APPROACHES OF WORKER ENGAGEMENT

APPROACHES OF WORKER ENGAGEMENT

Introduction

Globally, health and safety measures of all employees regardless of which business enterprise or organization they are working for should be a topmost concern which should be discussed and implemented. Worker engagement basically an approach set by the employer so as to actualize the organization’s goals, policies, and values and foster the employer-worker relationship (Delp & Riley, 2015 Pg. 54). Generally, worker engagement in health and safety means integrating the workers in a manner that will escalate their standards of health and safety in the organization (Schaufeli & Taris, 2014 Pg.47). Therefore, employers are required to create a good rapport with their workers and engage them to participate in health and safety matters. Significantly, these health and safety policies are essential due to the fact that the rate at which workers are developing health complications, as well as temporary and permanent injuries to the extent of being disabled, is alarming (Joss et al, 2017 Pg.154). Pursuing this further, some of the workers die not only in the construction industry but also in other business enterprises due to unknown causes. However, the construction industry records a higher number of deaths compared to the others, thus, the health and safety of workers should be considered a priority.

According to a recent research conducted by Safe Work Australia, averagely 20 workers die per month while at work with 92 percent of them being male. Their research indicated that 14% of them died from falling from heights, 9% were hit by moving objects, and 23 died due succumbing from electric shock (Joss et al, 2017 Pg.154). Other die due to health complications such as asthma and other respiratory-related diseases. However, the Australian government has come up with health and safety acts which safeguard the safety of Australian workers where the business owners are required to meet specific hazards and risks measures. In the same context, there are a number of approaches used by different organizations in evaluating worker engagement such as providing training and development, the element of behavioral initiatives, three-tier approach, surveys, informal approaches, pre-task briefing, safety circles, safety committees, direct management methods among others (Burke et al, 2018 Pg. 320).

Literature Review and Background Information

In the previous past, the construction industry has recorded an ill-performance record of health and safety in relation to other industries. Some of the traditional methods used have failed to prove that they can control the rising rate of health and safety challenges among workers. Worker engagement is regarded as a key factor in improving not only individual performance but also the organizational performance since it manifests the workers’ culture, and values thus motivating the employees to be more productive.

Delp & Riley, 2015 Pg. 68, affirm that worker engagement involves consultation, participation, and involvement. In this case, the consultation the employer gives information on the laid-out decisions of the organization to the employees and also listens to their views on health and safety issues. After the employer listens to the queries handed to them by the employees, they present the issues for further debating and decision making. Besides, worker involvement and participation involve the process of implementing the decisions so as to reduce workplace accidents (Wachter & Yorio, 2014 Pg.117). Additionally, the process of worker engagement approaches consists of three aspects which include the leadership which provides resources for worker engagement, two-way communication, and assessment so as to proof if the approach works (Burke et al, 2018 Pg. 357). In order to come up with the applicable approaches, researches have been conducted by many organizations to proof which worker engagement approaches work. For instance, safety committees, informal approaches, safety circles, and pre-task briefing.

Work Engagement Approaches

Pre- Task Briefing

A pre-task briefing is a special kind of briefing which is conducted before workers start working on their different duties, just as the name suggests. During this briefing, workers are reminded about their safety as well as that of their colleagues (Wachter & Yorio, 2014 Pg.119). Also, they are provided with a platform where they can bring to the table any issue which they think can happen during the shift together with the possible solutions of how everyone can be prepared or the issue solved. In the recent past, pre-task briefing or planning on safety processes has improved where employees converge and agree on the effective ways of handling a construction project and the possible challenges (Burke et al, 2018 Pg. 370). Not only do the employees converge for a pre-task briefing at the start of the day but also when the scope of work changes. The process promotes two-way dialogues during the identification of potential hazards and decision making. At the end of the process, all the employees have the knowledge of the plan of work, have identified the potential risks and challenges as well as mitigated all the potential hazards (Wachter & Yorio, 2014 Pg.119).

Consequently, Loeppke et al (2015 Pg.589) agrees that in pre-task briefing the hazards which are most likely to happen are analyzed, the depth of work one is defined, hazard control measures are defined and implemented, ways of performing the work within the hazard control, and finally the feedback is provided.

