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Employers have legal responsibilities health essay

In Malaysia, The National Council of Occupational Safety and Health (NCOSH) is the highest forum in the Ministry of Human Resources which has discussion about issues related to the national policy, direction and the implementation of occupational safety and health. The Ministry of Human Resources in 1995 under Section 8 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994 (Act 514) formed it as continued effort to make safe and healthy work practices in a part of Malaysia culture. Next, the Social Security Organization (SOCSO) is a developed organization to enforce, implement and administer the Employees’ Social Security Act, 1969 and the Employees’ Social Security (General) Regulations 1971. They provides social security protection to employees by apply social insurance including medical and cash benefits, rehabilitation and provision of artificial aids in order to reduce the suffering and to offer financial guarantees and protection to the family. SOCSO is commonly known as PERKESO or Pertubuhan Keselamatan Sosial in Malay language. In addition, there is also an Act is a piece of Malaysian legislation, The Factory and Machinery Act 1967 (Act 139), which was enforced in 1967 as Act No. 64 of 1967 and revised on April 1, 1974 as Laws of Malaysia Act 139. The Act was announced on February 1, 1970. Ibrahim Hj Yunus (2010) found that this act is an art to facilitate the regulation of factories with respect to matters which related to the safety, health and welfare of person therein, the registration and inspection of the machinery and formation connected therewith. Lastly, the Workmen’s Compensation Act 1952 is the law set for the regulation of workmen’s compensation in Malaysia. This Act provides the compensation payment when there is an injured employee and worker and in the course of employment or contracting occupational disease. Also, Department of Labour administers this act and applies it throughout Malaysia. However, the Workmen’s Compensation Act 1952 is no longer cover Malaysian workers effectively from 1st July 1992. They will be covered under the Employees Social Security Act 1969. Only foreign workers are covered under this Act.

Economic Impact of Safety

Deaths and injuries which relate to job of all types extract a high toll in terms of human misery and in economic loss. The significance financial costs are often passed along to the consumer in which sell the products to them with a higher price. The risky of safety is significant for employers. Furthermore, OSHA can levy major fines from employers for the workers’ compensation cost. Indirect costs also will add to the expense like the cost related to turnover and lost productivity. Although the rate of growth in the cost of job-related injuries has slowed significantly, the cost remains high.

Focus of Safety Program

The basic causes of accidents are faulty management safety policies and decisions, personal factors, and environmental factors. These factors bring to unsafe working conditions and unsafe employee action. Despite of the degree of danger involved, every employer needs to have a comprehensive safety program in place.

-Unsafe employee actions

Emphasizing safety in the training and orientation of new employees is especially important. The first approach in a safety program is to create a psychological environment and employee attitudes that promote safety. Since OSHA places primary responsibility for employee safety on the employer, management’s unique role is clear. The firm’s manager must take the lead to encourage every individual to come up with solutions to potential safety programs.

-Unsafe working conditions

Developing and maintaining a safe physical working environment as the second approach to safety program design. To prevent accidents, they must focus the changes of the environment.

Developing Safety Program

Every firm must requires safety program planning to prevent workplace accident. The support of top management is needed if safety programs are to be effective regardless of the organization’s size. There are many reasons why a safety program requires management support which are personal loss, financial loss to injured employees, lost productivity, higher insurance premiums, possibility of fines or imprisonment, and social responsibility. Preventing job-related injuries and illness is the main objective of safety and health professionals. Achieving this goal, the firms perform in several ways which are educate workers the hazards associated with their work, installing engineer controls, define safe work procedures, and prescribe appropriate personal protective equipment. Job hazard analysis (JHA) is a practice that concentrates on job tasks as a way to identify hazard before it occur. This technique is effective and useful to detach and deal with safety issues and risks. It can have a major impact on safety performance. Secondly, developing safety program requires employee involvement. It is one way to enhance a safety program in which provides a sense of accomplishment to workers. Each worker must make a personal commitment to safe work practices to prevent accidents in the workplace. It is also become one way to improve productivity. Lastly, a safety program also needs a safety engineer. It is also known as safety director. In every firm, one staff member coordinates the overall safety program. Providing safety training for company employees is one of their primary tasks. In addition, risk management departments is also developed in some major corporations to anticipate losses related to safety factors and prepare legal defenses in the event of lawsuits.

Accident Investigation

Even in the most safety-aware firms, accidents can happen. A firm should carefully evaluate each case to identify its causes and to ensure that it does not happen again whether an accident results in an injury. The line supervisor and safety engineer jointly investigate accident.

