Category: Safety

Introduction

The industrial revolution in the early twentieth century changed the world in terms of production and distribution of the products to consumers. The invention of automobile engines changed the transport sector. People and property could easily move from one place to another. The development of information technology in the twenty-first century has also changed the way people conduct business transactions.

Currently, people from across the world can use the internet and social media platform to interact and conduct businesses across the world. As technology advances, the production processes become cheaper and faster. Consequently, the varieties of products offered in various markets have significantly increased. The same modern technology and its applications have made it easier to move products and services from one part of the globe to another. With several transportation options in the current world, freight logistics has become more complex. Safety management of people, property, and environment in the industry has become a challenge. On the other hand, the complexity has made it difficult to control external costs associated with the outbound shipment.

Safety Issues in Freight Logistics

The technological development has helped in improving the production of goods and services in all industries. Besides, it has enhanced the connection between individuals and business entities across the world. Transactions of products and services across the world have increased. As a result, logistics has continued to be part of the daily operations in many industries. However, the aspect of logistics in business operations is based on its efficiency.

People who handle consignment at the port and during transit use a combination of machines, technology, and human power. The safety of human resources and the natural environment is important (Kant, Quak, Peeters, & Woensel, 2015). Improving safety standards helps in increasing the effectiveness and productivity of human resources in the freight logistics sector.

Physical activities such as the transfer of items can cause body injuries leading to accidents and ergonomics related illnesses. Factors that cause injuries and accidents depend on the nature of activities in which a worker engages. Several factors lead to accidents in the freight logistics industry. The types of tools and equipment people use to determine their safety. The working environment also determines the safety of people and other resources.

Conditions of the vessels used to transport products and services influence the safety of people using them, the product they transport, and the environment in which they operate (Yoshida, 2011). Lastly, the nature of the transportation medium such as water, air, and the road significantly influences the effectiveness of safety measures. An organization should consider all the above factors when establishing safety guidelines.

Building materials are among the heaviest and the bulkiest products handled in the transportation sector. In the contemporary context where technology thrives, how companies to transport bulk materials has changed. The introduction of automobile technology made it possible to transport heavy materials from one place to another. The materials could be easily transported over a long distance by the road (Govender & Thokozani, 2014).

With the introduction of air cargos, such heavy materials are transferred across the world. When in transit, heavy products are susceptible to damage and destruction because of weather changes and other factors. Some materials such as chemicals may have dangerous effects on the crew. Also, certain materials can be destroyed. In the process, they can cause harm because of poor packaging.

The increase in the number of transit options has posed serious threats to freight logistics in terms of safety. Because of accidents on the roads, transportation trucks often overturn. They cause deaths, destruction of other property, and environmental pollution, especially when they carry chemicals. Water transportation is one of the options used in the transportation of both heavy and light commodities over a long distance. It is difficult for big water vessels to capsize. However, they take a long time to deliver products to their destinations (Kant et al., 2015).

Many accidents in water transport occur at the ports. Congestions and inadequate organizations in the port cause many accidents. Inappropriate management of machines such as cranes, hydraulic lifts, and trucks among others makes many ports unsafe for both human and nonhuman resources. With the increase in the production and distribution of goods on the global platform, many ports receive consignments that they are unable to manage. Once the management plan fails to address safety and operational issues, the probability of becoming a victim of unsafe environments is high (Govender & Thokozani, 2014).

Transportation of fluids and chemical present various issues. Many countries use pipelines to transport oil and gas products. Commodities transported through pipeline reach their delivery destinations within the shortest time possible. However, some of them are highly flammable and toxic (Yoshida, 2011). Oil spillages cause significant losses to companies. They also cause environmental pollutions and tragic accidents. The main challenge is the inability of the companies to control pipeline connecting places that are several kilometers apart.

Load safety continues to become a serious issue because users do not comply with the established codes of practice. The scenario closely relates to inadequate competence and ownership of the risks. Those who create consignments leave the load safety responsibility on the hands of their drivers. However, how a vehicle is packed determines its safety. For instance, an overloaded vehicle could cause an accident even if the driver carefully observed road safety rules (Govender & Thokozani, 2014). Logistics managers need to develop a health and safety strategy that would ensure all players are responsible for their actions. Currently, the idea of passing responsibilities to the subsequent handlers of a consignment exposes people and property within the freight logistics industry to danger.

Corporation Profits and Losses in Freight Logistics

Significant costs are incurred to satisfy the demands of customers in different industries. However, firms within these industries do not fully understand these costs. It is because the traditional accounting and financial analyses focus on the production costs and omit the costs needed to meet customers demands. The costs of logistics vary from one company or industry to another. However, the total costs of logistics determined as a percentage of the gross domestic product have significantly increased in various markets (Yoshida, 2011).

Apart from the external aspects that increase expenses, operations within the logistic sector provide revenues through the delivery of products and services to the users. Therefore, apart from safety and operational issues, it is important to understand the impacts of decisions in the profits made in logistics and supply chain context. In terms of financial issues, logistics activities need resources such as working and fixed capitals (Kant et al., 2015). Therefore, freight logistics strategies should consider safety and financial issues that affect business operations.

The executives in the logistics sector need to provide accurate and timely information on operations, planning, purchases, sales, and finances. Effective management of transits, destinations, arrival times, and freight costs need appropriate documentation of information. These could be done through internal paperwork, internet tools, and communication strategies. The traditional frameworks used in tracking the logistics made it difficult to predict various aspects of the system.

The lack of predictability has created many negative impacts on the industry (Govender & Thokozani, 2014). Consequently, negative results such as obstruction to sales, surplus inventory, and varied operational performance occur during the transportation of products and services. Many organizations within the freight logistics sector lack reliability and accessibility to real-time data on supply chain operations. They have no choice apart from contacting the suppliers for details such as shipment information, legal issues, and tariffs. Such approaches are ineffective and labor-intensive. Subsequently, they create additional costs for the company and its suppliers (Quak & Nesterova, 2014).

The inability of companies and non-profit organizations to control logistics processes is a recurring problem. Many organizations have created optimized logistics plans with routine policies. Their objective is to provide specific guidelines on the way their suppliers and users should transport their products and services. Nevertheless, these organizations have limited control over the entire process. Even though they pay the freight charges, firms cannot determine whether the freight firms and other stakeholders follow their established policies. Instead, they rely on their employees and suppliers to execute the routine policies and guidelines on their behalf (Yoshida, 2011). They do not have any legal or management means through which they can enforce their logistics strategies.

The cost control problems have little effects on the outbound shipping. It is because organizations have the capability of controlling their outbound consignments. However, their main terms of purchases are Ex Works. In this case, the buyer incurs the costs of inbound shipping. As a result, they assume the risks related to the delivery of their consignments. In this circumstance, the buyer depends on the supplier to follow the expected freight routines (Quak & Nesterova, 2014). The main problem is that many suppliers do not adhere to these routine guidelines because their focus is on many customers they serve daily.

The workload and a large number of customers they serve make suppliers put their attention to services rather than guidelines. In such cases, the purchasing company would incur additional freight costs and those related to delays within the supply chain. The situation might be worse when a catastrophic incident occurs during shipping. Not all these additional costs can be traced back to the value of the product or services being shipped when calculating the accurate cost of products. The buying company has no capability or means of making changes once the products have entered the supply chain system. These include the impossibility of responding to external factors such as weather conditions and the necessity of separating consignments for different destinations (Smil, 2007).

Many firms do not realize the instant effects of these extra costs. However, the increase in costs becomes visible after some weeks. The company must pay the amount indicated in the invoices of the inbound shipment before it can generate an expenditure report. Even in such situations, the companys financial records will still indicate the total cost. Breaking down the information needs extensive work such as manual paperwork and accessing multiple portals of shipment carrier (Vogel, 2016). The gathered information must be compiled for analysis. All these works are cumbersome and the inbound shipment costs will remain unknown unless a firm decides to engage in the strenuous activity.

Another issue that affects the logistics is the continuous rise of the freight costs. The freight rates have been increasing steadily in all transportation sectors for the last five years (Yoshida, 2011). The situation poses a serious challenge to international business organizations.

As indicated earlier, the rates imposed on external shipping cannot be controlled by the logistics executives. Nevertheless, effective management of inbound shipping and all related activities are significant to companies involved. Apart from trying to increase the companys visibility in the logistics platform, the management also focuses on staff reduction. They tend to decrease the budget for the IT-based services and an increase in the centralization of the shipment services (Smil, 2007). However, many of those changes and strategies create further problems for those organizations.

To deal with the situation, the logistics managers should undertake several actions to control external costs. An increase in external costs causes constraints of internal resources. One of the recommended actions is to conduct a systematic analysis of the freight data to establish sources of external losses. Instead of trying to control external factors, logistics managers can devise strategies to avoid them (Karimi, Srinivasan, & Han, 2013).

In the contemporary business environment, technology has taken the center stage. Logistics is a complex field with several operations taking place simultaneously. Appropriate technology will enhance faster operations and execution of processes. All departments need a robust system to manage data and other relevant information. Therefore, a freight logistics system requires a robust technology platform. That way, it is possible for the managers to gather appropriate information and initiate the correct response at the right time (Kant et al., 2016). On the other hand, they can work with logistics professionals who render services aimed at reducing external costs.

Companies face several challenges in their attempts to manage inbound shipping. Fortunately, technology has provided practical solutions, which help companies in the management of the processes. Organizations that have adopted the modern systems have increased their visibility and gained substantive control of the costs related to inbound shipment services (Yoshida, 2011). An inclusive management service has the required technical aspects to deal with the complex nature of logistics. The use of technology is essential in serving customers in modern markets with on-demand services. However, it is important to conduct thorough research and analysis to come up with a technological solution that answers specific problems.