According to the researches, some of the findings consisted of; a majority of the workers praised the briefing since it reminded them of safety, most of the workers returned the feedback forms that means that they were willing to raise their views although after the forms were made anonymous the number of feedbacks increased. According to Wachter & Yorio (2014 Pg.125), the strengths of the pre-task briefing include enhancement of safety, production improvement, and efficiency improvement while some of the weaknesses include incomplete feedbacks due to the reluctance of some employees in giving information.

Safety             Circles and Committees

Safety committees are formal set up committees by organizations to discuss matters of the employee’s safety as well as coming up with safety decisions whereas safety circles are informal groups of volunteers who converge to discuss solutions of specific problems (Wachter & Yorio, 2014 Pg.120). However, the safety circles get dissolved immediately the solution is arrived at until another problem arises. According to Health and Safety Executive, these committees are essential and they usually work best when some of the representatives of the committees are elected employees and the committee has to consult from both HSE and elected employee’s representatives (HSE, 2018 Pg.1). The frequency of the safety committee meetings depends on the volume of work, type of work in the workplace associated with risks, and the spread of the workforce.

Generally, according to HSE (2018 Pg.1), the committee conducts statistics of accidents, and ill-health, accident investigations, health and safety training, risk assessments, monitor the progress of the health and safety implementations, recommend appropriate safety procedures and assess the changes affecting the health and safety of employees. According to Reilly’s research on injury rates, he found out that the management which has health and safety committees recorded a lower rate of injuries compared to those that lacked these committees (Delp & Riley, 2015 Pg.74). Moreover, organizations with no employee representation in the special committee record a higher injury rate than the generally appointed committees. This was later confirmed that organizations with special health and safety committees were more vulnerable to health risks.

Some of the strengths of this approach are they are fast in making safety decisions, have a vast range of information, solve complex problems due to intensive analysis, the emergence of new ideas in solving problems, facilitate pooling of information, and comprehensive representation (Loeppke et al, 2015 Pg.586). However, some of the weaknesses include; some of the problems may be costly and time-consuming to be solved, personal prejudice, a strain on interpersonal relations, and lack of effectiveness.

Informal approaches

This type of approach is described as the commonest way of consultation. The approach is conducted by the organization’s management when walking, for instance, at the construction site at break times. The manager can ask the workers some questions about their safety and collect their views as well as inspecting the progress of the construction. The manager can decide to scribble down the suggestions and responses from the workers or decide not to, thus, an informal approach. This approach enables the workers to be proactive in paving their way to be part of the management interventions (Delp & Riley, 2015 Pg. 72). Moreover, listening skills are key since the workers require attention and responses from the management.

Researchers have found out that self-policing was the best way to gain the workers’ commitment. Moreover, the workers feel comfortable when giving their responses as compared in the office, and most of them feel acknowledged are some of the approach’s strengths. However, some of its weaknesses are; some of the workers are reluctant in giving information, and suspicion engulfment from the management within workers.

Direct Management Approach

In this approach, the management plays the main role while the other subordinates follow. Basically, this is done through training and educating the workforce on safety issues (Burke et al, 2018 Pg. 330). Pursuing this further, seminars and workshops are used as the forms of passing the message to the workers. Safety tutors are temporarily employed by the management to educate the employees the importance of safety and the ways in which hazards can be decreased by taking safety as the first priority before and after the working hours (Burke et al, 2018 Pg. 332). Topics such as risk assessment methods, the organization’s health and safety policy, the health and safety acts, policy commitment, significance of health and safety, maintenance of a safe workplace for all employees, first-aid and emergency control measures, use of codes of practice and industrial guidelines among others are taught (Loeppke et al, 2015 Pg.591).

Furthermore, demonstrations using live-case studies lie under this approach where live scenarios are used to prove to the employees to which extent does safety mean. For instance, in a construction site, they can demonstrate the importance of wearing a helmet or welding goggles during a welding exercise (Alomari et al, 2017 Pg. 7). Besides that, the management can offer communication seminars so as to educate the employees’ different ways of communicating health and safety hazards as well as how to respond to these hazards. The motivation of employees always plays a key role when it comes to health and safety (Burke et al, 2018 Pg. 341). For example, employees with a few or no safety offenses can be motivated and serve as an example to the other workmates so as to improve the standards of safety in the organization.

