines. 

Establishing selection guidelines for personal protective equipment and correlated work safety practices for the protection of handlers of agricultural pesticides is a challenge. A balance must be achieved between the goal of reducing the risks to the handlers and the reality of the limitations and complexities imposed by the agricultural workplace enviromnent. Owners,... 

Regular health checking of the worker can help in early detection and prompt treatment for stress. Medical care should be provided for any damage to the employee. It is supposed that an employee should follow workplace safety and health rules and work practice procedures and should report early symptoms of WMSD. 

Health and safety plans for site remediation activities should address chemicals of concern and should include monitoring practices to ensure that worker health and safety are maintained. State OSHA requirements, which may be significantly stricter than federal standards, also must be met. These standards for workplace safety have been developed and are enforced throughout the USA. 

Workplace Safety and Health Assessing Current Practices and Promoting Change in the Profession, Thomas D. Schneid... 

This study goes beyond much of the earlier research and— following the approach of Hunt and Habeck (1993) and Hunt et al. (1993)—seeks to estimate the role of HRM practices in the determination of workers compensation costs in a multivariate framework. It uses a workplace safety model that incorporates a wider variety of HRM practices than has been previously employed. In particular, it analyzes the impact of the three important dimensions of HRM practices on safety employee participation in decision making, employee participation in financial returns, and the firm s management safety culture. In addition, this is the first study to consider file effect of each of these factors on claim frequency and claim severity, and to ask whether any observed change is file result of changes in technical efficiency or moral hazard (principal-agent) incentives. 

For notable exceptions, see Hunt et al. (1993), Park (1997), and Rooney (1992). Park (1997) offers one possible explanation The firms with relatively more hazardous working conditions may implement various types of safety-enhancing efforts, including the practice of employee involvement plans in workplace safety issues (p. 81)—in other words, reverse causahty. 

The same cost-benefit concerns apply to EPPR-type programs clearly there are (perhaps unanticipated) safety benefits from having employees participate in the financial returns to the firm. But again, these would need to be weighed across the costs. Since 401 (k), profit-sharing, and other such programs are probably instituted for reasons unrelated to workplace safety, our findings should tend to confirm their use as a cost-effective HRM practice. 

Safety Practices, Firm Culture, and Workplace Injuries... 

The application of only OSHA regulations in the workplace rarely results in an accident and injury status of zero. OSHA and its regulations (or fear of OSHA) are not enough to have a successful safety program. OSHA regulations are essential but must be combined with other safety practices, such as ... 

It is vital that safety professionals recognize the areas and issues in which potential discriminatory practices could take place in the workplace and take a proactive stance to avoid any type of discrimination in the workplace. Safety professionals should strive to always be fair and equitable in all situations or decisions and always comply with the requirements of Title VII and other federal and state laws addressing discrimination in the workplace. If the safety professional possesses any shred of... 

---