Some of the issues that derail global logistics are capacity, congestions, and costs. As the number of organizations taking part in production and freight logistics increase, the capacity of the infrastructure also reduces. Because of limited capacity, the transport service providers tend to raise the costs of deliveries. Subsequently, transportation costs increase without considering the consumer costs. Congestions cause delays in the delivery of products and services to their destinations. Customers can easily switch to the readily available substitutes because of constant delays in delivery (Vogel, 2016). Coupled with the uncontrollable costs of outbound shipments, it is easier for a company to incur huge losses.

A serious problem occurs in the road transport sector, which is characterized by intense labor and limited capacity. The problem is magnified when bulk carriers are involved. Coupled with the difficulty of determining qualified drivers, the probability of making losses remains high.

Even with qualified drivers, the conditions encountered on the road such as traffic jams and accidents are still uncontrollable. The few qualified drivers and conditions faced on the road are deterrents to the effective management of road carriers and shipments. The idea of having an optimum capacity is the dream of every organization (Karimi, Srinivasan, & Han, 2013). However, creating such a capacity in road transport is difficult. Therefore, companies that deliver their products through roads have limited choices of safety.

Conclusion

Logistics is an important sector for all industries across the world. Local and international companies rely on logistics to reach their customers. However, the inability of firms to control certain aspects of freight logistics cause serious safety and cost-related issues. Before choosing a carrier, a company should weigh options and select the safest and most cost-effective mode of transportation. The move would reduce the extra costs incurred because of uncontrollable factors.

The collaboration of all stakeholders can assist in addressing the general problems in the industry. With the increased volume of bulky consignments, domestic firms need to develop robust systems. It will be simple to handle consignments by eliminating external costs and safety issues. In conclusion, the effective use of technology could help in improving deliveries and services. Technology is essential in gathering and analyzing logistics information. It can also be used to manage the activities that take place during shipment. Choosing the right management solutions would help in detecting problems and identifying the most appropriate solutions.

References

Govender, N., & Thokozani, M. (2014). Dynamics of intermodal logistical systems on containerisation and road transportation in Durban, South Africa. Journal of Transport and Supply Chain Management, 8(1), 1-10.

Kant, G., Quak, H., Peeters, R., & Woensel, V. (2015). Urban freight transportation: challenges, failures and successes. Logistics and Supply Chain Innovation Lecture Notes in Logistics, 3(1), 127-139.

Karimi, A., Srinivasan, R., & Han, L. (2002). Unlock supply chain improvements through effective logistics. Chemical Engineering Progress, 98(5), 32-38.

Quak, H., & Nesterova, N. (2014). Towards zero emission urban logistics: Challenges and issues for implementation of electric freight vehicles in city logistics. Transport and Sustainability Sustainable Logistics, 14(8), 265-294.

Smil, V. (2007). The two prime movers of globalization: History and impact of diesel engines and gas turbines. Journal of Global History, 2(14), 373394.

Vogel, P. (2016). Service network design as a logistical challenge in the reliable provision of service in bike sharing systems. Service Network Design of Bike Sharing Systems Lecture Notes in Mobility, 1(2), 31-48.

Yoshida, Y. (2011). Pricing, capacity, and construction boundary of a congestible highway with an elastic demand: Social optimum, second best, privatization, and vertical disintegration. The Japanese Economic Review, 62(3), 401-424.

Introduction

Problem Statement

Travelling to other countries subjects an employee to such serious risks as the accidents on transport, fires, low-quality medical service, limited access to medication, poor sanitary conditions, epidemics, infectious diseases, criminality, hostage-taking, and terrorism, to name just a few (Harvey, 2013). At that, it has been noted that male and female and married and married employees face different risks (Expat explorer, 2014). Thus, sending an employee to a different country without the necessary training is highly irresponsible and thoughtless of a company management.

To address this difficulty, companies need to develop the security training programs and educate employees regarding any existing risks they may face in the country of their assignment and on their way to this country before they depart. The preliminary overview of the literature on expatriate security and safety has demonstrated the lack of data on the preventive strategies that can be implemented to provide assistance to the female workers and thus further investigations should be done in this field to eliminate the research gap.

Purpose Statement

The purpose of this research project is to develop an effective safety program for the traveling businesspeople and provide recommendations as for its implementation. The selected topic is of high importance in connection with the current situation at the global human resources market (Greenhaus, Callanan, & Godshalk, 2010). Due to the lack of talents in multiple areas of the world where global companies operate, employers make a decision to send their human resources to other countries. Since the regular labor force is the most valuable resource, companies are responsible for providing the necessary help with settling and living safely to expatriates in the country of their assignment (Forrier, Sels, & Stynen, 2009).

The program will need to include sufficient training that will help an expatriate avoid a range of possible threats including the accidents on transport, fires, low-quality medical service, limited access to medication, poor sanitary conditions, epidemics, infectious diseases, criminality, hostage-taking, and terrorism, and develop the right behavior that will help overcome any possible hazard. At that, the program will consider the fact that expatriates may have different circumstances depending on their gender, family status, and origin and therefore, it may need to include the measures aiming to address the problems that expatriates family members face (Forrier et al., 2009). To promote further improvements in the area of expatriate safety and security, this research project will include information on the investigations that need to be done.

Research Questions

To understand the challenges the expatriates face and offer companies recommendations regarding the help they may provide, this project will consider the following research questions:

• Q 1. What are the specific difficulties expatriates may face in other countries and on their way to these countries?
• Q 2. Do male/female and married/unmarried employees face different challenges?
• Q 3. What are the effective strategies for preventing and managing the risks the expatriates face?
• Q 4. What are the further investigations that may be done in the chosen field of study to expand the scope of knowledge on expatriates safety and security?

Key Points Addressed

• P 1. International corporations send their best-trained employees to transfer knowledge, control management, and promote multinational corporate culture overseas (Greenhaus et al., 2010). While being highly talented and educated as for their professional competence, expatriates may appear in a difficult situation because of the lack of other important competences connected with safety and security issues.
• P 2. The most frequently met hazards are the low-quality medical service, limited access to medication, poor sanitary conditions, epidemics, local infectious diseases, criminality, hostage-taking, terrorism, existing diplomatic tensions, fires, and transportation related accidents (Forrier et al., 2009; Harvey, 2013).
• P 3. According to Cole and Nesbeth (2014), employees assigned to other territories face the following difficulties that become an obstacle for their professional success  job and work environment factors, family factors, organizational support, and contextual factors in the host-country (p. 66). Job and work environment factors refer to the specific resources the company provides to the employees including the accommodation, transportation, and medical insurance coverage (Cole & Nesbeth, 2014). Family factors implicate the characteristics of the expatriates family status (Cole & Nesbeth, 2014). Organizational support refers to the informational, psychological, and other support provided for the expatriate with an objective to help him/her cope with the unexpected safety and security risks in the foreign assignment (Cole & Nesbeth, 2014). Contextual factors involve the possible demands as regards to the safety and security matters an expatriate and ones family might appear to have in a foreign country (Cole & Nesbeth, 2014).
• P 4. To help a foreign assignee, a company should develop the safety and security strategy that will address each possible risk (Forrier et al., 2009).

Literature Review

The problem of expatriate security and safety relates to a variety of aspects with the wide scope and range (Ast, 2010). It is thus imperative to make sure that the research has concerned all these issues from different perspective and angles, including the point of view of the human resource managers, assignee workers themselves, and their family members. It is also essential to obtain information both from the theoretic and practical field (Cole & Nesbeth, 2014). Thus, the research efforts focused on the objective to perform the practice-oriented observation of the studied subject with the purpose to develop a multidimensional program for expatriate security and safety addressing the issues and threats faced by the identified groups of foreign assignees.

Specific attention was paid to the reports from the field leaders because these pieces contain the up-to-date data showing both the scope of the problem and the variety of methods utilized by the international businesses with the purpose to ensure effective adaptation of their workers in their foreign assignments. Remarkably, comparison of information in the academic articles or the theoretic frame did not demonstrate as broad view on the problem as it is in the reports by the experts in the field.

The reports analyzed the complexity of expatriate security and safety risks on transport, in the land of destination, and in the collective body of local workers (Expat explorer report, 2014; Your Assignment, 2009). The reports demonstrated that the problem of expatriate safety in connection with the need to adapt to the local mentality of fellow-workers has special significance. These guides also indicated the specific measures to be undertaken to eliminate such risks. The data gained from the practical recommendation guides will help generate the more specific and effective plan of better protection for expatriates in foreign countries.

Studying of the theoretic sources including Ast (2010), Cole and Nesbeth (2014), Fee et al. (2013), Forrier et al. (2009), Greenhaus et al. (2010), Harvey (2013), and Jung (2014) helped understand the most frequent hazards met by expatriates in the countries of their destination and on their way to these countries. This information suggested the main issues that will be responded to by the final program proposed in this project and helped organize the arising problems by group in order to ensure the better outcomes through itemization. The data obtained from the sources identified above also helped to detail the recommendations for male and female assignees. Finally, analysis of all the sources studied suggested conclusions on the further investigations that may be done in the chosen field of study to expand the scope of knowledge on expatriates safety and security.

Definition of Terms

The purpose of defining terms is to allow for a shared understanding of the research being presented. It reduces vagueness and increases productive understanding. This project has addressed a row of terms related to the problem of expatriate safety and security.

Expatriate

An employee sent overseas with an objective to promote corporate goals in other divisions of the organization.

Safety and security issues

A variety of possible threats and hazards, both the man-made and natural ones that may affect effective functioning of an expatriate in ones foreign assignment.

