Introduction
The human resource management department in every organization plays an imperative role in ensuring the health and safety of every employee because they are a prerequisite of a safe and conducive work environment. Workplace security is viewed from two dimensions, namely the exposure to workplace violence as well as the physical factors that can cause harm to the staff. The organizational management should ensure compliance with the standard safety and health measures to avoid legal consequences as described by the government legislation. This paper seeks to establish security and health measures that the management at Beer store should adopt to prevent workplace injuries and violence as a part of promoting a conducive work environment and complying with the government regulation.
Organizational Risk Analysis
Over the past few years, there has been a rise in cases of workplace violence, which has led the government and labor agencies to develop stringent laws to curb the growth of the problem. The organization, through the HRM, should develop plans and strategies to deal with the problem internally because the entry of external agencies’ intervention would have detrimental consequences for the company and its image. As such, it is prudent to identify some of the risks that managers at Beer store would need to deal with.
Before this it is vital to understand the meaning of the term risk. Taking the example of Beer Store, the occurrence of various incidences could result in harmful effects on people, properties or even the entire business process. These incidents constitute to hazards. In relation to this, the term risk refers to the extent that a hazard could cause harmful effects to the employees and or the equipments used in various operations. However, it is vital to note the difference between a risk and a hazard, terms which are commonly mistaken to mean the same (Hymel , et al., 2011). The latter refers to actions, equipment or conditions whose presence could lead to harmful effects on people, property or even the process of a workplace. In this light, a risk is the measure/probability that a hazard will cause harm.
Some of the major hazards at the Beer Store include lifting, cutting and tripping. The use of lifting machines at the store could be a potential cause of harm/damage to the employees operating them and the workplace. At the same time, an incidence in the operation of the lifting equipment could lead to interruption of the business process, which still constitutes a hazard. The harmful effects posed by the lifting equipments at the store would only be physical say the breakage of some beer products (Taneja, 2014). As such, the lifting hazard would result in a physical risk.
The use of various cutting tools such as retractable knives and bailers are also hazards, especially for the employees using them. The use of these tools could lead to incidences of employees harming themselves or damaging the products they deal with. This still is a physical hazard. The third hazard present in the Beer store is tripping. This could occur due to the slipperiness of the floor or otherwise. In case of such an incident, employees could be hurt or break some of their body parts. Although tipping is not a physical hazard, it remains a significant hazard that could lead to serious health effects on the employees (Kelloway, Francis, & Mont, 2010).Following this it is only prudent that the management undertake the best practices in identifying, assessing and controlling the risks due to lifting, cutting and tripping hazards present at the Beer Store. This would go a long way in helping prevent the occurrence of the risks and the damages that follow.
Recognizing, Assessing and Controlling Risks
The following procedures could prove effective in identifying and assessing the above risk to develop the appropriate actions in response of the same. Fundamentally, the process of identifying risks in any organization involves determination of the hazards at the workplace. There are five main hazards that could result in various risks, namely people, machines, materials, the work environment and the work process.
People could be a hazard in that some of their activities, referred to as substandard practices, could pose a risk to other employees or the work premises. An example here includes an employee smoking in the work premises, which could result in fires. As seen above, the use of equipment such as the cutting tools act as a hazard due to their potential to cause injuries to the workers. Moreover, the use of defective equipment could be hazardous to both the employees and the company property. Concerning the environmental hazards, various factors in the workplace could lead to lack of safety for the employees. These hazards could cause both physical and chemical risks. In this case, examples include lack of proper illumination, adverse temperatures or poor ventilation of the workplace (Mollica, 2014). The combination of the people, equipment and material in the production process leads to a work process, which could be hazardous if not properly managed. As such, it is vital that the Beer Store administration identify and control these hazards.
Focusing on the main hazards present at Beer store that is lifting, cutting and tripping, there are a number of control measures that the administration at Beer Store could take to mitigate the risks associated.
The main controls here are administrative and engineering controls. While the administrative controls refer to measures taken by management to prevent the occurrence of various risks, engineering controls is the change in equipment, work process or the materials used by employees to reduce the contact of the workers with the hazards identified. The Beer store management could offer training on the safe use of various lifting machines as well as equip the employees with information on how to detect faulty machines/tools. Other administrative controls include job rotation, preventive rotation and medical surveillance (Mollica, 2014). These activities could prove effective in reducing hazardous incidents in the use of lifting and cutting equipment .
Apart from raising awareness about the hazards, the administration could provide the employees with protective clothing and equipments to prevent the hazards from causing risks to the employees or the property. Lastly, the tripping hazard could be effectively reduced by keeping the floors clean and dry at all times. Where this is not possible, the administration should put warning signs to warrant the employees of slippery floors, which would in turn prevent people from falling and injuring themselves.
As such, in order to control the hazards at the Beer Store, both administrative and engineering controls are required. While the administrative controls come in handy in training and equipping the employees with protective working gear, engineering control helps secure the work process, this includes regular checking of the lifting and cutting equipment (retractable knives and bailers) to ensure they are not defective (Kelloway, Francis, & Mont, 2010). This would go a long in preventing the risks associated with each hazard.
