Labour Force of Ireland
A close look into the labour force of Ireland, in accordance to the Census of 2011, shows that total count of labour force as noted in April 2011 has been estimated as 2,232,203, which is an increase assessed to be 122,705, or to be more precise 5.8% since the year 2006. Therefore, a straight statement can be declared about the annual average growth to be 1.1 % that is notably lesser than former intercensal duration of growth that has been declared to have an average of 4% per annum. A detailed declaration made by CSO (2012) is as follows –
Figure 1 Assessed Labour Force of Ireland as per Census 2011
Source: CSO (2012)
Issues of health and safety for the employees in Ireland thus turns up be a major concern for steady growth in the future. In this context, there is a need to check into the kind of health safety aspects that must be considered by the government of Ireland and the way it has been truly executed in the country.
Core Aspects for Development
According to the research led by Anderson, et.al., (2007) the policy for health care must have scope and room for improvement, should ensure quality services and, above all, the concerned costs should be within reasonable control.However, serious attentions towards disparities in the health and safety domain followed by inappropriate information systems, and nursing performance are also considered as important aspects for the policy makers. Keeping this thread intake, the Ireland government is very conscious about its policies related to health and safety concerns. The declarations made by HSA (2009) about the plan that has been followed for the tenure of 2010 to 2014 in developing an entire safety culture and thereby reducing incidents of injuries as well as illness among the employees of various organisations. The approach has been met by initiating as well as supporting determined well-planned strategies for the enhancement of employee’s safety, added by wellbeing concerns in the entire organisational sector of the country. Concentrations are made over the maintenance of good standards in the health and safety of respective workplace with enough space for improvement within reasonable budget to meet competitive and gain relevantly more productive results in the recent economic climate of Ireland.
Security and Trust
Thompson, et.al. (2010) stressed on the importance of health and safety concerns for the employees by exemplifying various newly noted 22 cases that are handled through global strategic management. These scholars emphasised on organisational growth that can be attained only if the employees get the sense of security of health for his and his family from the workplace. Following this connection Mathis & Jackson (2010) laid emphasis in knitting the bond of trust with the employees by the organisational authorities. According to these scholars, the essence of trust by the authoritative resource is very necessary for a better HRM in a company. The organisational heads must understand the importance of trust and transparency of communication with the employees to build quality oriented service from the employees. Assurances in the field of health and safety dominate this approach totally. The emphasis concentrates over the current structure of HR Metrics in consideration with globalization as well as technological developments as noted in every domain of industrialisation.
Planning and Implementation
The organisational structure of Ireland though has been planned and maintained with great care, yet there is still so much to be done. The plans are made, but the executions are not accomplished as planned. The report led by HSE (2009) specifically notes that the organisational sector of Ireland needs to create enough engagement of the key stakeholders into the process of complementing, coordinating and further consistently developing occupational safety, concerns related to health and welfare of the employees. A sense of compliance is yet to get assured in Ireland. This is for the continuation of developments in offering safety, welfare and health related support to the employees in the aptest and planned manner. Contributions of health and safety in the organisational domain are still subject to get enough attention by initiating educational and training programmes for the employees. This is a domain that must he developed to serve even the families of the employees to handle emergency situations. To consider Gentry’s (2008) declaration about the health safety along with enough support and preparedness for the employees is something that Ireland still needs to develop in its industrial sector. It is here that the issue of trust can be attained, and employees will feel the importance of being integral part of the organisation. An obvious dedication to the work can be easily attained thereby.
Disabled Employees
HSA (2009, a) has led specialised emphasis in enhancing the process of implementing health and safety concerns to the disabled employees. This is definitely a great humanitarian step. According to the declarations, of this source, there is a need to ensure determined safety policies as well as proceedings to the working environment of the disabled employees. Small issues such as maintenance of a decent working ambience without any physical hazardous condition, no unnecessary stored boxes or any trailing wires, etc. are very important issues for a safe workplace environment for a disabled person. Regular checking of safety lapses and making health, as well as safety systems appropriates for the employees support the disabled employees to a great extent. Along with the core maintenance of safety policies by the workplace authority also remain mandatory. To this context, NDA (2014) that is the National Disability Authority makes some specific recommendations for offering comfortable atmosphere to the disabled employees. These can be noted as –
- Increase rate of recruitment with disabled in private as well as public sectors
- Informing the employers about the kinds of support and grants offered to the disabled workers
- Increasing retention of jobs after onset in the disability status
- Making such contacts that acts as benefiting system and offer vocational guidance to disabled employees
- Tackling and managing benefit traps and further making scope for payments for work
- Addressing enough access as well as transportation to the disabled employees
These points are definitely very helpful in an organisational setup. However, as can be noted that there is no determined regulation made in favour of health and safety concerns of the disabled employees. Though some benefits are mentioned, yet no rigid financial support can be noticed hereby (Bültman, et. al., 2008).