Preventive measures

The activities that can be done by both the human resource managers and expatriated themselves with an objective to mitigate the existing safety and security issues.

Proposed Methodology/Research Strategy

Expatriate research and specifically, expatriate safety and security research requires analysis of the scope of the problems that employees face in their foreign assignments and the measures that corporations worldwide use to address the existing difficulty. With respect to the complexity of the safety and security risks and existence of a wide range of different strategies effectively used by different companies, this investigation will lend itself to the qualitative research design.

For this study, qualitative research will be implemented along with the thematic data analysis. Such choice of methodology can be explained by the fact that the aim of this research is to study the scope of existing knowledge on the studied subject, as well as the experience of multinational corporations, which practice employee transfer to foreign countries. Since the existing literature describing the issues of expatriate safety and security provides large portions of information, the thematic data analysis will be used to evaluate the found data and organize it into a portion of the new knowledge.

Assumptions

To help a foreign assignee, a company has to conduct the study of all possible hazards and develop the strategy that will address each problem step by step. At that, the company should consider personal factors including the employees gender and the family status since according to Cole and Nesbeth (2014), assignees from different background might need quite different assistance strategy.

Scope

In view of the fact that relocation to a foreign country is connected to multiple other issues rather than safety and security issues only, the scope of this research will be limited to the investigation of safety and security problems in the foreign assignments along with the solutions that may address the problems identified (Harvey, 2013). Since there are multiple facts demonstrating the essence of developing gender- and family-status-oriented safety and security risk programs for foreign assignees from different backgrounds, this paper offers to narrow this discussion to the differences that expatriates with different circumstances might face and develop specific plans for the male and female expatriate.

Limitations

Despite the fact that this study provides several important insights as for expatriate safety and security in the countries of their assignment, the limitations of this research need to be acknowledged. This qualitative study addressed the literature discussing expatriates experience in their countries of assignment. However, the lack of sources researching expatriate issues from other perspectives was noted. It is desirable to collect information from other stakeholders including human resource managers, home managers, and expatriates family members.

Next, to expand the scope of understanding of the topic under consideration, it is important to conduct quantitative studies aiming to explore expatriates experience from various sectors and settings. These studies will help to enlarge understanding of the expatriate safety and security matters with the help of employees experience.

Results

This research has found that expatriate safety and security issues are complex and multidimensional. Since foreign assignees have not been exposed to similar risks in their home countries, they are highly prone to them (Jung, 2014). To manage the identified risks, the company needs to educate employees to make them aware of possible hazards and provide them with recommendations on how to minimize possible dangers (Fee, McGrath-Champ, & Liu, 2013).

Conclusion

Current research has identified the specific threats and hazards that may confront the expatriates in their foreign assignments. It has found that depending on the personal circumstances, whether the person is male or female, married or unmarried, ones experience can differ and will need corresponding preventive measures. The effective strategies for preventing and managing the risks will aim at addressing each specific risk category in separate, whether it is travel, home, drive or working place issues. To reduce business losses, corporations should carefully consider each risk type and equivalent measures to mitigate the existing danger.

Summary

A variety of possible dangers and threats identified requires the development of a multi-optional prevention plan with the strict gradation of measures for each particular safety and security issue (Greenhaus et al., 2010). Below, specific suggestions concerning every expatriate safety and security hazard identified will be narrated.

Explanation of Findings and Recommendations

Specific Expatriate Safety and Security Issues Identified

The commonly-met hazards include the low-quality medical service, limited access to medication, poor sanitary conditions, epidemics, local infectious diseases, criminality, hostage-taking and kidnapping, terrorism, existing diplomatic tensions, fires, and transportation related accidents (Forrier et al., 2009; Greenhaus et al., 2010; Harvey, 2013). According to Fee et al. (2013), apart from the regular safety and security risks, there are also the following emergencies that require urgent intervention by the company representatives:

1. medical emergencies, which may range from individual evacuations (e.g. malaria) to community-wide pandemics;
2. natural disasters, like floods, fires, earthquakes, and tsunamis, which typically affect large numbers of people and infrastructure;
3. irregular man-made crises, including kidnapping, civil or military unrest, or acts of terrorism; and
4. regular man-made crises which are more familiar to HR professionals, like industrial accidents and non-work misadventures (p. 248).

It is remarkable that according to the statistics, the majority of expatriate safety and security threats have been met by the foreign assignees due to the unwise decisions as for the home security measures implementation (Harvey, 2013). For instance, they opened their home doors to the total strangers appearing to be the criminals or allowed to enter the people naming themselves the representative of the housekeeping service who were the criminals in reality (Harvey, 2013).

Besides the above-mentioned risks, there are also unexpected issues of domestic security and security at the new place of work. In the report Your Assignment Abroad (2009), it was found that foreign assignees may have considerable problems with moving into the households of a type different from the one they used to have in their home country. In the following quotation the main aspects of this problem are shown:

Domestically, you would have the same voltage necessary to use your appliances and it would be compatible with your electronics. Internationally, these items more than likely will not work. In addition, domestic relocations are often a permanent move for an employees job and household. International assignments are, for the most part, for a limited time (Your Assignment Abroad, 2009, p. 16).

Another recommendation toward risks prevention given by the experts is learning foreign language that people speak in the country of the destination because these skills will help to eliminate a wide range of potential difficulties:

If you lack foreign language skills, you should arrange for language training. If English is not the predominant language at the assignment location and foreign language skills will be necessary to enhance your performance and effectiveness, language training may be required for you and your family prior to departure (Your Assignment Abroad, 2009, p. 16).

Learning the local language is essential for the cross-cultural adaptation and establishing the quality connections with the fellow workers in the foreign land, as well as neighbors, schoolmates, and other people expatriates or their family members meet (Jung, 2014).

Recommendations towards the Plan of Prevention

Personnel security and physical security are the essential parts of the expatriate safety and security strategy addressed in this project. Current research has identified that these essential parts of the operational plan play the significant role in reducing the business losses for big corporations sending their employees to foreign assignments (Greenhaus et al., 2010). This conclusion is proved by the fact that the human resource is the major asset in any business because employee professionalism and productivity directly affect business performance (Greenhaus et al., 2010).

Traditional criminal justice roles, functions, and concepts play the key role in security provision for the expatriate workers in foreign assignments. Since the major source of danger emanates from criminals who threat to enter the house, assault, kidnap, or attack foreign workers, which are all illegal practices, the expatriate safety and security strategy largely depends on cooperation with the local law enforcement agencies (Harvey, 2013).

Thus, preventive societal institutions are the key element of the safety and security system aiming to protect expatriates in their land of destination. Therefore, the human resource management should establish cooperation with the representatives of police (Fee et al., 2013). Moreover, Ast (2010), recommend to increase HR management operational effectiveness in volatile regions by means of establishing liaisons with the local government agencies and the private sector personnel in the competitors because some of the emergencies might require exclusive prevention measures in cooperation with multiple stakeholders.

Overview of the information from different resources suggested that in case a certain emergency took place in the country of assignment, foreign workers needed to connect the human resources support department and follow the guidance provided (Expat explorer, 2014; Greenhaus et al., 2010; Harvey, 2013). While an employee is overseas, a database tracking system sending alert messages to warn the person regarding the newly emerging risks and the readily-available hotline with the skilled consultants will help one respond to the unanticipated risks (Harvey, 2013).

Cost-effective mitigation strategies will include education and training for the workers who might appear in an emergency situation with a variety of potential hazards (Greenhaus et al., 2010). In case the hazardous situation takes place, the HR managers will need to assess the degree of damage caused, offer psychological and physical help, and provide training towards avoiding similar risks in the future (Greenhaus et al., 2010; Jung, 2014). According to Fee et al. (2013), the international function of HR spreads on the following terrains: service provider, welfare officer, policy police, strategic partner, and change agent (p. 248). Thus, const effectiveness of the prevention strategy will directly depend on the HR management performance in each of the above-identified aspects.

As for the difference of womens expatriate experience in terms of safety and security, the research has found that the female expatriates face more hazards both on the road and in the land of their destination and thus, these workers need the specifically designed training (Muir, Wallace, & McMurray, 2014). Some of the most common risks for the female expatriates are the residential invasion, carjacking, robbery, assault, exertion, and kidnapping. Moreover, female expatriates may have more safety problems when cooperating with their colleagues because of the prejudice from the local male workers (Muir et al., 2014). However, womens real life experience narrated in the studied articles suggests that if they are properly trained, female expatriates may function more successfully than the male ones due to the natural adaptation mechanism those women posses (Ast, 2010; Muir et al., 2014).

The foreign assignees arriving to the place of destination with the family members need to be aware of the kidnapping threat (Muir et al., 2014). For that reason, all the family members should be educated as for the home security and traveling security measures. Children and women are not allowed to move around the city alone, instead, they need to group together or join other expatriate families on their way to school, shopping areas, sports facilities or anywhere else (Expat explorer, 2014). Expatriate family members are recommended to get acquainted with the families of reliable colleagues, both from foreign countries and from the country of destination. Such net of contacts will help increase the level of resistance to the kidnapping threat and other safety and security threats (Expat explorer, 2014).

The study has found that for all the categories of expats, the recommendations narrated below will implement to avoid most problems in their assignments:

1. Follow the safety guidelines on the transport both during the trip to the destination and while traveling on transport to and from work;
2. Do regular screening with doctors;
3. Follow the guidelines towards the workplace safety;
4. Avoid unknown areas;
5. Reject requests for helping to repair the supposed broken care, instead call the helping services;
6. Reject requests of a supposed lost child to be led to his or her home place, call the police instead;
7. Be aware of occupied parked cars next to you;
8. Change times, roads, and routines regularly;
9. Use major roads to go to work and avoid the bad travelled ways;
10. Hide valuable things from plain view;
11. Dont count money in the public places;
12. Dont accept help from strangers;
13. Get trained to recognized the threats from people following you;
14. If assaulted, remember your ultimate goal to save your life, stay calm, and give the perpetrator what they ask.