Training as a Risk Control Tool
As seen above training is an administrative hazard control and the management at Beer Store should use it to reduce the incidence of the identified hazards. Generally, Beer Store employees should be trained in the identification and management of all hazards in the workplace. These include lifting, cutting and tripping. The training should focus on equipping the workers with information on how to use the equipments safely. For example the management should train the employees on the need to wear gloves while using retractable knives and bailer to prevent injuries that could arise from their use (Hymel , et al., 2011). At the same time they should train the employees to detect faulty lifting machines.
Classification of Risks
Workplace risks are classified broadly into chemical, biological or physical hazards. Chemical risks refer to potential occurrences that can result from chemical inflicted injuries. The toxic risks of the organization include the inhalation of harmful gasses or burns by chemical. Some form of workplace violence, such as discrimination (racial or gender) and sexual abuse is encompassed in biological risk because they affect the psychology of the victims. Physical risk on the hand are occurrences that have the potential to cause physical harm or impairment of an employee (Mollica, 2014). These include falls or injuries inflicted in the process of operating machinery.
Training staff as a preventive measure of health and safety risks is an important practice that organizations should consider.
After identifying and assessing the risks, the organization (HRM) develops plans to prevent their occurrence. One of the most efficient methods of accomplishing this is the training of the staff, which should lay emphasis on preventative measures to health and workplace safety risks. To begin with, the company should train the employees to identify the health and safety hazards present in the workplace. For instance, the company could train the employee on the factors that can expose them to an identified risk, such as spillage of chemical or explosions. The training should equip the staff with appropriate measures of mitigating the risks in case they occur.
Employees operating machineries (lifting or cutting equipment in the beer retail stores) on the company premise should undergo regular training on the best safety measures. The training should be continuous and regular, which would facilitate the equipping of the staff with the latest and safest practices while operating machines. However, it is vital that the management schedule employee training carefully to ensure that all staff receives the training equally. One of the best ways of dealing with the shift issue at the company is selecting various dates for the purposes of training. Alternatively, the management could consider using the weekends for the same. Doing this would ensure equitable training of the staff about the health, safety and workplace violence risks, and the guidelines to prevent the same.
Definition of Workplace Violence
Workplace violence refers to any act of harassment, violence, abuse, intimidation, or threatening that occurs at a place of work (Taneja, 2014). Workplace violence can take several forms ranging from intimidating behaviours, physical abuse and verbal threats. With the increase of human rights and the increase in disparity of people working in organizations, it is vital that the human resource at the beer store develop internal plans to eliminate any form of violence against employees. Apart from this, the HR department should seek to comply with the federal or state laws concerning the minimum measures that the organization should put in place to reduce or eliminate. This can be done by identifying the risk factors in the working place. Risk factiors here refr to conditions at the workplace that increases the occurrence of violence. Such conditions include poor lighting, weapons, employees working in isolation etc. (Mollica, 2014). By identifying these risk factors, HRM proffesionals could gain an upper hand in eliminating workplace violence.
Currently, there have been other emerging trends in workplace violence. The most significant of these is the discrimination of people depending on their race or gender. The government has come strongly to discourage such workplace vices, which to the company can lead to heavy lawsuits and often loss of several millions paid as damages to the affected parties. Further, the increase in the use of the internet in organizations has been associated with workplace violence. The employee could use various media such as social media or emails to send sexually demeaning messages, especially to the female employees. Additionally, there are cases where an employee in some companies used the internet to send threatening messages to colleagues. Overall, workplace violence is an issue that should not exist in the organization. Any form of harassment regardless of the direction it emanates leads to the development of a hostile working environment, especially to the victims (Mollica, 2014). The aftermath is a decline in the productivity of the victims and that of the organization. As such, it is imperative that the human resource manager develops a plan to prevent any form of workplace violence. As such, this plays an imperative role in creating a conducive and equitable work environment for all employees, regardless of their positions, race, gender, or social background.
Workplace Violence Policy
It is vital to note that prevention of the above forms of workplace violence is a joint effort. For this reason, it means that all the staff members at Beer Store should work together to prevent any form of violence at the workplace. The role of the management in preventing violence at the workplace, however, cannot be ignored. Managers have a significant role in eliminating workplace violence risk factors. (Taneja, 2014). A violence prevention policy is vital in enabling the organization deal with employee harassment cases internally rather than reporting workplace violence incidences to external agencies . Such a policy describes the meaning of workplace violence, hence sending a strong message to all the organizational workers not to engage in any of the acts listed in the latter. The policy shows the security measures that the organization should have in place to prevent any form of violence. Apart from this, a workplace violence prevention policy provides direction to the staff members on how to deal with violence at the organization, including a description of the reporting procedures.
There is a proposal of a workplace violence that the company can adopt to prevent cases of physical or emotional abuse of employees.
