Under this section, the impact of Occupational Health and Safety Legislation on both the behavior of an employer and employee is discussed. When both the employers and employees fully understand the need or importance of health and safety programs, they become alert in their behavior since awareness about the potential hazards, to which the office staff is exposed, among all organizational members increases. Resultantly, employers and employees can now prevent illness and injury at the workplace.
When employers get to know about the legislation concerning health and safety programs, they tend to display a responsible behavior. Not only they take special care of their employees but also calculate the actual costs of illnesses and injuries to their organization. Employees demonstrate a careful behavior after demonstrating the effects of health and safety costs on company’s profits. When employers learn about the health and safety legislation, they tend to be very careful about the health, safety and welfare of their employees at the workplace. To avoid any unexpected injury or illness due to dangerous working conditions, employers prepare in advance for avoiding penalties from the labor department of the country. Employers display such behavior by ensuring that all working conditions as well as job responsibilities are compatible with employee’s health and fitness.
In addition to this, when employers are aware of the health and safety legislation, they become cautious to discourage violent activities in the workplace. This is because violence compromises the health and safety of all organizational members. In this regard, employers assume active approach to protect the well-being of their employees at work. In order to keep their workforce safe, employers assume the responsibility to educate their employees about safe working habits in an attempt to prevent health and safety concerns at work.
In the same manner, when employees become aware about occupational health and safety legislation, they gain a clear understanding about their employment rights at the workplace when it comes to their health and safety at work. Employees become satisfied no employer can take their unfair advantage and it is the employers’ responsibility to keep the working conditions safe for all the members of existing workforce.
When both the employers and their employees come to know about occupational health safety legislation and its implementation, they become more informed and make serious efforts to prevent violence in the workplace. Due to such legislation, employees become careful in their behavior and activities due to their increased awareness about potential dangers they may be exposed to while a work.
Importantly, in absence of health and safety legislation, employees’ job performance at work declines sharply and become more vulnerable to illness or injury. This is because when the workforce is unaware of safe working habits, they are more likely to either expose themselves to the risk of injury or suffer from any disease, including stress. In contrast, when employees learn about occupational health and safety legislation, their job performance is more likely to increase. This is because these employees become confident that they are working in a safe working environment which is enough to boost employees’ morale and job satisfaction.
When employees learn health and safety legislation, they become aware about different risks and ways to avoid or deal with them. This way, employees feel secure while working for a particular employer. This not only leads to increase in employees’ confidence and productivity but also reduces the likelihood of absenteeism (due to sick leaves). Additionally, employees display stress-free behavior at work that helps employers retain them for a longer period.
This handbook is aimed at highlighting different dimensions concerning achievement of work-life balance. When there is interference between personal and professional lives of employees, their productivity at work, morale and job satisfaction tend to decline sharply. This handbook aims to make employees familiar with the idea of work-life balance, ways to identify if there is any imbalance, improve goal setting and time management as well as ways to create balance at work and home.
The Idea and Importance of Work-Life Balance
Work-life balance is cortically important in the life of an individual because he/she is never stressed out, feel high, remain highly productive and can deal with issues as well as conflicts very wisely. Those employees who can strike an optimal balance between their personal and professional lives feel more confident, fulfilled, healthy, stress-free and tend to have lasting relationships. This is the main idea and benefit of achieving balance in two different lives. In absence of such a balance, employees feel pressurized to work for longer hours without any break, have poor health conditions, easily enter into conflicts, perform poorly at work, unable to spend quality time with family and eventually, lose stream of income as well as employment.
Ways to Identify Imbalances in Life
When any employee frequently gets late to work, is absent from work more than usual, starts to post poor productivity at work, enters into conflicts more often due to emotional burnout, easily exhausted at work and going through obesity due to lack of time as well as motivation to exercise are some of the prominent signs that an employee is going through life imbalances. If an employee’s absenteeism is increasing, it is because he/she is going through poor health conditions, sacrificed sleep to work for longer hours, have personal issues to deal with and suffers from depression.
Similarly, if an employee is easily stressed out, may be he/she is feeling lethargic, restlessness, anxiety and unable to control emotions through emotional intelligence. Increased turnover is also a sign of imbalances in personal and professional life of an employee. Not only this is detrimental and financially damaging to an employee but to the well-being of whole organization as well.
Ways to Find Work and Personal Balance Life
One of the primary causes that individuals find it difficult to achieve personal and work life balance while easily become stressed out is that they are unable to set/achieve their goals and manage their time effectively. To do that, it is imperative that all the members of office staff should prioritize personal and professional tasks while setting an appropriate time to execute them. Employees should refrain from deviating from their high priority personal and professional tasks unless there is an emergency. To set and achieve their goals, employees should create the one that are SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely.