The threat of being assaulted remains quite common and unfortunately, unwise decision-making during such emergencies may cost a person ones health or even life (Harvey, 2013). Therefore, foreign assignees need regular training on how to cope with the assault and how to handle this threat from the psychological point of view (Greenhaus et al., 2010).

Next, the study has indicated that since the majority of expatriate safety and security threats have been met by the foreign assignees in their homes, the following recommendations should be followed strictly:

1. Use good housing access controls including security systems, keys, the departmental security service;
2. Separate you house and car keys;
3. Study the list of housing services and the firms providing them along with their representatives;
4. Do not permit the service personnel to enter unless proper documentation provided;
5. Organize an opportunity to see your visitors at the door from a distance;
6. Organize inspection of your house safety in terms of locks, electronic monitoring, gates, etc.;
7. Use good lightening to scare the criminals away;
8. Use perimeter protection such as window barriers, fences, gates;
9. Do not open doors to talk to strangers;
10. Get acquainted with the neighbors.

Further, informational security is another vital component of the expatriate safety and security strategy. Informational security with regards to the expatriate safety and security concerns storage of information regarding foreign assignees, their family members, and any other details that can be used by the criminals to cause harm to them (Jung, 2014). It has been identified recently that there is a growing number of cases of attacks committed by criminals who managed to obtain secret information regarding foreign employees due to omissions in the informational security strategy (Your Assignment Abroad, 2009).

Therefore, effective prevention plan includes the strong defense against the data leakage (Jung, 2014). Incorporating the informational security analysis into the research plan presents another opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the designed expatriate safety and security plan. With regards to the informational security issues, this research has made another insistent finding. In the recent period, criminals have focused on using the social networks to gain information about the objects of their interest (Jung, 2014). Unwittingly, some of the foreign assignees make the information regarding their financial status, way of living, interests, lifestyles, frequently visited places available on the net (Jung, 2014). It is strongly recommended that they limit the availability of their personal information in the social media (Jung, 2014).

Recommendations for Further Investigations

The overview of the literature on expatriate security and safety has demonstrated the lack of data on the preventive strategies that apply to provide assistance to the female workers and thus further investigations should be done in this field to eliminate the existing research gap. On the whole, the theoretic sources and the practical guides composed by the consultants and participants of the process of expats preparation for the foreign assignment simply state that there is an immense difference in womens and mens experience in foreign assignments (Ast, 2010; Muir et al., 2014).

A number of sources only mention that planners should mind the differences while others briefly narrate differences and specific difficulties that female workers can experience (Ast, 2010; Expat explorer, 2014; Muir et al., 2014). The identified research gap is thus the lack of information on the exact measures that can implement in practice to help female workers in their foreign assignment. To address the existing research gap, the further qualitative and quantitative research is needed to determine the measures and methods that can implement more effectively to combat safety and security issues in the female expatriates.

References

Ast, S. A. (2010). Managing Security Overseas. Protecting employees and assets in volatile regions. Boca Raton: Auerbach Publications.

Cole, N., & Nesbeth, K. (2014). Why Do International Assignments Fail? International Studies Of Management & Organization,44(3), 66-79.

Expat explorer report. (2014). Web.

Fee, A., McGrath-Champ, S., & Liu, H. (2013). Human resources and expatriate evacuation: a conceptual model. Journal of Global Mobility, 1(3), 246-263.

Forrier, A., Sels, L., & Stynen, D. (2009). Career mobility at the intersection between agent and structure: A conceptual model. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 82, 739-759.

Greenhaus, J. H., Callanan, G. A., & Godshalk, V. M. (2010). Career management. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Harvey, B. (2013). Safety while working abroad. Professional Safety, 58(12), 20-21.

Jung, A. (2014). Critical Analysis of Possible Causes of Expatriate Failure at AFW Direct. Personnel and Organization, 2(3), 147-56.

Muir, M., Wallace, M., & McMurray, D. (2014). Women on the move: the self-initiated expatriate in China. Journal of Global Mobility, 2 (2), 234-254.

Your Assignment Abroad: The 50 Most Common Concerns. (2009). Web.

Financial issues and ways to overcome the problem

Financial decision-making is crucial for private, public, and non-profit organizations alike. Balancing the needs of the business and the funds available is important to avoid exceeding the budget and accounting for unnecessary expenditures. As a non-profit childrens hospital, my agency has to be very careful when it comes to financial decision-making. Prioritizing the current needs of the hospital is the main tool used for decisions on spending. Therefore, in my agency, the spending is based on need. For instance, if there is a request for new machines or other equipment, the head of the department or unit must provide a rationale for his or her request and explain the need for funding. The rationale is then evaluated by the management, and a needs analysis is performed to determine if the request would fulfill the needs of patients, staff, or the organization. Ensuring that all spending is need-based can help to avoid unnecessary spending, whereas reviewing and evaluating funding requests assists in preventing purchases based on emotion or individual perception.

The common financial problems of Public Safety Agencies

The goal of any organization, regardless of its size, aims, or type, needs to be able to provide high-quality services or products in order to stay profitable and fulfill its goals. When it comes to public organizations, the pressure to provide valuable services is high. People have many expectations regarding the work of public organizations, and failure to meet the publics expectations could cause problems or affect the agencys reputation. At the same time, public organizations might not always have full access to the financing required for continuous improvement. Thus, public safety leaders face an important challenge of maintaining a balance between providing valuable services and avoiding excessive spending. The critical concepts to be considered include cost-efficiency, strategic planning, and needs assessment.

One of the ways that public safety leaders could address financial planning is by conducting regular evaluations to determine cost-efficiency of their organizations. Ideally, an increase in spending should lead to improved performance outcomes. Therefore, cost-efficiency tests could help to determine past mistakes in funding and help redistribute the budget to make the spending more effective. For example, if a company increased its HR expenses by hiring more professionals, but performance measures remained the same, it might be worth looking at distributing funds to other areas of organizational functioning, such as technical capacity, innovation management, and others. Similarly, in public safety agencies, cost-efficiency analysis can indicate both past mistakes and current issues that have to be addressed through financial planning. By ensuring that the spending is efficient, the leaders can achieve and maintain a balance between expenditures and service quality.

Strategic planning is another concept that is frequently applied to budgeting. Strategic planning allows leaders to analyze the organizations internal and external environment to create specific goals and a strategy for achieving them. As such, financial planning is a powerful strategic tool that assists in improving performance outcomes and promotes efficiency. When leaders practice strategic planning, they become aware of the environmental forces affecting their organization. Moreover, they also learn more about the agencys strengths and weaknesses, which allows them to plan spending in a way that increases cost-efficiency. In addition, strategic planning ensures that all of the financial decision-making within the agency is carried out in accordance with its goals and strategy. Thus, it helps in preventing unnecessary expenditures.

A comprehensive approach to strategic planning is especially relevant to public safety organizations that are influenced by a variety of external and internal forces. Policy changes, workforce features, and other factors affect the work of public safety agencies and their financial planning activities. For example, shrinking public sector budgets might cause some agencies to cut down on important aspects of financing, which could lead to unwanted consequences. Strategic planning assists leaders in understanding the challenges and finding a suitable response to overcome them. Therefore, strategic planning is useful in public safety budgeting as it ensures that the funds are distributed appropriately and that the agencys funding helps it in achieving its goals.

Lastly, a needs assessment is an evaluation of the organizations financial needs. It is a versatile tool that suits most businesses, including public sector agencies. A needs assessment helps the leaders to evaluate the areas of operation that require funding and to prioritize the spending based on the organizations need. For instance, a needs assessment could be applied to determine if the organization should spend some extra funding to purchase additional equipment or to carry out a training program for existing staff. By prioritizing the organizations needs, public safety leaders can avoid excessive expenditures and make sure that the budget is used effectively across the agency.

Overall, public safety leaders have to maintain a certain balance between avoiding excessive costs and providing high-quality services to target populations. Financial planning tools, including cost-efficiency analysis and needs assessment, as well as strategic planning, can help public safety organizations to manage their finances in the most effective ways. By using the budget efficiently, public safety leaders can provide high-quality services to the public while at the same time maintaining the agencys budget.

Occupational safety and health are some of the issues that should be addressed if the potential of the global supply chain is to be harnessed. Globalization has created the need for companies to leverage the sourcing and selling of goods and materials internationally as a way of remaining competitive in the global markets. Despite being interconnected, international trade is fragmented with various markets and economies operating in autonomous geographic regions with different laws and policies governing occupational safety and health. This aspect creates a major problem in ensuring that workplaces are safe for employees. This paper discusses some of the measures that could be implemented to overcome the barriers to improving worker safety in global supply chains, especially in developing countries.

The first step is to identify and understand the level of health and safety vulnerability in developing countries. This aspect allows companies to come up with the appropriate strategies to address all the underlying issues exacerbating this problem in the affected regions. Second, international companies operating or sourcing materials from developing countries should adopt occupational health and safety management systems, such as ISO 45001. According to Cooper (2014), ISO 45001 is a draft global standard on worker safety aiming to create this necessary foundation of worker safety and factory integrity standards that can be accepted by all global supply chains, for use in all industries, covering all contractors and subcontractors, in all countries supplying products into these supply chains (p. 32). Currently, 43 countries and over 90 organizations are participants in this effort, and thus all developing regions should be part of it for the safety and health of workers.