Beer Store Workplace Violence Prevention Policy
Preventing workplace violence. Beer store seeks to develop a violence free working environment for all its employees and at the same time ensure their safety. Violence at the workplace leads to the development of a harsh working environment and could affect the productivity of the company. The following policies dictate the responsibility of all staff to prevent any form of violence in the organization and provide guidelines for dealing with such cases promptly and effectively.
Description of workplace violence. Violence in the organization will be considered as any intent to inflict damage to harm, threaten, abuse, intimidate or discriminate a person within the workplace or cause the damage of the company’s property.
Departmental plans to prevent violence:
1. Departmental risk assessment procedures. All the department heads must conduct regular evaluation of their departments to determine the risk of violence and or other security risk faced by the employees. A workplace violence prevention team is to be appointed to oversee the overall assessment of workplace violence risk at Beer store. Additionally, this team will review the reports from the various department heads concerning factors in workplace violence and develop a viable recommendation to the human resource management. The risk assessment team will provide physical changes that should be made in the workplace to prevent violence or increase the scrutiny of the same by the management.
2. Departmental security procedures. The risk assessment teams together with the department heads will develop plans to prevent workplace violence at their respective departments. Additionally, they will provide the managers with the measures and procedures that should be followed by the employees to report violent incidences in the organization. They will also provide the guidelines that the supervisors will follow in handling cases related to workplace violence between the employees. The goal here is to prevent the occurrence of workplace violence that reduces the employees’ output. Lastly, the team will develop measures to prevent damage to the company’s property by the staff, by spelling the penalties or legal consequence that would follow. All the departmental security and violence prevention measures are to be approved by the company’s HRM together with the executives.
Reporting and responding to workplace violence
1. The role of the employees. It’s the responsibility of all employees to report any of the listed forms of violence in the organization while following the departmental procedures.
2. The role of the supervisors. The supervisors are required to act promptly when cases of workplace violence are presented to them. They are to follow their respective departmental procedures of reporting such incidences to the officers in charge, say the HRM office.
3. Reporting workplace violence to external agencies. In the absence of a supervisor or an appropriate party, the employees are to report workplace violence to the police department. This also depends on the nature of the violence since some situations (workplace violence) require the intervention of higher authorities.
The role of the management is essential in preventing workplace violence. For instance, the managers and supervisors are to ensure workplace violence cases are dealt with as soon as they are reported. They should also condemn cases of abuse, sexual violence, use of weapons, harassment or any other c form of workplace violence at Beer store. Additionally, the management in conjunction with the HRM should conduct regular training on the matter . The goal here is condemning workplace violence and educating the staff of the consequences that would befall on them and the organization if workplace violence were to occur.
Workplace risk assessment (Violence)
The above workplace violence prevention policy would go a long way in equipping all the staff members of the company with the right guidelines to follow in case of any of the indicated forms of workplace violence. At the same time, it would warrant the management of the risk the organization face regarding workplace violence work (Mollica, 2014). To further strengthen this policy, it is vital that the organization has a risk assessment of the areas where the staff is at most risk of experiencing violence.
Assessing the risk of violence at the organization would help the management develop stronger policies or security measures to help prevent the same. Apart from detailing some of the places in the organization workers are vulnerable to encounter violence; the risk assessment process should show various indicators of violence at the workplace that should warrant the management to act accordingly. Such indicators include unusually low employee morale, a sudden reduction in staff output, loneliness, complaints by customers of decline on service level, poor communication, among other sudden behavior by the staff.
1. Reviewing the workplace. The supervisors and the departmental heads should undertake regular inspection of the respective departments to identify areas that are prone to workplace violence. This should include the inspection of the workplace to identify physical factors that would increase the risk of violence. The managers/supervisors should thereafter use the subscribed policies in dealing with violent incidences at the workplace.
2. Conducting a survey. This survey should be directed towards evaluating the risk of workplace violence from the information provided by the employees. In most cases, the latter is the victims of workplace violence; hence acquiring information from them about the occurrence of the same is paramount in assessing the risk at the organization. Interviewing would be a perfect tool to use in this case.
3. Analyzing safety records and policies. Through the analysis of past records of violence in the organization, the organization can determine the risk it faces in the matter. The report from this activity should provide the HRM with the departments that record the highest number of workplace violence cases. This would, in turn, prompt the management to act as dictated by the workplace violence prevention policy.
References
Hymel , P., Loeppke , R., Baase, C., Burton , W., Natalie, P., Hudson, T., . . . Larson, P. (2011). Workplace Health Protection and Promotion A New Pathway for a Healthier—and Safer—Workforce. JOEM, 695 - 702.
Kelloway, E., Francis, L., & Mont, J. (2010). Management of Occupational Health and Safety. Scarborough: Nelson Education Limited.
Mollica, K. (2014). Domestic violence and the workplace: The employer’s legal responsibilities. Journal of Management and Marketing Research, 1-11.
Taneja, S. (2014). Violence in the Workplace: A Strategic Crisis Management Issue. Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 32 - 42.
