Assignment: Occupational Health and Safety

Consider the information presented in this unit regarding occupational health and safety. Prepare an article for a newspaper (approximately 3 pages) that discusses the top 10 causes of accidents in the work place and the steps that can be taken to reduce the number of those accidents. Support your claims with examples and research.

Physical or Task Stressors

Physical or task stressors are related to the environments of the work facility and the tasks or job responsibilities of employees. Physical stressors include noise and inadequate temperature control and lighting while the inability of employees to keep up with work demands is an example of a task stressor.

Psychological Stressors

Psychological stressors refer to the perception of employees about their control over work settings, job roles and responsibilities, work or family conflict, and interpersonal relationships within the work setting. Psychological stressors related to employee roles and responsibilities can assume the following forms:

• Role Ambiguity: Is the extent to which employees understand work roles.
• Role Conflict: Occurs when employees experience stress because of the conflicting demands of different sources.
• Role Overload: Occurs when employees feel they are responsible for multiple roles concurrently.

An additional psychological stressor is the work or life conflict that occurs when employees feel conflicted between their work and personal lives. The employees may feel that they do not have adequate time for both their work and nonwork lives, which leads to a stressful situation where they try to balance both work and family.

Now let's discuss the effects of stress on an individual.

Stress may result in physiological, psychological, and behavioral consequences for employees. As a result it is important for I-O psychologists to assist organizations to recognize stressors and their negative effects on employees. I-O psychologists also need to identify ways to decrease the negative effects of stress on employees and on the organization as a whole. The negative effects of stress on organizations may be in the form of high rates of employee absenteeism, attrition, termination, and workplace violence.

The physiological effects of long-term exposure to stress on employees include:

• Deterioration of the sympathetic nervous system
• Heart diseases
• Depression
• Anxiety
• High blood pressure
• Ulcers

The most prominent psychological consequence of long-term exposure to stress at the workplace is burnout, which refers to the three-dimensional condition that occurs when the requirements and/or effects of an employee's workplace position overwhelm the employee to the point of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion.

The behavioral effects of long-term exposure to stress on employees include:

• Memory loss.
• Decrease in the problem-solving ability.
• Decrease in accuracy of work done.
• Poor decision-making ability.
• Decrease in the information-processing ability.
• Decrease in the ability to focus on tasks.

The behavioral effects of workplace stress can cause a significant deterioration in employee performance.

Example: Martin Smith is an accounts payable manager at Pinnacle Equity Research. He experiences high levels of stress because of the fast pace of his work. Martin may experience a decrease in focus and accuracy when performing his job tasks. He may overpay or forget to pay valuable company accounts. This may result in additional expenses for Pinnacle, a decrease in its credit standing, and a deterioration in its relations with clients and vendors.

Let's examine the methods that I-O psychologists use to manage stress in the workplace.

I-O psychologists have developed a three-dimensional model to manage and reduce the negative effects of stress in the workplace. The three primary methods of stress prevention and reduction in the workplace are the primary, secondary, and tertiary stress-prevention strategies.

Primary Stress-Prevention Strategies

Primary stress-prevention strategies focus on changing or removing stressors in the workplace. These include work design, participative decision-making, and cognitive restructuring.

Work Design

Work design structures tasks or jobs with the intent of reducing stress in the workplace. For example a machinist works with equipment that was not designed after considering the structure of the human body. The machinist may find it difficult to operate the equipment effectively, causing him to experience stress. To combat the stress that the machine created, the organization can introduce equipment that is more ergonomic.

Participative Decision-Making

Participative decision-making creates avenues in which employees can feel they are included in the decision-making process of their department or organization. For example the human relations department of an organization may organize an open forum every month, where employees can voice opinions about work.

Cognitive Restructuring

Cognitive restructuring changes the perception of employees about a stressor to convert negative thoughts into positive. For example employees may feel their work overwhelming, and they do not have enough time to complete the work within a workday. Encouraging these employees may cause them to see the work as a challenge and not as a burden.

Let's discuss the secondary and tertiary stress-prevention strategies.

Secondary Stress-Prevention Strategies

Secondary stress-prevention strategies focus on addressing stress by combating the reactions of employees to stressors. These include:

• Healthy lifestyle programs.
• Assistance with quitting smoking.
• Stress-management training.
• Time-management training.
• Relaxation training.
• Social support through contact with coworkers or groups of coworkers.

Although traditional approaches to workplace safety are still in use today, a shift has begun from the traditionalist approach that focused primarily on the safe behavior of an individual to a focus on workers, supervisors, and the organizational commitment to workplace safety. The importance of this transition is that the modern approach recognizes that the responsibility of safety is shared among employees, supervisors, and the organization. These approaches include the micro-organizational and macro-organizational approaches.

Micro-Organizational Approach

The micro-organizational approach focuses on the role of supervisors and subordinates in creating a safe work environment. It aims at creating a safe work environment by highlighting the need for proper equipment, self-regulation, and supervisor-subordinate safety committees. The goal of this approach is to spread awareness and instill a sense of responsibility among supervisors and subordinates by creating an organizational culture based on safety.

Macro-Organizational Approach

The macro-organizational approach focuses on the role of subordinate-supervisor communication channels and the importance of a centralized decision-making process. This approach assumes that the greater the lines of communication or relationship, the greater the likelihood that information about safety risks will be discussed among supervisors and subordinates.

Now let's discuss how I-O psychologists deal with violence in the workplace.

The changing nature of work because of globalization, continual organizational change, and an overall increase in the pace of modern businesses has increased stress at workplaces. Earlier this module we discussed that stress at workplace can lead to violence, which can range from the bullying to the killing of coworkers.

I-O psychologists categorize workplace violence as:

• Nonemployee Violence: Refers to the violent acts that individuals not employed by the organization perpetrate against the organization's employees. For example the security personnel of a bank may be injured while attempting to foil a robbery.

• Employee Violence: Refers to violent acts that some employees of the organization perpetrate against other employees. For example a postal carrier may carry a gun to the post office and open fire within the building.

I-O psychologists classify employee violence as a system in which the exhibition of violence becomes increasingly more aggressive at the following subsequent levels:

• Level 1: Consists of employees who experience interpersonal conflicts with their co-workers, supervisors, clients, and vendors. These employees pass inappropriate sexual remarks at the workplace.

• Level 2: Consists of employees whose level and frequency of interpersonal conflict at the workplace is greater than those of Level 1 employees. These employees display greater deviance than Level 1 employees and perceive themselves as victims in the organization.

• Level 3: Consists of employees who behave violently toward coworkers, clients, and vendors. They may acquire weapons and even commit a serious violent offence such as homicide, rape, or vandalism.

Let's discuss the most widely accepted hypothesis concerning workplace violence - the justice hypothesis. According to the justice hypothesis workplace violence is a result of employee perception of justice within an organization, that is, whether or not they receive impartial and fair treatment at the workplace.