Third, suppliers should improve their management capabilities to prevent risks and ensure performance. Some of the strategies that could be adopted include training and educating suppliers and employees on safety measures and making it part of corporate policy for companies to observe safe working places. Fourth, companies should implement purchaser procurement policies, which allow purchasers in powerful market positions to influence improvement in health and safety management among suppliers (Ustailieva et al., 2012, p. 22). As such, health and safety standards should be used as the basis for selecting suppliers in the international market. Additionally, there should be clear policies requiring suppliers to have management systems or codes of conduct and sign declarations for compliance with the set international standards on top of conducting annual self-assessment, auditing, monitoring, inspections, and training.

In addition, international framework agreements (IFAs), which are commonly known as global framework agreements (GFAs), could play a major role in ensuring the safety of workers in the global supply chain. According to Ustailieva et al. (2012), GFAs are transnational agreements negotiated between multinational companies and global union federations (p. 27). These agreements ensure that suppliers are compliant with the set operation standards regarding safety and health in the workplace. Similarly, industries could collaborate to address pertinent issues surrounding supply chain objectives and safety.

The global supply chain is sophisticated given the number of players involved and the diversity of the covered geographical areas. However, any safety challenges could be addressed by ensuring that the affected international companies collaborate with their suppliers to promote safe and healthy workplaces. The adoption of occupational health and safety management systems would cover all the major areas and overcome major barriers to addressing this problem.

References

Cooper, S. (2014). Improving worker safety in global supply chains: the case for a global safety & health management standard. Vantage Point, 29-33.

Ustailieva, E., Eeckelaert, L., Nunes, I., & Hauke, A. (2012). Promoting occupational safety and health through the supply chain. European Agency for Safety and Health at Work.

Brief introduction of the article

This article describes a research study conducted under the Forest Industrial Engineering, department, the Forestry faculty at Ducze University in Turkey. The research study included an investigation carried out on the level of work safety and on the health of staff members working at the Forest Industry Enterprise that is one of the greatest producers of forest products. The research was carried out in the city of Ducze. Each of the branch manufacturers of forest products has been found to operate in this city. The study sought to investigate the various factors that impact the health of staff members working at enterprises related to the forest industry. An analysis of the work safety, as well as that of the status of the various enterprises, was also done.

A statement of the research problem

Work safety has presently become an essential aspect that makes sure that staff members in every sector of work in an environment that is healthy and safe through the provision of working conditions that are safe. Work safety has therefore been found to be important not just for the members of staff but also for the entire company or industry and every aspect of its production. The forest industry is an enterprise that can pose great hazards to its employees and that therefore needs to ensure that measures are put in place to eradicate the various hazards that might exist. It is through enhancing work safety that such industries are able to eradicate possible dangers at work, get rid of working conditions that may pose as being harmful to employees, and to provide an environment of work that is both safe and healthy.

A description of research procedures

Duceucze study was sought to investigate the safety as well asthee ealth of staff members of Forest Industry Enterprise by analyzing the various factors that impact the health of staff members working at Forest Industry Enterprise. An analysis of the work safety , as well as that of the status of the various enterprises, was also done. 264 questionnaires were distributed to selected staff members at the enterprise. The sample was selected from the 3500 employees working in the industry. A random selection of respondents was done.

Flaws in the procedural design

The sample selected for the study, 264 employees of the enterprise, can be termed as being representative of the entire population within the, industry and hence results obtained can be said to be reliable and valid. The use of questionnaires as the only method of collecting data can however be seen as ineffective as results obtained cannot be fully relied upon as being true. Supporting methods of data collection could have been; face to face interviews, focus group discussions as well as observation.

Analysis of the data

The questionnaires were then analyzed using the SPSS software program while chi- squarechi assess the relationship that exists between the different questions. The questionnaires were analyzed based on the assumption that each of the respondents filled in the questions independently and without any influence from another person.

A description of how System Safety principles were used or could have been used in this research

The level of safety of the working environment for all members of staff was assessed against/ or on the basis of the principles of System Safety. The research investigated if each of the principle has been appropriately considered while putting up the enterprises safety measures.

Limited and justifiable conclusions

According to findings from the research, 55.3 percent of all respondents lacked education on occupational safety (Korkut, & Gedik, 2010). These findings are important for the planning and implementation of solutions to identified problems related to work safety. Further research that fills out the identified gaps and that straightens up the identified flaws is however necessary to ensure that findings obtained are true, valid and reliable. From the findings, there is need for staff members at the Forest Industry Enterprise to get educated on work safety. Training programs should therefore be effectively implemented.

Reference

Korkut, D. & Gedik, T. (2010) A research on occupational safety in forest products Industry in Turkey. African Journal of Business Management, 4(7):1423-1433.

Introduction

Fosters Abbotsford is an Australian company whose business interest is production of brew. Under the obligation of ensuring safety of employees, the company was sued in accordance to the Occupation Health and Safety law for a tragic incident that saw one of her employees perish. The report intends to elaborate on the facts surrounding the fatal incident and how the court proceedings were conducted up to the delivering of a ruling (WorkSafe 2008b). Company policies in relation to employees are important to enhance the safety of the workers and mitigate accidents. Constant review of company safety rules is important to curb life-threatening incidences that occur in line of duty. In case of a disaster, companies only lose revenue but workers are the worst affected as their lives are at stake during accidents. The Fosters Abbotsford Company experienced a tragic incident in 2006 that attracted a fine of $1.125 million (Hannan 2011). The report looks into the details surrounding the incidents and subsequent safety issues.

A description of the accident

The firms negligence in conducting maintenance of company machines is largely to blame for the accident. In 2003, the company assessment report indicated minimal risks on one of the palletiser that was subsequently replaced in 2004. However, a senior electrician noted the depletion and risk nature of the B1B depalletiser. The company lagged in implementing a serious plan to address the issue. The B1B is the machine that caused the accident. In addition, the imprudent working culture in the company increases the risks of accidents occurring. This culture entails cleaning of machines without stopping the production machines to mitigate accidents. The firm adopted this culture to keep its production constant at all times. Managers routinely monitored the time of these machines (WorkSafe 2008a). Moreover, the dangerous areas on the depalletiser lacked alerting gadgets to aid in visibility and material that is audible enough to guide during the opening of the doors. Lastly, the company failed to comply with the established standards pertaining the use of machinery as envisaged in the Australia law provision. The company workers were supplied with safety booklets that were solely written in one language, English. The language barrier made hard the understanding of the advanced machine precautions. In accordance to this case, Mr. Huynh was unable to understand the scripts on safety.

Mr. Huynh on the daily work routine was working near the B1B depalletiser machine when the accident occurred. According to the medical report, the worker sustained neck injuries. From the aforementioned report, the worker must have been compressed by heavy steel while conducting the cleaning of company reflector. A colleague at the work place found Huynh unconscious and was rushed to the hospital where he succumbed to internal injuries. According to the courts judgment, Fosters Company largely assisted the victims family during the grieving times until his final send off. The presence of the companys executive during the burial, together with a large delegation from the companys working pool postulated the gravity of the matter.

An analysis of the contributing factors using the Hazard Management Process

Companies can be danger zones. Hazards make this working place a dangerous location. A number of hazards and risks can cause death, injury and diseases. Firm management is responsible for the protection of its workers. In case of an accident, employee life is at stake although the company may realize some shocks economically. Moreover, protected employees tend to increase the revenue of firms in the long run. A healthy employee will largely be at the disposal of the firm, increasing the firms production. Ensuring safety in the company premises encompasses adherence to a number of issues. These issues are largely addressed by the management process. A hazard management process contains four vital steps towards firm safety. The steps range from identification of a potential hazard to monitoring and review of a formulated solution (McKinnon 2011).

Hazard management processes entail the identification of a hazard, assessment of risks, control of hazards and risks, and finally review of the implemented controls. Fosters Abbotsford Company was inefficient in many areas, hence the loss of life of one of its employees. Considering the company had experienced an incident in 2002 where her worker was injured, the initial measure the firm needed to have employed was identification of depalletiser as a risk area that can relatively cause harm, injury and even deaths. The language barrier, an impediment in communication, is another hazard (WorkSafe 2008a). Communication is vital in understanding the operations of a firm as it is used day-to-day to realize a given objective. Individuals who operate machines without prior knowledge of their safety or how to handle an emergency are at a greater risk. The fact that some of the workers are unable to understand English calls for introduction of other language tutorials on safety. With ease in grasping the details of the safety tutorials, workers will be well aware of how machines operate.

The companys management needs to formulate ways of evaluating the understanding of the safety requirements and operation of machines. Assessing individual workers will be helpful to ascertain the depth of knowledge in relation to machine operation and their safety. In accordance to the hazard management process, it is important to address issues raised at each stage (SSN 2003). The firms electrician rightly identified the hazard raised by B1B but upon reporting to the necessary body, delays marred the process of corrective action leading to the death. The company was unable to take an initiative to control this hazard, leading to the death and ultimate penalty in terms of fines. Review reports done in 2004 showed that the risks posed were low, but the 2006 report was more conflicting; indicating risks to be high. The report was unsatisfactory and the necessary steps to mitigate deaths and injuries caused were avoided in accordance to the report. Therefore, it is prudent to engage qualified assessors to ensure quality reports are forwarded for action. Frequent reviews of control measures are important to avert the possibility of a disaster. Most companies, Fosters Abbotsford included, seem to conduct their reviews after the occurrence of disasters. From the discussion, it is apparent that the hazard that caused the death of Mr. Huynh could have been averted (AFN 2008).