Apart from these techniques, there are some other ways that can help employees strike an appropriate life balance. They pertain to optimal and innovative ways of working such as telecommuting, job sharing, flexible work schedule and redesigning job description. Moreover, employees should leave their stress at the place of origin, for instance, work related stress should be left at the office. Exercising, getting up early, listening carefully to family members as well as colleagues, breaking up large tasks into smaller ones, delegation of authority and setting accurate goals are the best ways to manage work and personal life balance.
Steps in the Grievance Process Proposed to Mr. Carlton James
All those organizations that contain good grievance procedures tend to resolve internal conflicts more easily. They solve issues beforehand and save the employment relationships from breaking down. In case of Mr. Carlton James, the following steps in the grievance process are suggested:
Both the manager and Mr. Carlton James should decide whether the grievance issue of vacation allocation could be resolved informally or is there any need to proceed with the formal grievance process. It is recommended that the informal process of resolving grievance should be pursued after discussing the matter with immediate manager. If the complaint remains unsolved for more than three business days, it is suggested to Mr. Carlton James to proceed with further steps in the grievance process .
The next step is to appoint a responsible manager to resolve the grievance considering all procedures and disciplinary actions. This could be done by submitting a formal written complaint to be reviewed by the second-level manager to whom Mr. James’ managers reports. In this, step, it is suggested to Mr. James to fill out a complaint form to a human resource consultant who will send the copy to second-level manager. A formal meeting is held between all the concerned parties. If the issue is not resolved to Mr. Carlton James’ satisfaction, the next (third) step must be pursued.
If Mr. James is still dissatisfied with the decision passed in the previous step, it is suggested that he should file a complaint procedure form with the human resource director of the consultant with whom the complaint was registered previously. The HR director, after a certain period of time (in days) should arrange a meeting with Mr. James and pass the judgment, in written form, within specified time-frame.
If Mr. James is still not content with the decision of HR director, he may request the employer and HR consultant to appoint a panel of arbitrators after requesting the labor department. The final decision, based on mutual consent, passed by the panel members will be binding to all concerned parties and the expense (fee) of such a panel must be paid equally by all concerned parties except for Mr. James.
How Mr. James should actually resolve the Grievance?
Checklist of Things needed to Prepare Prior to the Termination
This section presents checklist concerning before, during and after termination of an employee due to continued poor performance at work. Such a categorized checklist is as follows:
Before Termination
First of all, the manager should review and gather all employment documents and files. This involves collecting the employee’s recruitment kit, duly signed resignation letter, experience letter and employment agreement etc.
The second step here is to get IT department involved to restrict the system access for the employee being terminated.
The third step here is to decide place and time to conduct termination meeting. It is preferred to conduct such meeting with the employee being terminated after office hours and in the official meeting room.
During Termination Meeting
The first step in this checklist category is to inform an employee the reason for which he/she is being terminated. It is important that the manager should keep warning or show-cause and termination letter with him.
If such employee possesses any property belonging to the organization, the manager should have it collected at the time of the termination. For instance, the employee card and booklets (writing pads) etc must be collected before, during and after the meeting.
If an employee was consistently complaining about any problem or discrimination, the manager should listen to his/her views attentively to improve for the future .
After an Employee is terminated
The final checklist step is to hand over the termination letter and final paycheck to the employee. If the manager has possession of employee’s belonging, such as degrees and certificates, they must immediately be returned.
Lastly, if any bonus, commission or salary remains to be paid to such terminated employee, the manager should make arrangements to transfer funds to employee’s bank account or ask the head office to prepare final check.
Overall, it is found that due to implementation of occupational health and safety legislation, both the employer and employee display a sense of responsibility. Their behavior changes in a manner that employers tend to care more about their employees’ health and safety while employees become aware about work related hazards and possible risks. It is also learned that finding a work-life balance is important for an employee to remain highly productive at work. Absenteeism and employee turnover are some of the ways that clarify that an employee is going through such an imbalance in life. By studying the course material, it is also found that there is a specific procedure to file a grievance where the support from immediate and second-level managers as well as human resource consultant is imperative. The checklist prepared while terminating an employee, for any reason, is also learned that is categorized into three steps.
References
Chamberlain, L. (2012, August 20). A 10-step guide to preparing for and conducting grievance hearings. Retrieved April 26, 2016, from Personnel Today (HR News): http://www.personneltoday.com/hr/a-10-step-guide-to-preparing-for-and-conducting-grievance-hearings/
Wisniewski, D. (2014, August 29). The firing checklist every HR pro should use. Retrieved April 26, 2016, from HR Morning: HR News & Insights: http://www.hrmorning.com/the-firing-checklist-every-hr-pro-should-use/