Determinants of Wellbeing
According to Byars& Rue (2006) in order to attain appropriate kind of HRM, the organisation responsibility must count the concerns of health and safety of the employees. Emphasis has been led over the kind of global awareness that is hitting the entire industrial sector and the way the employees are getting conscious about the scopes to gain health and safety concerns from the employers. Research led by Hassan, et.al., (2009) there is a very specific determinants towards the maintenance of employees’ wellbeing. These has been structured as –
Figure 2Determinants of Employees' Wellbeing
Source: Hassan, et.al., (2009, p. 17)
As noted in the Fig. 1, the core concern is about the job-specific wellbeing that is generated through the conditions of pleasure and displeasure as experienced by the employees. Further, there are the issues of anxiety and comfort that is offered by the workplace. Importance in the conditions of depression and enthusiasm too are elementary aspects that an organisation must keep in mind while dealing with the safety and health related issues for the employees.
As a matter of fact, there is a need to add determined guidelines, as well as intervention tools to the industrial sector of Ireland. This is an approach that is subject to create enough assistance in terms of assessing as well as controlling risk-related associations in the safety and health care approaches for the employees. With the increase in awareness of the employees for their health and safety policies led by the organisations, there are instances of occupational hazards noted in Ireland (HSE, 2009). Cases of legal obligations added by higher note of significance towards occupational safety, welfare and healthcare provisions are demanded. Fulfilment of these aspects is subject to increase productivity and is very effective in terms of reducing the conditions of wastage of time in the workplace (Bambra, et.al., 2008).
Hazard Regulations
The developments were made by the Government of Ireland. It is not that all the planned actions get ignored. A specialised reference to the construction sector of Ireland clarifies this point to a great extent. According to the survey report of Toomey (2013), Ireland strictly concentrates the Safety Health & Welfare at Work (Construction) Regulations 2013 (S.I. No. 291 of 2013) since 1st of August 2013. Under this regulation, the entire construction industry is getting very serious attention. In order to avoid any accident and to reduce injuries and dangers in the construction sector, special emphasis has been led in the maintenance of safety provisions. However, more requirements are noted in the domains of excavations as well as works that are accomplished underground. Serious attention is led upon Cofferdams and Caissons, application of compressed air and the implication of construction sites that use explosives. The government of Ireland is very conscious about the prevention of all kinds of general health hazards and maintains works at construction site with enough caution, especially those sites that are adjacent to water bodies. Further developments are currently initiated in terms of generating safety provisions to transport, material and machinery handling, locomotives and earth-moving field. Demolition work, road constructions and all the other kinds of works at the construction site are currently regulated under best possible welfare facilities.
It has been further noted by Department of the Environment (2013) following the regulations of Building Control (Amendment) Regulations 2013 (S.I. No. 80 of 2013)with effect from 1st of Match 2014, under the Ministry for the Environment, Ireland Government, there will be enough emphasis in execution of planned commitments. The basic approach is about the declaration –“how the proposed works or building will comply with the requirements of the Second Schedule to the Building Regulations” to be made by the organisation to the government, especially with the fire safety certification. These are the declarations that though show some sense of optimism to the health and safety concerns to the organisational sector of Ireland. Exploring these domains will still be a hurdle unless there is enough support offered by the people in general. In this context the research of McKinnies, et.al., (2010) notes that there is a need to follow strict terminating regulation in case the organisation fails to meet the declarations made by the governance. Terminating employees who do not follow the declared regulations is definitely an unpleasant act, yet should be considered strictly as the lack of responsibility in one employee can lead to devastating results. An approach of developing as well as scopes to enhance intelligence of the employees can stand as an additional boost to this particular approach.
As noted by HSE (2009), in case of organisational set up of Ireland, there is the need to improve the prevalent information quality as well as intelligence of the workforce, especially in terms of managing safety, welfare and health related issues the employees definitely needs organisational and government support to gain right kind of attention in the health and safety concerns. However, the importance also is about making the employees aware and trained them well in creating a safe and healthier working atmosphere for them (Vaughan-Jones and Barham, 2009).
Cleaning Workers
Declarations made by EU-OSHA (2009) derive that the sector comprising of cleaning workers in the corporate world is liable to generate a turnover that is much more than 54 billion Euros (as estimated in 2006, ibid., P. 15). This comprises of 20 countries from Europe, including Ireland. The estimations led by EU-OSHA (2009) shows that workers involved in cleaning services are facing serious dangers in the workplace on a day to day basis. It is like pursuing a life of slow poisoning. The source states that activities, as well as working environments noted for this sector are offices, homes, shops, schools, aircrafts, hospitals and different industries. The risks that cleaners face are subject to get exposed different dangers in accordance to the kind of tasks that they are involved into. This is also in connection to the working environment, and the kind of premises they are assigned to There are Chemical (see Appendix 1), Biological (SEE Appendix 2) and physical risks that are faced by these employees on regular grounds. This is a sector, in the context of Ireland that is hardly getting any attention. There are no determined or specified policies for these groups of workers, and a regular ignorance has been noted in a very obvious manner.