The analysis of the subsequent conviction of Fosters Limited in August 2008

The court reached a decision in 2008 and gave a landmark ruling in relation to Mr. Huynh. Before making the ruling, several factors were put into consideration in relation to the Occupation Health and Safety Act. The factors include; the seriousness of the offence, the reasons for the increment of maximum penalty, Amcors case and initial knowledge of the firm on hazardous issues. The immediate family feelings and testimony was also vital in the decision. The penalty increase by the courts definition was meant to ensure that employees were well protected from situations that could cause harm or death at their places of work. The conviction by the court drew very high fine of $1.25 million (WorkSafe 2008c).

The verdict was fair. This is because the court considered the material facts that were brought before her by the prosecutor and the defense. From the facts, it is apparent that the firm failed in the responsibility of ensuring workers protection from any hazard. Having experienced an earlier incident, the firm still failed to prioritize the welfare of its workers. The high penalty was also driven by the increment of penalty by parliament. The aim of the stiff penalty is to ensure employers undertake their obligation in protecting the lives of their employees in the workplace (WorkSafe 2007).

The punishment against the company was appropriate; it served justice to the aggrieved. Failures by the firm to apply the use of hazard management process fully in dispensing its responsibility of worker protection led to the death of a hard working employee. The company was well aware of the hazards but failed to put in place measures to curb them. In addition, the firms reluctance to provide multilingual safety tutorials is one of the preventable factors that call for a maximum penalty (Collins 2008). Although no monetary compensation can replace the life of a person, it makes living worth and endurable. The feeling that lives are a priority to the state will enhance workers confidence.

The financial position of a firm is considered to ensure that the company feels the pinch of its foregone responsibilities. A financial situation was paramount in the decision of this case. Although the firms defense team pleaded with the court to factor in its role in fostering corporate responsibility, the courts intention was to offer justice to the aggrieved and make the ruling a learning process to the firm. The failure in its obligation after a life-threatening situation in 2002 and the need to enforce the new established statute necessitated the penalty. In line with the aforementioned factors, the penalty to Fosters was too low. Pleading guilty assisted in the reduction of the penalty. The courts initial amount for the fine was $1.5 million, implying that the matters in the case were weighty and the penalty could have otherwise been stiffer (Collins 2008).

Ethical and moral issues played a major role in the conviction of Fosters. The company submissions identified the deceased as a person of impeccable character. A good number of the company employees graced the attendance to his burial. The general managers description of the deceased and consequent victims impact statements touched on morality of Huynh. Huynhs wife description of her husband was also one of the moral statements considered at the course of the decision (Minterellison 2008). The judge pointed out that the fines could not compensate the loss realized by the family but its sole intention was to ensure firms exercise their ethical duty in future to ensure workplace is safe for employees. The decision was also meant to bring the Huynh family to some closure. In conclusion, hazard management process is paramount in ensuring occupation health and safety at the work place. The hefty penalty acted as a wakeup call to insensitive firms who are insensitive to the plight of their employees.

List of References

AFN, 2008. Fosters receives record fine for fatal safety breaches. Web.

Collins, S. J., 2008. Fosters fined $1.125m over workers death. Web.

Hannan, E., 2008. Fosters fined $1.1m after work death. Web.

McKinnon, T., 2011. The value of health & Wellbeing in the work place. A brewery experience. Web.

Minterellison, 2008. Record fine in brewery fatality. Web.

SSN, 2003. OH&S risk management. Web.

WorkSafe, 2007. Controlling OHS hazards and risks: A handbook for work places. Web.

WorkSafe, 2008a. Brewer pleads guilty to workplace safety charges. Web.

WorkSafe, 2008b. Fosters fined $1.125m over workers death. Web.

WorkSafe, 2008c. Two dead and a few near misses. Web.

Sports Equipment: The Sea of Options

Do you know that ice hockey is among the most popular kinds of sports in the world even though it has a high injury rate due to the amount of physical contact between players? Given the size of the sports equipment market, consumers should understand the differences between wood and composite ice hockey sticks to make informed purchasing decisions. This public service announcement leaflet compares two types of hockey sticks and demonstrates the unquestionable advantages of composite sticks, such as durability, high quality, strength, and eco-friendliness.

Why Choose Composite Sticks?

Composite sticks for ice hockey can be called a preferable option due to many reasons. Such sticks are made using a variety of materials, including aluminum, Kevlar, graphite, and carbon fiber, which explains many of their advantages discussed in the leaflet (Coach Jeremy). The key drawbacks of these sticks relate to affordability and, probably, the emotional component of hockey players experiences (Coach Jeremy). However, both factors are less important than product quality and durability.

Composite sticks have the following benefits:

1. Their use can positively impact the quality of sports experiences  they are less heavy than wood sticks and provide more opportunities for customization (Coach Jeremy);
2. The physical properties of materials other than wood make composite hockey sticks more durable and less prone to breakage, which also improves players satisfaction (Coach Jeremy);
3. From durability considerations, although wood sticks tend to be cheaper, the purchase of a composite stick can be regarded as a better investment.

Can Composite Sticks be Eco-Friendly?

Speaking about both options environmental friendliness, composite sticks possess more advantages in this regard. To begin with, their production does not involve the exploitation of natural resources such as wood and does not contribute to deforestation, which is a growing problem today (Coach Jeremy). More than that, considering the strength of the materials used for their production, ice hockey players dispose of composite sticks less frequently, and it has implications for waste processing and related problems.

Wood Sticks and the Decline in Their Popularity

The use of wood sticks can be regarded as a more traditional option associated with nostalgic memories of childhood. There are some professional players who prefer wood sticks, but the majority of ice hockey stars recognize the benefits of the composite ones (Coach Jeremy). The key advantage of hockey sticks made from wood is their affordability (Coach Jeremy). More than that, there is evidence that they have a 10% higher puck speed compared to the composite ones (Kays and Smith 245). Due to the price levels, they can be an acceptable option for amateurs who do not play ice hockey on a regular basis.

Compared to composite sticks, the ones made from wood have more disadvantages that are relevant to an average user. In particular, the following drawbacks deserve consumers attention:

1. Heterogeneity in quality: there can be significant variations in the properties of wood depending on its origin, storage conditions, density, and climate conditions in the trees habitat (Karakaya et al. 623). Therefore, even wood sticks produced by the same company can be extremely different in quality.
2. Durability and safety: wood sticks weigh more than composite ones and tend to be less strong, which results in more frequent breakages (Coach Jeremy). As these drawbacks are related to the risks of injuries, young hockey players parents should consider them before making buying decisions.

Final Recommendations

Based on the analysis of the two types of sticks, customers are recommended to purchase composite sticks since they provide better sports experiences. Preferring them to wooden sticks, people get equipment made from solid and safe materials that are not heavy or prone to breakages. Due to their advantages, sticks from composite materials are a good option for people who care about the safety of their children and the growth of deforestation.

Contact information:

• Your Name
• Organization
• E-mail address

Works Cited

Coach Jeremy. Beginners Guide to Hockey Sticks. New to Hockey. 2018. Web.

Karakaya, Selda, et al. Socioeconomic Structure and Analysis of the Demand for Wood Raw Materials in the Poplar Wood-Processing Companies of the Sakarya and Kocaeli Provinces in Turkey. Journal of Sustainable Forestry, vol. 36, no. 6, 2017, pp. 623-646.

Kays, Brendan T., and Lloyd V. Smith. Effect of Ice Hockey Stick Stiffness on Performance. Sports Engineering, vol. 20, no. 4, 2017, pp. 245-254.

Tall buildings can be seen as a challenge to fire safety standards, and elevators play an important role in such a statement. It was debated for more than two decades that elevators are not safe to use during a fire (Bukowski). Accordingly, the emphasis on fire safety can be explained through several factors. One factor can be seen through designing routes to access, where it is not expected that people will walk down to the exit in tall buildings. The latter emphasizes the evacuation time, as it was shown through the World Trade Centre attacks. At the same time, such difficulties can be seen through providing access to firefighters inside the building, which in the case of tall buildings is a challenging task as well. It can be seen that the focus on elevators is an important aspect in such context, where All of those factors and concerns considered in the of fire safety strategy for Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Considering the aforementioned characteristics of tall buildings, the fire safety in Burj Khalifa initially focused on two aspects, in addition to the general fire safety measures, which are the speed and the safety of evacuation. An important element in such a strategy was devoted to elevators and their construction. The risks with using elevators during safety are attributed to the that they can come to a stop for any number of reasons, trapping their occupants inside. In that regard, in addition to the buildings 57 elevators, a service/firemans elevator was constructed. Having a capacity of 5500 kg, it is the worlds tallest service elevator (CW Staff). Those elevators were divided into several banks, serving different use areas. In addition to the outstanding technical characteristics in the design of elevators along with other safety specifications, e.g. 375km of fire alarm cabling and 34km of chilled water pipes, several design enhancements were considered for the fire safety strategy in Burj Khalifa, which were developed, implemented, and coordinated by Rolf Jensen & Associates, Inc (RJA), a US fire protection and security consultants (RJA) (CW Staff; RJA).

One security strategy was in enabling elevators in the building to operate in emergency mode during evacuation. Such a solution enables the fire department to operate all the elevators manually, an enhancement that enabled cutting projected evacuation time in half (RJA). Another unique solution can be seen through the integration of the areas of refuge. Certain floors have been designed as safe areas, and RJA has consulted on providing special life safety features to protect these areas, such as a direct connection to stairs and pressurization to limit the spread of smoke (RJA). In such a way, people could be relocated to safe zones without evacuating the whole building.

Finally, one of the unique strategies implemented in the building, and which are rarely used, was the integration of several cutting-edge solutions at once. For example, a passive protection solution such as the refuge zones between floors was combined with active protection, including the gravity-fed sprinkler system, a fire alarm system designed to British standards with smoke detection provided throughout the building (Evenson et al.). All of the latter was combined with an efficient Crisis Response Plan, with about 50 response procedures distributed along with five response levels, making Burj Khalifa a technical achievement in every way, including fire safety engineering.

