Employee Health Analysis
Introduction
Staff welfare is an important facility provided by companies to their employees to keep their motivation levels high. Organizations frame many approaches to ensure health and safety of their employees.
But not all of the approaches focus on contribution of both work design and employee welfare. Many organizational and individual issues emerge in management of employee health and safety. With successful implementation of Employee welfare facilities it can be ensured that employees are monitoring and addressing health issues with resultant benefits of reduced absenteeism, improved productivity and reduced injury rates. Background A manufacturing facility in Mumbai employs three data entry operators who work full time entering the records related to production, personnel, and inventory data into the computer.
As required by the labour agreement, in addition to a one-hour break as part of the lunch period, these three operators receive two 15 minutes break daily; they may take them at any convenient time, once in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Otherwise, they generally work at their keyboards all day. One of the operators was absent from work for two weeks for a condition diagnosed as carpal tunnel syndrome, a neuromuscular disorder of the tendons and tissues in the wrists caused by repeated hand motions. His symptoms included a severe ache in the wrist and ever growing pain in the neck and shoulder.
However, after a week, a second data entry operator experienced similar symptoms; his doctor diagnosed his ailment as ‘RSI or repetitive stress injury’ and referred to it informally as the VDT (Video Display Terminal) disease. With more data entry operators to be hired, Ramesh Chauhan asked his assistant, Sandeep Kaul, to gather additional information on this condition. He wants Sandeep to make any appropriate recommendations regarding the work environment — posture, furniture, work habits, rest breaks, and the like that will alleviate this problem. Method
Preparation of Detailed Analysis Complete method took three stages to assess mental stress of the employees. Before the actual analysis, employees were informed about the course of the proceedings. On the basis of general information about the company including the corporate structure, descriptions of work tasks, work time regulations, and rules on internal communications a set of questionnaire was prepared.
Stress Analysis: Observation and Structured Analysis
Specific questions were asked to employees to understand their work tasks and working situation.
In addition employees were asked about cooperation with other departments, frequency of specific activities, or organizational arrangements in order to better describe the conditions of the job in detail. Evaluation and Recommendations After the stress analysis many problems are identified due to the mental demand of the job. A detailed policy recommendation is constructed to selectively reduce areas of psychological stress which was identified in the organization. Objective Determining the requirements of organizational stress analysis * Getting an objective assessment of the mental demands of jobs in the organization * Using the analysis to improve productivity reducing the psychological stress * Determining the readiness of employees to join stressful job like data entry Problem Analysis | Physical Work Settings The physical settings of work affect the performance of employees to a great extent. Some of these factors include temperature, noise levels, and proper lighting affect job performance.
Other work setting factors include size of work area, kinds of materials used, distance between work areas, cubicle arrangementSick Building Syndrome It is a situation in which employees experience acute health problems and discomfort due to the time spent in a building (particularly their workplace). Some factors that lead to sick buildings include poor air quality, inadequate ventilation, improper cleanliness, rodents, stench of adhesives and gluesErgonomics The term comes from the Greek word ergon, which means “work,” and omics which means “management of. Ergonomics is the study of physiological, psychological, and engineering design aspects of a job, including such factors as fatigue, lighting, tools, equipment layout, and placement of controls. It is the interface between men and machines. Ergonomics is taken into consideration when designing the workstation for computer operators. Problems of back ache, eye strain and headache arise due to long working hours spent in front of computers. Engineering of Work Equipments and Materials Health Related are caused by improper work equipments. Moreover design of such machines and equipments also plays an important role in employee stress.
Old computer monitor without eye guard and keyboards without soft buttons are often the cause of multiple health issues. Cumulative Trauma and Repetitive Stress Cumulative trauma disorder occurs when same muscles are used repetitively to perform some task. This results in injuries of musculoskeletal and nervous system. Employees encounter high levels of mental and physical stress also. Lack of recreational activities Monotonous work schedule and lack of recreational activities can cause psychological disorder which effects the productivity of employees in workplace.
Lack of motivation In spite of being an indirect cause for health issues this factor is increasingly becoming a common problem in modern workplace. Due to monotonous job and lack of reward employees are suffering from lack of motivation. This problem is resulting in increasing number of unscheduled leave mentioning the false reason of health related issues to the supervisor. This issue can be identified by using Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y. Theory X assumes that people are lazy, dislike and shun work, lack ambition, dislike responsibility, and prefer to be led. These are the common symptoms of lack of motivation in workplace.
Recommendations Employee
Health Screening Employee Health Screening should be utilized to gain an overall health profile of the employee and the workforce in general frequently. This process data will help to figure out the continuous progress or deterioration of employee health and the management team can prepare effective solutions for each single employees. Health Promotion Seminars Mental Health Wellness seminars should be conducted to convey effective ways of reducing the likely presence of depression, anxiety or other mental health related concerns of an employee or a job seeker.
This health related awareness will provide guidelines how to avoid stress and monotonous activities Healthy working Environment We have to provide occupational health clinics, which give employees immediate access to specially trained medical personnel. Physicians and nurses who evaluate our employees should be specialists in occupational medicine.
Mental Well-Being
We have to be responsible for providing a safe, fair and clean work environment. We should also be accountable to the mental well-being of employees by helping them in personal struggles and providing a healthy work-life balance
Recreational activities Fun activities like games quiz can help the employees the get relief from monotonous activities. It is often said a healthy mind is the pillar of physically fit human beings. Fun activities can provide required breathing space to the employees to build up a healthy mind.
Motivation Improvement
Under Theory X, management approach should range from a “hard” to a “soft” approach. The hard approach should rely on coercion, implicit threats, close supervision, and tight controls; essentially an environment of command and control.
The soft approach is to be permissive and seek harmony, with the hope that in return employees will cooperate when asked to do so. However, neither of these extremes is optimal. The hard approach often results in hostility, purposely low-productivity. The soft approach results in ever-increasing requests for more rewards in exchange for ever-decreasing productivity.
Conclusion
When we feel our best, we do your best. But when something is troubling or hurting us, it’s difficult to set those concerns aside and focus on work.
We should provide support programs and services to help our employees live healthier and safer lives – at work, home and on the road. This is good for our people and good for our business. Our success is a result of the commitment, dedication and aspiration of our employees and we should aim to provide an environment and culture that inspires and breeds success. With successful implementation of Employee welfare facilities we must ensure that all employees are under frequent health checkup. This will not only reduce absenteeism but also will provide sufficient improvement in productivity of each employee.