References
Andersen, R. M., Rice, T. H., Kominski, G. F., Afifi, A. A. and Rosenstock, L. (2007). Changing the U.S. Health Care System. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Bambra, C., Gibson, M., Sowden, A. J., Wright, K., Whitehead, M. and Petticrew, M. (2008) ‘Working for Health? Evidence from Systematic Reviews on the Effects on Health and Health Inequalities of Organisational Changes to the Psychosocial Environment,’ Preventive Medicine, Vol. 48, No. 5, pp. 454–461
Bültman, U., Sherson, D., Olsen, J., Lysbeck Hansen, C., Lund, T. and Kilsgaard, J.‘Coordinated and Tailored Work Rehabilitation: A Randomized Controlled Trial with Economic Evaluation Undertaken with Workers on Sick Leave Due to Musculoskeletal Disorders,’ Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, Vol. 19, No. 1, 2009, pp. 81–93
Byars, L. & Rue, L. (2006). Human Resource Management (eighth ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/ Irwin, pp. 371–383.
CSO (2012) This is Ireland Highlights from Census 2011. Stationery Office, Dublin, Ireland. June 2012. http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/census/documents/thisisirelandpart2census2011/This%20is%20Ireland%20Highlights,%20P2%20Full%20doc.pdf [Retrieved on 19th June, 2014]
EU-OSHA (2009) The occupational safety and health of cleaning workers. Literature review.European Agency for Safety and Health at work. https://osha.europa.eu/en/publications/literature_reviews/cleaning_workers_and_OSH [Retrieved on 19th June, 2014]
Gentry, W. (2008).Health safety and preparedness.In Fried, B. &Fottler, M., eds. Human Resources in Healthcare. Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press, pp. 347–391.
Hassan, E., Austin, C., Celia, C., Disley, E., Hunt, P., Marjanovic, S., Shehabi, A., Van-Dijk, L.V. and Stolk, C.V. (2009).Health and Wellbeing at Work in Dublin.DH.The Work Foundation, Dublin, Ireland. August, 2009. http://www.nhshealthandwellbeing.org/pdfs/Interim%20Report%20Appendices/Literature%20Review.pdf [Retrieved on 19th June, 2014]
HSA (2009) Working to create a National Culture of Excellence in Workplace Safety, Health and Welfare for Ireland. Health and Safety Authority. Five Year Plan for the Healthcare Sector: 2010–2014. http://www.hsa.ie/eng/Publications_and_Forms/Publications/Occupational_Health/New_Five_Year_Plan_for_the_Healthcare_Sector.pdf [Retrieved on 19th June, 2014]
HSA (2009, a) Employees with Disabilities: An employer’s guide to implementing inclusive health and safety practices for employees with disabilities. Health and Safety Authority. March 2009. http://www.hsa.ie/eng/employees_with_disabilities.pdf [Retrieved on 19th June, 2014]
Mathis, R. & Jackson, J. (2010). Human Resource Management (11th ed.). Mason, OH: Thomson/ Southwestern, pp. 524–565.
McKinnies, R., Collins, S., Collins, K. & Matthews, E. (2010). Lack of performance: The top reasons for terminating healthcare employees. Journal of Radiology Management, 32(3):44–47.
NDA (2014) Disability and Work: The picture we learn from official statistics. National Disability Authority, Dublin
Thompson, A., Strickland, A. & Gamble, J. (2010). Crafting & Executing Strategy: The Quest for Competitive Advantage. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, pp. 1–15.
Toomey, D. (2013) Construction Industry: Health & Safety Overview. The Institution of Structural Engineers.Malachy Walsh and Partners.Consulting Engineers. Ireland.22nd October, 2013. http://www.engineersireland.ie/EngineersIreland/media/SiteMedia/groups/regions/an-riocht/An-Riocht-Lecture-Series-2013-2014-H-S-Legislation-22nd-Oct-2013-Presentation-Don-Toomey.pdf?ext=.pdf [Retrieved on 19th June, 2014]
Vaughan-Jones, H. and Barham, L. (2009) Healthy Work Challenges and opportunities to 2030,London: BUPA
APPENDICES
Appendix 1 Chemical Hazards faced by Cleaning Workers
Source: EU-OSHA (2009, p. 30)
Appendix 2 Biological Hazards faced by Cleaning Workers
Source: EU-OSHA (2009, p. 32)