Works Cited

Bukowski, Richard W. International Applications of Elevators for Fire Service Access and Occupant Egress in Fires. CTBUH Journal.3 (2010): 28-33 pp. Web.

CW Staff. How the Burj Was Built. 2010. Construction Week Online. 2011. Web.

Evenson, Jon M., et al. Middle East Fire and Life Safety. Consulting Specifying Engineer (2010). Web.

RJA. Burj Dubai. n.d. Rolf Jensen & Associates, Inc. 2011. Web.

Introduction

The workplace is usually a potential high risk environment in terms of health and safety. But what does health and safety at the workplace mean? In a nutshell, health and safety deals with the protection of workers and other stakeholders through ensuring that the workplace is healthy, safe and that workers welfare is taken care of well (Workplace health and safety n.d.).

As such, governments across the world have developed laws to not only protect employees from accidents and other related hazards while at work, but also ensure that workers welfare is well managed. While employers have the greatest responsibility for guaranteeing occupational health and safety, employees equally have an important role to play in ensuring that the workplace is safe, healthy and secure. This paper, therefore, identifies and discusses employer and employee responsibilities for health, safety and security.

Employer Responsibilities

Every employer has a duty to ensure that the workplace is healthy, safe and secure (Employers health and safety responsibilities n.d.). This duty imposes a number of responsibilities on employers as discussed below.

Employers must ensure that the workplace is free from serious hazards. This can be achieved by undertaking a risk assessment, which involves identification of potential risks and development of adequate measures to mitigate them (Health and Safety Executives 2009). A risk assessment should be undertaken by a health and safety expert.

In most cases, findings of the risk assessment are documented in a report, which culminates into a written occupational health and safety policy. However, it is not necessary to document the assessment for an organisation with less than five employees (Employers health and safety responsibilities n.d.). Nevertheless, employers must come up with adequate measures to control the identified risks

It is also the duty of employers to inform workers about the identified potential risks and the precaution measures put in place (Health and Safety Executives 2009). Employers are expected to provide adequate insurance cover for the workers, especially those working in high risk areas.

A healthy and secure workplace also requires employers to ensure proper maintenance of machines and protective devices in order to avoid accidents arising from faults in machines and protective devices. In addition, employers are expected to set up adequate emergency plans and provide first aid facilities for use in case of emergencies.

Further, employers have a responsibility to ensure consistent and reliable occupational behaviour among employees (Employers health and safety responsibilities n.d.). Employers should supervise and instruct employees accordingly when performing their duties to ensure that employees occupational behaviour does not pose potential risk to their health and safety.

It is the duty of the employer to ensure that employees pay close attention to instructions when operating machines and other related equipment (Employers health and safety responsibilities n.d.). To ensure effective supervision, employers must only appoint competent people as supervisors. Supervisors should be people who not only possess the academic qualifications, but are also well versed with occupational health and safety requirements as well as the potential risks in the workplace.

Moreover, employers are expected to train employees on the relevant hazard prevention measures. Employers should take it as their responsibility to train employees on safety requirements in the workplace to ensure that workers do not ignorantly expose themselves to hazards while performing duties (Health and Safety Executives 2009). Similarly, employers should properly familiarise new employees or visitors with the operations of the workplace environment, including potential dangers and the necessary precautions.

Likewise, employers must ensure strict adherence to occupational health and safety standards. Things such as temperature control, lighting, ventilation, toilet and rest facilities must be provided and should meet health and safety requirements (Employers health and safety responsibilities n.d.). It is the duty of employers to ensure that employees are aware of their health and safety rights as well as responsibilities.

Employers should thus avail copies of the relevant laws to their workers and provide the necessary explanations where necessary. Similarly, employers should develop and document health and safety rules to be followed by employees while performing duties (Employers health and safety responsibilities n.d.).

Employee Responsibilities

Just like employers, employees also have a duty to ensure that the workplace is healthy, safe and secure. Hence, employees have the following four critical responsibilities.

First, employees must carefully follow instructions when operating machines and equipment. As such, employees should use the knowledge acquired through training and perform duties in accordance with instructions given by employers. The employer has a responsibility to provide the relevant personal protective equipment and clothing and give instructions on their usage.

However, it is the duty of employees to always follow the instructions and use the relevant protective gears when performing duties (Health and Safety Executives 2013). Besides, it is the duty of employees to ensure that safety equipment such as fire extinguishers, respirators and goggles are not misused or intentionally damaged (Employee and employer WHS rights and responsibilities 2014).

Second, an employee must not only be responsible for his/her health and safety, but also for the health and safety of other workers as well (Health and Safety Executives 2013). It is the responsibility of an employee to take the necessary precautions when performing duties and to promptly report hazards and dangers whenever noticed (Employee rights and responsibilities, 2013). Employees should always be on the lookout and report any potential dangers to the employers.

An employee should thus be the employers key informant in matters of health, safety and security. Besides, employees should always discuss the arising concerns about health, safety and security with their employers (Employee rights and responsibilities, 2013). Employees have a right to a safe and healthy workplace. Hence, employees should inform employers whenever they feel that this right is at risk. Employees should never take risks with their health and safety at work.

Third, employees are expected to minimise accidents resulting from employee carelessness or acts of omissions by closely following the companys occupational health and safety policy and rules when performing duties.

Last, employees must be cooperative in matters of health, safety and security (Health and Safety Executives 2013). It is the duty of employees to cooperate with employers to ensure that health and safety issues are well addressed and that equipment provided by employers is properly used and well maintained. Employees should also be willing to assist whenever called upon to handle health and safety issues.

Conclusion

Based on the discussion in this paper, it is clear that ensuring occupational health and safety is largely a responsibility of the employer, but employees also have a role to play. Employers are not only expected to ensure that the workplace is safe and secure, but must also train workers on how to make their work environment safe, healthy and secure. On the other hand, employees are expected to not only exercise care when performing duties, but also cooperate and inform employers of potential hazards.

References

Employee and employer WHS rights and responsibilities 2014. Web.

Employee rights and responsibilities: the internal constituencies of business 2013, in L Newton (ed.), Business ethics in the social context: law, profits, and the evolving moral practices of business, Springer, Berlin, pp. 25-61.

Employers health and safety responsibilities 2014. Web.

Health and Safety Executives 2009, Health and safety law: what you need to know. Web.

Health and Safety Executives 2013, Your health your safety: a brief guide for workers. Web.

Workplace health and safety. Web.

Introduction

Health and safety are very significant aspects of the workers of any organization. Most of the organizations need to put health and safety as a priority. They need to prioritize the well being of the staff, contactors and even the clients. This usually provides ideal working conditions. Hazards are supposed to be controlled and injuries prevented.

There are several factors that might affect the health as well as safety of those within an organization. Good examples are organizational needs, values and the personality of those involve. The existing perceptions and the decisions made may also directly or indirectly affect the health and safety of the employees of any organization.

Research findings have proved that the aspect of people working hard also has effect on the health and safety of organizations employees, contractors or employees.

Research findings as reported by Abraham (2000) have shown that the safety measures taken by an organization, the disasters that may occur as well as peoples misbehaviors might significantly affect the health and safety within the organization (Abraham 2000, pp. 269-292.).

The other aspect that might affect the health and safety of the people within an organization include the aspect of employees having fun at work which encompasses propagation of rumors, and humor and even romance at the workplace. Other aspects include the lack of humor at the workplace and team work.

The essay will cover those aspects that affect the health and safety at the workplace especially those involving the employees. These include the corporate values like team behavior, values, needs and peoples personality.

The essay covers those aspects that contribute to the safety and health of employees as well as those that are a threat to the safety and health of the people at the workplace. The recommendations for improving the health and safety within organizations have been given. The paper sums up the aspect of health and safety within an organization in the conclusion (Dylan 2007).

First Body

Corporate Values. Team Behavior

Team behavior is very important in ensuring that the set goals and objectives are easily reached. A team provides social satisfaction for individuals. Groups usually have different people with different behaviors or character traits.

Employees are able to socialize and talk out their issues hence minimizing issues of stress and complications that come thereof. Team behavior usually encourages unity within the organization and in the event of a health or safety risk, people are able to work towards the alleviation of the same in unison.

Values, Needs and Peoples personality

Organizations usually have the need to ensure the safety of its employees through the elimination of risks or reducing them to levels that are manageable. Most organizations put the safety at the workplace as a priority and always strive towards improving their performances in health and safety as their business strategy.

Going by Maslows hierarchy of needs human beings always strive to satisfy their needs right from the basic physiological needs like food, shelter and clothing.

After the basic ones are met, people usually strive towards ensuring that their safety needs are met, followed by social, self esteem needs and they finally strive to achieve their self actualization needs. Without the fulfillment of any of these needs, the result is usually conflict and this could endanger the health as well as the safety of the employees.

(Andersson (1997, p. 449) reports that whenever any of these needs are not met, employees might for instance opt to riot or perform their duties poorly hence putting the organization at risk. An organization might satisfy the employees physiological needs by paying them well enough for them to be able to afford food, shelter and clothing which are the most basic needs.

Their health and safety might be achieved if the employees are provided with benefits like health insurance. A good pay might satisfy their safety as well as self esteem need. An organization should have a reward system so as to reward the employees that perform well.

Promotions also go a long way in ensuring that the esteem needs are met. Social needs might be met by organizing get together parties and other social events for the organization. Self actualization needs can be met by an organization through the provision of opportunities for the employees to grow and develop while on/off the job as well as issuing tasks that are challenging or interesting (Andersson 1997, pp. 449-469).