Evaluation of Safety Programs

A decrease in the severity and frequency of injuries and illnesses maybe is the best indicator of a successful safety program. Thus, evaluation program often use statistics including the number of injuries and illnesses and the amount of work time lost. Moreover, an effective reporting system helps to ensure that accidents receive attention and reported. Depending on the accurate reporting and recording of data to analyze whether the evaluation of safety program is appropriate. Organization must use the conclusion derived from an evaluation to improve the safety program.

Workplace Stress

Antoinette Smith (2013) found that, stress will bring effect to an organization’s ability to be competitive within its market. Workers are less likely to be motivated, productive and healthy when they are stressful. They may have some potential consequences of persisting stress at a certain time. Stress can bring harm to an individual in which it can result in poor job performance, poor attendance, excessive use of alcohol and drugs or even poor health. Some diseases also may lead to the causes of death, including immune system disorders, alcoholism, drug addiction and cardiovascular disease. Furthermore, it may even lead to suicide. In the workplace, an employee has a stressful job because of lack of employee control over work. Besides, the signs of having a stressful job are a reduction in quantity and quality of work, increased frequency of absence, increased use of alcohol, poor time keeping, or withdrawn or become tearful. Organizational factors, personal factors, and general environment are the sources of stress. However, stress must be dealt with, and both individual and organizations have a commitment to take appropriate actions. There are some ways that individual may control excessive stress, such as exercising, following good diet habits, knowing when to pull back, putting the stressful situation into perspective, finding someone who will be their listener, establishing some structure in their life, and so forth.

Burnout

An unbearable condition in which individuals lose a sense of the essential purpose and achievement of their work, it called burnout. When burnout occurs, individuals become physically or mentally or both exhausted. Also, the body and the mind can no longer handle the overpowering high demands. Besides, it is danger because it is contagious. Lastly, burnout is also costly due to a reduction in productivity, an increase in turnover and generally lousy performance.

Wellness Program

As more employers recognize that employee health has an impact to the work performance, wellness program are becoming more widespread. In traditional view, an individual health is rely on medical care and is the avoidance of disease. But, it is changing. Nowadays, it is clear that achieving an optimal health is often through environmental safety, organizational changes, and healthy lifestyles. It proves that it can consider as direct medical costs, effective health programs improve productivity, reduce absenteeism, lower turnover and recruiting costs, and improve morale. Next, comparing to before, chronic lifestyle diseases are much more prevalent today. Chronic lifestyle diseases are the diseases which related to the smoking, excessive stress, lack of exercise, obesity, and alcohol and drug abuse. Increased recognition of this, employers are more actively involved with their employees’ health and to develop wellness program. Firms should first accomplish a health-risk assessment (HRA) by questionnaires in developing a wellness program to determine which employees among of them could benefits from lifestyle change. After that, they can start to implement a wellness program which suitable to give advantages for employee health.

Physical Fitness Programs

The most commonly offered in-house corporate wellness program is physical fitness program, which involve efforts to promote exercise fitness. An individual who do not do physical activity may get the result of physical inactivity such as obesity, heart disease, anxiety, depression, hypertension, and certain types of cancer. Physical fitness program make a lot of sense from management’s viewpoint. The advantages of having physical fitness programs are reduce absenteeism, accidents, and sick pay. It also proves that if employees join company fitness program, they will experience better health, and the firm will have lower health costs.

Substance Abuse

Substance abuse defined as hazardous or harmful use of psychoactive substances such as alcohol and drugs. According to Buddy (2003), many expensive problems for business and industry have caused by those employees who take drugs and alcohol. It results in an increase in the health insurance claims, lost productivity and an increase in probability of getting injured. Buddy, T. (November 20, 2003). Substance Abuse in the Workplace. Retrieved February 9, 2013 fromhttp://alcoholism. about. com/cs/work/a/aa990120. htmMalaysian Labour Law: Regulation of Employment (2013). Job Seeker Handbook. Retrieved February 9, 2013from http://my. jobsdb. com/MY/EN/V6HTML/JobSeeker/handbook/regulation-ofemployment/SOCSO. htmNational Council For Occupational Safety and Health (2013, February 7). Retrieved February 9, 2013 fromhttp://www. dosh. gov. my/doshv2/index. php? view= category&cid= 8%3ANational+Council+For+Occupational+Safety+and+Health&option= com_quickfaq&Itemid= 11&lang= enSmith, A. (2013). What Are The Causes of Stress in An Organization? Retrieved February 13, 2013 fromhttp://www. ehow. com/facts_5612348_causes-stress-organization_. htmlWhat Is Workmen’s Compensation? (2001). Retrieved February 9, 2013 fromhttp://www. lawyerment. com. my/library/doc/empl/wrkcp/Yunus, I. (2010, March 10). The Factory & Machinery Act 1967. Retrieved February 9, 2013 fromhttp://healthandsafetymanual. blogspot. com/2010/03/factory-machinery-act-1967-act-no. html

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