HRM textbook

CHAPTER 16 EMPLOYEE SAFETY AND HEALTH 571
provide a fertile environment for accidents. Obviously, hazardous
conditions are bad for the Hotel Paris. They are inhumane
for the workers. High accident rates probably reduce
employee morale and thus service. And accidents raise the
company s costs and reduce its profitability, for instance in
terms of workers compensation claims and absences. Lisa
knew that she had to clean up her firm s occupational safety
and health systems.
Lisa and the CFO reviewed their company s safety
records, and what they found disturbed them deeply. In terms
of every safety-related metric they could find, including
accident costs per year, lost time due to accidents, workers
compensation per employee, and number of safety training
programs per year, the Hotel Paris compared unfavorably
with most other hotel chains and service firms. Why, just in
terms of extra workers compensation costs, the Hotel Paris
must be spending $500,000 a year more than we should be,
said the CFO. And that didn t include lost time due to accidents,
or the likely negative effect accidents had on employee
morale, or the cost of litigation (as when, for instance, one
guest accidentally burned himself with chlorine that a pool
attendant had left unprotected). The CFO authorized Lisa to
develop a new safety and health program.
Questions
1. Based on what you read in this chapter, what s the first
step the Hotel Paris should take as part of its new safety
and health program, and why?
2. List 10 specific high-risk areas in a typical hotel you
believe Lisa and her team should look at first, including
examples of the safety or health hazards that they should
look for there.
3. Give three specific examples of how Hotel Paris can use
HR practices to improve its safety efforts.
4. Write a 1-page summary addressing the topic, How
improving safety and health at the Hotel Paris will
contribute to us achieving our strategic goals.
KEY TERMS
Occupational Safety and Health Act
of 1970, 533
Occupational Safety and
Health Administration
(OSHA), 533
occupational illness, 534
citation, 535
unsafe conditions, 539
job hazard analysis, 543
operational safety reviews, 545
behavior-based safety, 548
safety awareness program, 549
burnout, 556
ENDNOTES
1. BP Oil Spill Timeline, guardian.co.
uk, July 22, 2010, www.guardian.co.uk/
environment/2010/jun/29/bp-oil-spilltimeline-deepwater-horizon,
accessed
June 29, 2011.
2. Figures for 2009. www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/
cfoi/cfch0008.pdf, accessed June 1, 2011.
3. All data refer to 2009. www.bls.gov/
news.release/archives/osh_10212010.pdf,
accessed June 1, 2011.
4. BLS Likely Underestimating Injury and
Illness Estimates, Occupational Hazards,
May 2006, p. 16; Tahira Probst et al.,
Organizational Injury Rate Underreporting:
The Moderating Effect of Organizational
Safety Climate, Journal of Applied
Psychology 93, no. 5 (2008), pp. 1147 1154.
5. Workers Rate Safety Most Important
Workplace Issue, EHS Today, October
2010, p. 17.
6. See, for example, Workplace Fatalities:
The Impact on Coworkers, Occupational
Hazards, March 2008, p. 18.
7. David Ayers, Mapping Support for an
E. H. S. Management System, Occupational
Hazards, June 2006, pp. 53 54.
8. One study recently concluded that,
employee perceptions of the extent to
which managers and supervisors are
committed to workplace safety likely
influence employee safety behavior and,
subsequently, injuries. Jeremy Beus et al.,
Safety Climate and Juries: An Examination
of Theoretical and Empirical Relationships,
Journal of Applied Psychology
95, no. 4 (2010), pp. 713 727.
9. Willie Hammer, Occupational Safety
Management and Engineering (Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1985),
pp. 62 63. See also DuPont s STOP
Helps Prevent Workplace Injuries and
Incidents, Asia Africa Intelligence Wire,
May 17, 2004.
10. F. David Pierce, Safety in the Emerging
Leadership Paradigm, Occupational Hazards,
June 2000, pp. 63 66. See also, for
example, Josh Williams, Optimizing the
Safety Culture, Occupational Hazards,
May 2008, pp. 45 49.
11. Sandy Smith, Louisiana-Pacific Corp.
Builds Safety into Everything It Does,
Occupational Hazards, November 2007,
pp. 41 42.
12. See the BP case in the Appendix for
further discussion.
13. Donald Hantula et al., The Value of
Workplace Safety: A Time Based Utility
Analysis Model, Journal of Organizational
Behavior Management 21, no. 2 (2001),
pp. 79 98.
14. Ibid. In a similar case, in 2008 the owner
of a Brooklyn, New York, construction
site was arrested for manslaughter when a
worker died in a collapsed trench.
Michael Wilson, Manslaughter Charge
in Trench Collapse, The New York Times,
June 12, 2008, p. B1.
15. A Safety Committee Man s Guide, Aetna
Life and Casualty Insurance Company,
Catalog 87684, pp. 17 21.
16. Based on All About OSHA (Washington,
DC: U.S. Department of Labor, 1980),
www.OSHA.gov, accessed January 19,
2008.
17. OSHA Hazard Communication Standard
Enforcement, BNA Bulletin to Management,
February 23, 1989, p. 13. See also
William Kincaid, OSHA vs. Excellence
in Safety Management, Occupational Hazards,
December 2002, pp. 34 36.
18. What Every Employer Needs to Know
About OSHA Record Keeping, U.S.
Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor
Statistics (Washington, DC), Report
412 3, p. 3.
19. Arthur Sapper and Robert Gombar,
Nagging Problems under OSHAs New