Cost of Workplace Illness and Injury

1
Cost of Workplace Illness and Injury

• Medical and insurance costs
• Workers compensation
• Survivor benefits
• Lost wages
• Damaged equipment and materials
• Production delays
• Other workers time losses
• Selection and training costs for replacement
  workers
• Accident reporting

2
Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970

• Promotes safe and healthful workplaces by
  requiring employers to
• provide a place of employment that is free of all
  recognized hazards that are causing or likely to
  cause death or serious harm to employees- the
  General Duty duty clause
• to comply with specific safety and health
  guidelines promulgated under the authority of the
  Secretary of Labor
• keep records of all occupational injuries and
  illness

3
Rights and Obligations of Employers and Employees

• OSHA fixes the responsibility for accidents on
  the employer not the employee.
• Employers do have
• Right to a search warrant
• Right to discipline for safety violations
• Right to be notified of inspection

4
OSHA Standards

• Areas of basic concern
• Fire safety
• Personal protection equipment
• Electrical safety
• Basic housekeeping
• Machine guards

5
Enforcement of OSHA Standards

• Inspection priority classifications
• Imminent danger
• Fatality of catastrophe investigations
• Employee complaint investigations
• Targeted industries
• Construction, shipbuilding, food processing,
  logging, and nursing homes

6
Hazard Communication Standard

• Employee Right-to-Know Law
• Congress enacted law in 1984.
• Gives workers the right to know what hazardous
  substances they are dealing with on the job.
• A substance is considered hazardous if exposure
  can lead to acute or chronic health problems.

7
Causes of Accidents

• Chance of Occurrences
• Unsafe Conditions Mechanical and Physical
• the job itself
• work schedule/fatigue
• psychological climate
• equipment insufficiency
• procedural insufficiency
• Unsafe Acts
• behavioral tendencies and attitudes

8
Causes of Accidents Cont.

• Vision
• Age (20-29)
• Perceptual Skills-motor skills
• Vocational Interests

9
How to Prevent Accidents

• Reduce Unsafe Conditions
• Establish and Enforce Safety Policies
• Employee Training
• Safety Incentive Programs
• Selection and Placement
• muscular coordination
• visual skills
• genetic screening

10
Accident Prevention Strategies

• Employee selection
• High-risk personality characteristics
• Risk taking High risk-takers actually seek out
  danger rather than trying to minimize or avoid
  it.
• Impulsiveness Impulsive individuals fail to
  think through the consequences of their actions.
• Rebelliousness Rebellious individuals tend to
  break established rules, including safety rules.
• Hostility Hostile individuals tend to lose their
  tempers easily and thus engage in aggressive
  acts, such as kicking a jammed machine.

11
Stress

• Job Stress
• unpleasant emotional state resulting from
  perceived threat to something one values

12
Causes of Stress

• Environment Factors (job and non-job related)
• high level of job demands and little control over
  work, work climate, change, rules, work pace,
  management style, work group characteristics,
  number and nature of customers, family demands
  etc.
• Personal Factors
• personality, achievement orientation, tolerance
  for ambiguity, self-esteem, health, exercise

13
Individual Consequences of Stress

• Behavior
• drug and alcohol abuse, over or under eating,
  interpersonal problems, workplace and family
  violence
• Psychological
• depression, anger
• Physiological
• heart disease, hypertension, ulcers, karoshi
  (death by overwork)

14
Organizational Consequences of Stress

• Decreased performance
• Absenteeism and turnover
• Increased health and worker compensation
  insurance cost
• Lawsuits- for health problems and negligent hiring

15
Ways Managers Can Help Reduce Stress

• Allow employees to freely talk to one another
• Reduce personal conflicts on the job
• Give employees adequate control over how they do
  their job
• Ensure that staffing budgets are adequate
• Talk openly with employees
• Support employee efforts

16
Ways Managers Can Help Reduce Stress Cont.

• Provide competitive personal leave and vacation
  benefits
• Maintain current level of employee benefits
• Reduce the amount of red tape
• Recognize and reward employee for their
  contributions and accomplishments

17
Work Place Violence

• 2 cause of death for all workers (after
  accidents)
• 1 cause of death for women
• U.S. Postal Service- over 2,000 incidents of
  violent incidents

18
Workplace Violence

• Workplace violence
• Most violent acts are committed by employees
  against
• Other employees
• Supervisors
• Customers
• Non-employees also commit violent acts at the
  workplace.
• Most often at health care and social service
  settings

19
Problems

• Work places offer easy access
• Security industry- low hiring standards, poor
  training etc.
• Employees do not view violence by co-worker as a
  pressing reality

20
Things to Watch For

• Evidence of paranoid and depressed behavior
• Abrupt behavior change
• Signs of domestic violence
• Recent gun purchase
• Fascination with mass murders
• Background Circumstances
• employment gap, criminal history, drug abuse,
  false application information, unexplained
  termination

21
Reducing Workplace Violence

• Improved lighting
• Employee escort services to and from parking lots
• Reception areas can be locked when no one is on
  duty
• Policy stipulation (at least two people on duty)
• Security systems
• Policies regarding visitor access
• Curved mirrors at hallway intersections or
  concealed areas
• Bullet-proof glass

22
Legal Issues with Work Place Violence

• Arrest records and Civil Rights Act
• Mental Impairments and the ADA

23
Employer Liability

• Legal test for determining employer liability
• It knew or should have known that a criminal act
  was probable.
• It could have reasonably protected the employee
  from criminal assault, but failed to do to.
• Its failure to protect the employee caused the
  subsequent injuries to occur.

24
Repetitive Motion Disorders

• Repetitive stress injuries that affect tendons
  and become inflamed from the strains and stress
  of repeated, forceful motions
• Types of repetitive motion disorders
• Carpal tunnel syndrome
• Synovitis
• Tendinitis
• Tenosynovitis
• Bursitis
• Raynauds Phenomenon

25
Lower Back Disorder

• Ranks high as a leading health problem at the
  workplace.
• LBDs account for approximately one-fourth of all
  workdays lost in the U.S.
• In 1997, 2,700 ADA complaints were lodged at the
  EEOC based on claimants lower back disorders.
• Nationwide, back injuries cost employers between
  15 and 20 billion dollars per year.

26
AIDS

• Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a
  leading public health problem in the United
  States.
• Organizational interventions
• An employer cannot allow itself to be influenced
  by employee preferences and prejudices.
• An employer must hire and retain qualified
  HIV-infected victims unless the debilitating
  effects of the disease impede their job
  performance.
• An employer must educate employees about how the
  AIDS virus is transmitted (and how it is not
  transmitted).

27
Substance Abuse

• Costs U.S. employers an estimated 1 billion a
  year in terms of
• Lost productivity, accidents, workers
  compensation, health insurance claims, and theft
  of company property
• 1988 Drug-Free Workplace Act states the education
  on the following
• Dangers of drug abuse in the workplace
• Policy of maintaining a drug-free workplace
• Drug counseling, rehabilitation, and employee
  assistance programs
• Penalties for drug abuse violations occurring in
  the workplace