Occupational Safety and Health Administration

1
Occupational Safety and Health Administration

• Agency responsible for OSH Act by establishing
  and enforcing safety and health standards
• Inspects businesses and issues citations
• Organizations are required to keep records
• Record all significant illnesses and injuries
• Excludes minor injuries that
• Only require first aid,
• Do not involve loss of consciousness, and
• Do not involve restriction of work or transfer
• Hazard Communication Standard
• Requires employers to provide workers with
  information and training on hazardous chemicals
  in their work area

2
Elements of Workplace Safety and Health

• Physiological/Physical Conditions
• Conditions resulting from the workplace
  environment that include occupational accidents,
  diseases, injuries, and violence
• Including repetitive motion injuries, back pain,
  cancer, etc.
• Psychological Conditions
• Conditions resulting from the workplace
  environment that result from organizational
  stress, burnout, and low quality of working life
• Resulting in dissatisfaction, apathy, withdrawal,
  mistrust in others, procrastination,
  irritability, etc.

3
Benefits of Safe and Healthy Workforce

• Higher productivity
• Increased efficiency and quality
• Lower workers compensation rates and payments
• Lower health insurance premium
• Greater workforce flexibility
• Better reputation

4
Occupational Accidents

• Industry
• Construction, fishing, mining, agriculture,
  manufacturing have high accident rates
• Small and large firms have lower incidence rates
  than medium firms
• Job design quality, working pace and control,
  shift work are related issues
• Incidence Rate ( of Injuries and Illnesses
  200,000) / of Employee Hours worked

5
Occupational Diseases

• Occupation-related diseases
• Dust diseases of the lungs, respiratory
  conditions due to toxic agents, etc.
• Occupational Ailments for Office Workers
• Bad backs (CTS), deteriorating eyesight, migraine
  headaches, digestive problems, etc.
• Harder to prove than occupational accidents due
  to the length of disease development

6
Organizational Stress

• Causes Four Ss (Supervisor, salary, security,
  and safety), organizational change, work pacing,
  and physical environment
• Type A and Type B people
• Job Burnout
• Particular type of stress for those dealing with
  people, engaging emotional labor
• Health care, police work, education, customer
  response centers, airline industry
• Symptoms emotional exhaustion,
  depersonalization, feelings of low accomplishment

7
Controlling Accidents

• Design a safe work environment
• Guards, handrails, safety goggles, helmets,
  warning lights, self-correcting mechanisms,
  automatic shutoffs
• Ergonomics
• Change job environment to match
  capabilitylimitations of employees
• Safety Committees
• At the department level, at the organization
  level
• Behavior Modification
• Accident-prone employees
• Measure, communicate, monitor, and reinforce
  desired behavior
• Incentives for no-accident records?

8
Reducing Occupational Diseases

• Record keeping
• Monitoring exposure
• Controlling Stress and Burnout
• Increase employee participation in decision
  making
• Individual stress management strategies
• Organizational support-group, stress management
• Developing Preventive Actions
• Wellness programs