COURSE: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

PROFESSOR: NICOLE BONENFANT

CASE STUDY:

OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

AAKHIL MATTA
VENKATA KONDAPALLI
INDER SINGH
GURPREET SINGH
 CASE ABSTRACT
Jennifer and Pierre graduated from the university as business majors in June 2015 and got the

idea for setting up LearnInMotion.com while they worked together on a project in their

entrepreneurship class. Their idea was to provide business courses in form of textbook-based,

web-based or CD-ROM-based for working people who wanted to take a course at the comfort

of their homes. They got incorporated and set up their business in an unused loft space

provided by Jennifer’s father with an accumulated savings of $45000. They started with

hiring a programmer, web designer and a content creator to run the website and deliver their

services to customers which eventually increased to 30 content creators. After approaching

various capital venture firms and being rejected they finally got in terms with one firm and

received a funding of nearly $1 million and spent around $75000 in legal fees. Although there

is no risk of moving machinery, high power lines or cutting equipment at the workplace there

are various health and safety problems. One of the major problems at LearnInMotion.com is

having lots of cables and wires laying around on the office floor from desk to desk and under

doorways. Several employees have tried to hold the wires in place by placing chair pads over

them to avoid tripping while walking around. The firm’s programmer once tried to repair the

server while the unit is electrically alive using a screwdriver and ended getting an electric

shock which blew him across the room. Every employee spends hours together at their

computers which causes carpel tunnel syndrome, eye-strains and strained backs, till date

Pierre and Jennifer have not received any claims regarding this issue. The employers are not

just worried about the physical conditions but are also concerned about issues like burnout

and job stress. The job is relatively stressful in terms of the demands it makes and in terms of

the hours and deadlines. The employees work around five to six days a week sometimes even

all seven days with their work timings starting from 8 in the morning up until midnight. Fine-
tuning the company calendar required some of the employees to work up to 70 hours a week

for three weeks.

If LearnInMotion.com happened to receive a visit from the Ministry of Labour, what specific

areas do you feel they would be ordered to change and why?

Answer 1:

There are various issues that would be ordered to change if the Ministry of Labour visits

LearnInMotion.com, the chief among them are as follows:

1. Cables and wires snaking all over the office floor. This is a potential accident causing

source. The workplace is filled with several cables and they are not put in place but

are left unattended, also on multiple occasions the cables have been covered with

plastic chair caps and stickers by the employees. This makes the workplace unsafe

with high potential of causing accidents and injuries to the employees.

2. Occupational Health and Safety Act, posters and policy. According to the

Occupational Health and Safety Act all the workplaces covered under the OHSA must

put up a health and safety poster, a copy of the Occupational Health and Safety Act

[under OHSA sec 25(2)(i)] and a health and safety policy [under OHSA sec 25(2)(k)].

This is mandatory under the law and its compliance is required by the employers.

3. Health and safety representative. The employer has to ensure that a there is a one

person from among the workers who will be selected to be the Health and Safety

Representative and such person is not holding any managerial position [under OHSA

sec 8(1) and sec 8(5)]. Such person appointed as the representative will conduct

inspections of the workplace and make recommendations to the employer to make any

changes if any.

4. Determination of health and safety hazards at the work place. The employer must

determine the different kinds of hazards at the workplace that might affect the safety

of the employers and make them aware of such hazards [under OHSA sec32.0.3 and
 sec 25(2) (d)]. The employer must take into consideration the circumstances that

would be common to any workplace and also specific to their workplace and assess

the various risks involved. The employer must also take measures and procedures to

control such hazards.

5. Maintain a record of all the incidents that took place in the workplace. The employer

is responsible for maintaining a record of all the incidents that took place not limiting

to accidents but also including violence, illness, injuries, death and sexual harassment.

Such records are to be maintained for a period of three years as it will help providing

a broad spectrum of information about the circumstances in which the incident took

place and also helps in preventing future incidents.

Question 2:

As owners of LearnInMotion.com, do Jennifer and Pierre have specific responsibilities for

ensuring their employees’ health and safety is maintained and for having a health and safety

policy in place which is subsequently enforced?

Answer 2:

Based on the principle of “Due Diligence” both Jennifer and Pierre should take every

reasonable precaution to ensure the health and safety of their workers. This principle can be

broadly understood as the level of care and judgement that the employer is expected to do to

in the workplace to avoid causing any incidents and injuries to the employees. The

precautions and measures that the employer is taking must not only address the possible

problems but should also be reasonable and practical in nature. It is significant as it would

help the employer defend himself if charged under the provisions of the Occupational Health

and Safety Act if he or she can prove that measures have been taken to protect the safety and

health of workers.
In this case, both Jennifer and Pierre overlooked the health and safety standards established

by the Organizational Health and Safety Act and were giving invitation to thousands of

potential problems that will have a negative impact for the company.

