MHR523 - Chpt 11 & 12: Employee Relations / Health & Safety

•  Communication 

  • The transfer and understanding of a message between two or more people
• Formal channels 

  • Communication channels established by an organization to transmit messages related to the processional activities of members
• Informal channels 

  • Communication channels that are created spontaneously and that emerge as responses to individual choices
• Downward Communication

  • Managers communication to employees
• Upward Communication

  • Employees communication to managers
• Lateral Communication

  • Communication among members of the same group
•  Discipline 

  • Management action to encourage compliance with organization standards 
• Investigating Disciplinary Problems:

  1. Documentation of employee misconduct
  2. Investigate Interview
• Types of Discipline: 

  • Preventive
  • Corrective
• • Preventive discipline: action taken prior to an infraction to encourage employees to follow standards and rules 
• Corrective Discipline: discipline that follows a rule infraction
• Turnover: the termination of an individual’s employment with the organization
• Wrongful Dismissal

  • Terminating an employee’s employment without just cause
• Constructive Dismissal 

  • Changing an employee's working conditions such that the employee feels encouraged to voluntarily leave
• Downsizing: “activities undertaken to improve organizational efficiency, productivity, and/or competitiveness that affect the size of the firm’s workforce, its costs, and its work processes”
• Why do Organizations Downsize? 

  • Declining profits
  • Business downturn
  • Increased pressure from competitors
  • Organizational merger
  • New technology
  • Reduce operating costs
  • Decrease levels of management
  • Getting rid of employee “deadwood”
• Effects of displaced workers:

  • as an individual
  • the local economy
  • workplace poisoning
•  Layoff

  • Temporary withdrawal of employment to workers
• Direct Cost of Turnover 

  • separation costs
  • vacancy costs
  • replacement costs
  • training costs
• Indirect Cost of Turnover

  • employee moral
  • productivity
• Enhancing occupational health and safety (OHS) requires cooperation between these stakeholders:

  1.  Employers
  2. Employees
  3. health and safety committees
• Employer responsibilities in relation to (OHS)

  • filing government accident reports
  • maintaining records
  • ensuring that safety rules are enforced
  • posting safety notices and legislative information
• Employee Responsibilities and Rights 

  • take reasonable care to protect their own health and safety, and that of co-workers
  • includes wearing protective clothing and equipment, and reporting contravention of the law
  • Basic rights within OHS
• The Right to Refuse Unsafe Work 

  • Worker’s cannot be punished for refusing unsafe work
• Joint Health and Safety Committees 

  • non-adversarial atmosphere where management and labor can work together to ensure a safe and healthy workplace
• What Causes Accidents?

  1. Chance occurrences 
  2. Unsafe Conditions 
  3. Unsafe Acts 
• How to Prevent Accidents 

  1. Reduce unsafe conditions 
  2. Reduce unsafe acts
• Ways to reduce unsafe acts:

  • Selection testing, leadership commitment
  • Training and education 
  • Positive reinforcement
• Job Related Stress

  • Environmental Factors
  • Personal factors
• Burnout 

  • total depletion caused by excessive striving to reach unrealistic work-related goals
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) refers to a series of symptoms that can develop after exposure to an actual or perceived threat of death or serious injury, or after a threat of injury (including physical and emotional) to self or others 
• directions of communication:

  • upward
  • downward
  • lateral
• warnings:

  Written warning

  Second written warning

  Suspension

  Termination
• RSI: Repetitive Strain Injuries