Values are set principles that an individual or groups holds onto and bases their judgment as well as decision making upon them. They include; integrity, non-violence, honesty, compassion, social justice among others. Organizations usually have some set values that might widely be referred to as organizational culture.

As people mature, they want to identify with certain values and they might even resign from an organization on the basis of their values. One will therefore be comfortable within an organization that fosters his/her values. If the organization does not have good values, then the safety of the employees might be at risk. An individual will always be proud of any organization that fosters and rewards the values that are similar to his/hers.

Personality on the other hand encompasses an individuals character traits which make him/her unique as distinguishes his/her behavior or line of thought. According to the study done by Neubert (as reported by Berman 2002), people have traits that make them suitable for whatever position. An outgoing and sociable person might for instance thrive as a customer care consultant or sales person but not as an analyst.

It is always important for an organization to put into account a persons personality before putting him/her in a given position. Doing so has an impact on the safety of that person and others within the organization (Berman 2002).

Contributes

There are a number of factors that contribute to the overall wellbeing of workers in terms of health and safety at the workplace. These factors foster their well being hence ensuring that there is a good working environment for these workers, hence ensuring efficiency and effectiveness which in the long run results into increased productivity.

They therefore need to be enhanced and implemented at the workplace as they have a positive impact to the workforce as well as the overall production. They include the following.

Perceptions and Decision Making

Decisions made within an organization both at the management as well as individual level are very significant in ensuring that the health and safety of indiduals is either maintained or improved. A decision by the management to have a dispensary near the workplace might for instance help to boost the health of the employees within the organization.

On the other hand, a decision made by the management to shift the organization to a place near a nuclear plant might put the health as well as the safety of the employees at risk. Most of these decisions are usually influenced by peoples perceptions about certain issues.

Simon (1996) reports that in case of an emergency situation within an organization, the decisions made at that time might greatly influence the health and safety of the other employees. The management might for instance decide to invite experts to deal with the situation or leave it as it is, both of which might have significant effects on the other people within the organization.

Perceptions might differ and what one manager or management team might consider as a problem might actually not be a problem to another. Every decision that is made is usually screened and evaluated before the conclusion is reached. The final decision usually depends on an individuals perception about the issue at hand and in some cases it might be prone to biases (Colbert 2004, pp. 600).

Fun at the Workplace

The workplace is usually perceived as a place where serous business is undertaken and less of humor or fun is expected. Some humor at the workplace might however be of great benefit as it leads to comic relief hence making the workers to enjoy their work and significantly reduce the chances of the employees developing stress related complications.

According to Melissa Dylan, not every fun at the workplace is meant to distract the employees performing their tasks, in fact, some of the fun is meant to boost the morale of the workers and encourage them to work even harder and more effectively (Dylan, 2007).

Workplace relationships might greatly affect the health and safety of the employees within an organization. Most of the organizations do not have any formal or recommended way of going about the same. The relationships that start at the workplace might have positive consequences to the parties involved. Some might for instance end up marrying. Workplace romance can therefore result in effectiveness at the workplace.

An organization is usually faced with the challenge of ensuring that the safety of the employees, contractors or clients is observed. The relevant training as well as other measures are taken to the same effect.

An organization might for instance put the instructions concerning safety measures at a point where most people could see. Safety equipment like fire extinguishers and first aid kits might be strategically placed at the organizations premises so as to be of great help in case of an emergency.

Working Hard

The aspect of working hard might have very significant effects on the health and safety of an organization. Employees of any organization need to be motivated so as to help them develop a positive attitude towards their jobs hence increasing productivity.

This also goes a long way in ensuring that employees become patriotic to their organization and strive towards ensuring the safety of the organization and the people therein (Schnur, 2009, pp. 120).

Threats

Disaster, Safety and Misbehavior

Misconduct of the employees might cause a disaster within an organization hence putting the health and safety of the people within that organization at risk.

An individual might for instance sabotage his/her duties or responsibilities which might be of great importance in ensuring that the whole organization is safe hence putting the health and safety of other people at risk. Whenever a disaster occurs within an organization, the result in most cases might be death or casualties within the organization (De Dreu 2008, pp. 5-18).

Disaster in most cases usually comes without warning and it is likely to occur when an organization is less prepared hence leading to the destruction of property, injury and loss of life. If the disaster is of a large magnitude, the health facilities put at the organization might have an influx in the number of patients hence causing strain to the same facilities (Pierce 2001).

The organization might therefore require external assistance. Some of the disasters usually damage the health facilities put in place and this poses even a higher risk on the health and safety of those affected.

The situation is usually trickier when the disaster involves a disease outbreak whereby the rest of the population is to be prevented from further infection hence the need to have the required medical facilities in place (Falkenberg 1990, pp. 110).

Less Fun at Work

Some workplaces are characterized by lack of fun. They might have incidences of conflict, bullying as well as violence some of which might be as a result stress. Some work places might be very involving result in the employees emotional exhaustion.

This might result in them getting stressed up hence reacting emotionally through conflicts or engaging in cases of violence. This usually leads to a threat to the employees safety given that such violence might lead to confrontation and even injury (Redman 2002, pp 60).

Bullying at the workplace might be perpetrated by a coworker or senor. It ranges from physical, verbal as well as psychological abuse. In some cases, the bullies tend to use the set rules and regulations as their tools for the perpetration.

Bullying might directly or indirectly affect the health and safety of the targets. Bullying might result in stress related complications particularly to the targets as they are psychologically affected as well. Some might even end up committing suicide.

A study was made by The American Bureau of Justice Statistics and a report was released which proved that about 1.7 Americans were victims of occupational violence. About 1.3 of these were victims of simple assaults while.

This is about 75% of the reported victims while about 19% were victims of aggravated assaults. The officers working in the police department, taxi drivers and even the taxi drivers were the most affected (Mills 2006).

Working Hard

The aspect of hardworking might be misused in some cases hence putting the health and safety of the employees at risk. An organization that overworks its employees might expose the employees to the problems of stress and depression. This might in the long run lead to other complications like heart diseases hence putting the health of the employees at risk (Riach 2007, pp. 80).

Stressed workers might indulge in risky activities like riots which might have very negative consequences on other employees as well as jeopardize the safety at the work place. Riots might result in confrontation and injuries hence putting everyone else at the risk of receiving injuries and even in some cases death (Simon, 1996).

According to the NIOSH Publication, today job stress is a very significant threat to the health of employees. The publication gives the causes of stress at the workplace and gives suggestions for the possible workable solutions (as reported by Stranks 2005).

According to research findings, most employees view their jobs as the main stressors to their lives. There is a strong connection between workplace problems and the health complaints of the workers. Research has proved that pathetic working conditions coupled with a bigger workload are the major causes of stress at the workplace. If not dealt with they are likely to cause psychological breakdown to the victim.

Fun at the workplace

The relationships that start at the workplace might also have negative consequences to the parties involved. They could for instance result in rivalry at the workplace which if not well taken care of might lead to fights or grudges hence putting the safety of the parties at risk (Harris 2006).

Unreasonable romance and sexual activity at the workplace might also result in the contraction of sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS hence putting the health of the parties involved at risk. Workplace romance can therefore result in ineffectiveness and inefficiency at the workplace.

If not checked however, it might result in slander and grudges hence leading to tense and unhealthy relationships among the workers and this could lead to life threatening situations. The same case is with the rumors. They are usually unhealthy and might lead to tension and grudges or even confrontations at the workplace (Fisher 2000, pp. 130).

Recommendations

Given that the health and safety of the employees within an organization are very important components for the success of that particular organization, steps need to be taken towards ensuring the same (Stranks 2005, pp. 30).

There are several steps to be taken by an organization in ensuring that the employees healthy and safety is ensured. The steps vary from organizational to individual actions. Some of the recommended courses of action include the following;

• An organization needs to put the relevant safety measures in place so that in the case of an emergency, then the relevant action is taken so as to prevent further destruction. The organization might for instance put fire extinguishers at strategic points so as to control fire outbreak. Another action might involve putting first aid equipment at strategic points.
• The organizations management needs to have sessions or forums where all the employees meet and discuss or are taught about the dangers of unhealthy relationships at the workplace (Thomen 1996, pp 31-32).
• The relevant measures should be taken to enhance the organizations disaster preparedness. Medical facilities as well as ambulances as well as early warning systems might be put in place so as to prevent casualties and death in the event of a disaster.
• Rapport needs to be established among the employees so as to prevent cases of bullying.
• An organization needs to give chance for relation and socialization so as to prevent stress related complications.
• The organization should have good organizational cultures that encourage behavior and activities that promote the health and safety of an organization.
• An organization needs to have mechanisms in place so as to deal with the issues of bullying among the employees. Those involved in bullying activities might have to be punished so as to ensure that the other employees are safe.

Conclusion

Organizations need to engage in activities that encourage the health and safety of the employees as this is vital for any organization. Potential safety or health hazards need to be identified and tackled before posing a health or safety risk to the employees, clients or even the contractors. Positive employee behavior should be encouraged so as to prevent any of these risks.

People need to be assigned tasks that are in agreement with their personalities. It is advisable for the employees to develop emotional resilience and even seek guidance in the event that they become stressed. It is always good to have the employees trained on the relevant safety precautions to be taken before or after a disaster (Witt 2004, pp. 150).

The leaders need to be sensitive to the needs of the employees and not use bullying tactics to coerce the employees to do whatever they want. The employees need to be encouraged to behave responsibly and carry out their tasks as expected so as to prevent any hazards occurring within the organization.

The organization on the other hand needs to pay the workers well and provide them with other benefits like health benefits so as to avoid conflicts within the organization (Mainiero 1986 pp. 750-762).

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