According to an industrial workshop held in Glasgow some few years back, the workshop group given to investigate direct management approach found that some of the workers were reluctant to engage themselves in the initiatives, existence of management wrangles since some perceived the process to be costly, the management didn’t take the workers’ views on safety with a lot of concern, and unsafe working conditions for workers (Loeppke et al, 2015 Pg.586). One of the approach’s strength is the facilitation of safety, however, it had weaknesses such as the lack of two-way communication, lack of inclusivity, the process being costly, and time-consuming.

Analysis and Discussion

From the studies conducted on the different worker engagement approaches, all the approaches have proved to work, however, some pick up very fast than others. For instance, pre-task briefing performed faster, better and more effective than all the other methods due to the fact that all the workers are reminded their duties and safety before beginning any work and at the change of the scope of work. Safety circles followed since they are a bit informal and the teamwork between the workers is encouraged. Besides, safety committees and direct management approaches were effective and performed excellently, however, they took a lot of time. The informal approaches seemed to create tension within the workers who were always suspicious of the management’s intention. Undoubtedly, the safety circle and committee, pre-task briefing and direct management approaches encouraged teamwork and information pooling which assisted in decision making pertaining health and safety whereas the informal approach discouraged it since most of the workers were reluctant in passing their views. According to the statistics of the findings, comparing the committee with employee representatives with the one which lacked the representatives, the level of performance is different since the employees picture out some safety recommendations to be done on the workplace since they know them better than the appointed members of the committee.

Conclusion and Recommendations.

Health and safety aspects will never cease to be a priority in the construction industry ever. From the above discussions about worker engagement approaches, I would recommend pre-task briefing before every commencement of a task and safety circles for short-term precautions. However, for long-term safety direct management, and safety committees will be more suitable. Besides that, worker or employee engagement should be encouraged in the construction industry since the industry is so complex and requires pooling of ideas and information.

In conclusion, employers in the construction industry should always encourage training and professional development of their employees, engage the employees in giving their perceptions and views, and be straight when administering undesirable tasks so as to improve the employee engagement (Joss et al, 2017 Pg.154). Always the employees’ health and safety should come first so as to reduce the rate of deaths based on safety.

References

Alomari, K., Gambatese, J. and Anderson, J. (2017). Opportunities for Using Building Information Modeling to Improve Worker Safety Performance. Safety, 3(1), p.7.

Burke, M., Sarpy, S., Smith-Crowe, K., Chan-Serafin, S., Salvador, R. and Islam, G. (2018) Pg. 315-384. Relative Effectiveness of Worker Safety and Health Training Methods.

Delp, L. and Riley, K. (2015). Worker Engagement in the Health and Safety Regulatory Arena under Changing Models of Worker Representation. Labor Studies Journal, 40(1), pp.54-83.

Hse.gov.uk. (2018). What your Health and Safety Committee will do. [online] Available at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/involvement/whatwillhsdo.htm [Accessed 2 Nov. 2018].

Joss, N., Dupr-Husser, E., Cooklin, A. and Oldenburg, B. (2017). The emergence of integrated approaches to worker health, safety and wellbeing in Australia. Australian Journal of Primary Health, 23(2), p.154.

Loeppke, R.R., Hohn, T., Baase, C., Bunn, W.B., Burton, W.N., Eisenberg, B.S., Ennis, T., Fabius, R., Hawkins, R.J., Hudson, T.W. and Hymel, P.A., 2015. Integrating health and safety in the workplace: how closely aligning health and safety strategies can yield measurable benefits. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine, 57(5), pp.585-597.

Schaufeli, W.B. and Taris, T.W., 2014. A critical review of the Job Demands-Resources Model: Implications for improving work and health. In Bridging occupational, organizational and public health (pp. 43-68). Springer, Dordrecht.

Wachter, J.K. and Yorio, P.L., 2014. A system of safety management practices and worker engagement for reducing and preventing accidents: An empirical and theoretical investigation. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 68, pp.117-130.