Section 25 of Organizational Health and Safety Act has defined some specific

responsibilities for the employers to ensure the safety of employees. Both, Jennifer and Pierre

have the following identifiable accountabilities:

1. Provide safe working conditions: They are responsible for providing the safe

working place where employees could work without any fear of being injured. As in

this case, there are no heavy machines in their company but still the workplace has

health and safety problems. They have to ensure that all the wires and equipment

should be in the organized manner and placed properly so that any employee would

not trip over them and injure themselves.

2. Safety awareness and training programs: They are responsible for providing

awareness to their workers about health and safety hazards at the workplace. Like in

this case, handling and maintaining the server equipment is one of the more obvious

potential accident-causing thing and employees should be aware about the possible

hazards that can emerge if they do not have the proper knowledge. The employees

should be trained to handle electric devices and safety equipment should be provided

to avoid any incidents.

3. Maintaining proper work schedule : The employers are also required to ensure that

employees are working for the hours prescribed under the Employment Standards Act

and they have proper office timings. In this case, employees are working from 7 a.m.

to midnight, and sometime for 70 hours a week, which is unacceptable under the law

and can cause burnouts. The employees focus all their energies to pursue the goals of

the company by excluding other activities which leads to both physical and mental
 collapse and breakdown. Hectic work schedules lasting for a long duration leads to

loss of enthusiasm, exhaustion and eventually to depression which is not healthy for

the employees. The employers should make work schedules that take into

consideration these aspects and can try to provide sabbatical leaves so that the

employees have time to rejuvenate and pursue their personal goals without having the

fear of losing their jobs.

4. Appointing a Health and Safety Representative: The employers should appoint

health and safety supervisor who will maintain safe working conditions and answer

the queries of employees regarding the safe usage of equipment. The supervisor can

also help in ensuring that employees are not making changes to the workplace that can

hamper the safety of other employees. In this case the employees have been trying to

hold the cables and wires together by taping them or placing chair pads on top of

them.

5. Posting copy of Health and Safety Act: The Occupational Health and Safety Act

mandates that a copy of the Act and pertinent regulations be posted in an accessible

workplace location. It is also mandatory to post the “Prevention Starts Here” poster

and other resource material prepared by the Ministry of labour. It creates awareness

among the employees with respect to having a safe and healthy work environment.

6. Health and Safety policy: Jennifer and Pierre should have a well-defined health and

safety policies in their organization. The health and safety policy should state the

employer’s commitment, support and attitude to the health and safety program for the

protection of workers. They following are some of the things that should be taken into

consideration:

a) They should have the policy of inspecting and analyzing hazards at the workplace

to ensure the safe working conditions.

electrical hazards in the workplace. The implementation of material handling

practices which includes the training to workers regarding best use of electrical

equipment should be given. Implementation of WHMIS in the organization helps

the workers understand the safe handling of electrical devices and other

equipment that have a potential to cause injuries.

c) They should analyze the reasons for occurrence of accidents occurring at

workplace and should prepare the report of all the causalities that had occurred at

the workplace.

d) There should be proper repair and maintenance of equipment to ensure they are

handled in a safe manner.

e) There should be implementation of first aid, rescue and emergency procedures so

that damage is minimized during uncertain events.

f) The engineering control e.g., ventilation plays a vital role in the providing a

healthy atmosphere for the employees.

Question 3:

What unsafe conditions and acts were described in the case?

Answer 3:

A detailed study of the above case provides us with various unsafe conditions and acts that

are prevailing in the organization and which need to be addressed by Jennifer and Pierre.

Below are a few of them:

1. Modification of the workstations by the employees by placing chair pads and taping

loose wires and cables to avoid tripping. It is suggestible that the employees bring this

instance to the attention of a supervisor or Jennifer and Pierre.

sometime for seven days a week can cause fatigue. This may result in the employees

being unable to be attentive towards their surroundings and might pose a threat to

their safety.

3. Workplace stress is also an issue observed in this case. It is stressful for employees to

meet the goals of the company as fine tuning the new calendar for the company has

deadlines and there is relatively very less workforce resulting in huge work burden for

each individual. This ultimately affects the efficiency and commitment of employees

towards the work and will also lead to lower productivity.

4. Workers are using unsafe methods to repair the servers while the unit is still

electrically alive which can cause fatal injuries. They must be trained personnel to

handle and maintain the servers and other electrical equipment.

5. Working for long duration with Video Display Terminals like computers and laptops

may affect the eye-sight resulting in short-term eye problems like tearing, itching and

burning. This also causes employees to suffer from backaches, neck aches and carpet-

tunnel syndrome as they try to manoeuver into awkward body positons to compensate

for display problems like glare and immovable keyboards.

6. Lack of ergonomically designed workstations can lead to repetitive strain injuries.

Poorly designed work places not only lead to injuries but at the same time have an

effect on the efficiency and productivity of the employees. In this case working from

a loft also has a psychological climate that impacts the mental health of the

employees.