Research Project

NAME

Rinda Pfister

Ashford University

Research Project

The Department of Labor works in conjunction with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to administer and enforce laws that are set forth to protect the safety and health of workers within the United States. In order to provide a safe work environment and also to minimize fatal and serious injuries, these departments work alongside the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSH) Act as well as various other laws. They are specifically tasked with ensuring employees receive full length breaks during their working hours, know where emergency exits are in case of an emergency, know what to do in case of common accidents such as slips, falls, or know how to operate work equipment especially where there are complex and injury prone machines. Workplace safety is extremely important and should be implemented through the usage of well-established and outlined practices and policies set to protect employees. It is also important to note that these safety measures not only apply to technical jobs but also office jobs.

Research Question

This paper intends to deal with the management dilemma that is associated with workplace safety. It is very important for employees to make sure that their employers work in a safe environment free from any physical harm. As such, managing how best these safety measures should be implemented poses a challenge to managers. This paper will try and solve this problem, by determining a way in which top management within organizations can encourage and promote workplace safety, while maintaining employee engagement as well as that feeling of safety and protection throughout the working process. Safety is an extremely important component of any business and should therefore be treated as such. The research question will therefore be as follows: what are the variables that promote employee engagement of safety in the workplace and how can management implement safety plans and training to reduce workplace injuries?

Background Research and Hypothesis

As discussed above, the main issue being tackled by this research paper will be managing workplace safety. To answer the research question, which intends to identify the variables that promote employee engagement in safety in the workplace and how management implement safety plans and training to reduce workplace injuries, this study will first identify various causes of workplace injuries and what strategies can be employed to handle them. The study will also tackle various OSHA standards and their applicability to various working stations i.e. for technical and white-collar jobs. Finally, the researcher will analyse the expectations of top management in various organizations and their role in ensuring that workplaces are safe for their employees; are they offering training to their employees? Do they insist on them understanding safety precaution rules? Etc. The research hypothesis therefore is that the top management in organizations is not focused on training and implementing safety precautions and rules, as they believe this information is already understood by their employees. The research objectives will then be developed from this.

Ethical concerns

Every research that involves human beings as subjects is bound to have complex ethical issues. Research ethics is often set out to protect the participants as far as their privacy and safety is concerned. It also ensures that the research is conducted in a manner that suits the interest of the society as a whole within which it is set. It also serves to examine the soundness and eligibility of the research activities e.g. risk management, process of informed consent as well as the process of data collection. For this research, all these ethical issues will be anticipated. It is expected that the results of the study will help improve work safety measures within the organizations that will take part in the study. Participant’s consent will be sought from all individuals who will be involved as respondents. Privacy and confidentiality will be of utmost concern to the researcher. Finally, the process of collecting data will not involve any bias whatsoever. These are the ethical concerns that I expect to meet during the research (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016).

Research Design

Bearing in mind that this study intends to describe workplace safety measures and what role top managers play in its accomplishment, I expect that the study will adopt a descriptive research design. This design is desirable because it will allow the researcher to seek information more directly regarding the topic of study by describing the situation in detail. This design also often depicts the participants in an accurate way, allowing them to give their responses freely by describing the aspects affecting them as far as the topic of study is concerned. This design also leaves room for a number of data collection techniques such as conducting interviews and focus groups, or using questionnaires or even observations to gather data about workplace safety, or the researcher could choose to use secondary data altogether. These will be very critical in getting the right result to better understanding workplace safety (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016).

Secondary Data

Common sources of secondary data include censuses, information collected by government departments, official records, organizational record, and data that was originally collected for other research purposes. Secondary data can basically create a baseline to compare primary data collected. Other forms of secondary data that could help test the hypothesis could include customer feedback forms, and/or competitors’ annual reports. Any of these types of secondary data could be useful to test the hypothesis as well as be helpful in creating awareness of workplace safety and help in being supportive of the workplace safety topic and just how important the concept really is.

Plans for using Data

The data gathered through the usage of the pencil-paper survey, observations and focus groups can be used to better understand workplace safety as it currently is as a means to best be able to improve areas requiring modification. Focus groups can help a more clearer understanding of the perception of employees that work first hand within the environment each day. Working with individuals in this sort of setting allows for an open discussion of the concerns at hand while utilizing team work, dialogue and creativity to find a solution to meet the needs of all parties involved. Having someone document things discussed within the group can help to later reference to aid in the decision-making process. Below is a sample draft of the survey questions that can be asked in the pencil-paper survey that can provide researchers with a better understanding of the workplace environment and its safety policies.

· Does the company provide a safe and healthy work environment?

· Are there systems in place to identify, prevent and deal with hazards at work?

· To what degree is preventive maintenance implemented in your area, where one (1) indicates consistent maintenance routines to avoid breakdowns, and ten (10) indicates a “Wait till it breaks” approach?

· Do supervisors condone or encourage workers to ignore health & safety rules?

· Have you ever suffered a work-related injury or illness at (employer)?

· Which of the following best describes the company’s safety meetings?

· a) very useful, an opportunity to learn new information and give input

· b) not very useful, a “captive audience” meeting for company announcements

· c) a waste, irrelevant lectures and movies, little connection to actual work

· d) there are no safety meetings

· e) other

· In which of the following areas have you NOT been adequately trained, given the demands of your job? (asbestos removal, fall prevention, machine guarding, bloodborne pathogens, fork truck safety, pedestrian safety, confined space entry, hazard communication, rigging, construction safety, emergency response, robot safety, cranes & hoists, job safety analysis, MSDS, ergonomics, lockout, other).

· How important is it to you that the company develop a program to replace toxic chemicals with safer substitutes, wherever possible?

· Is your work area routinely tested for airborne contamination?

Measurement Scales

There are four different levels of measurement, nominal data, ordinal data, interval data and ratio data (Landrum, 2014). However, in this particular case, a survey with measurement scales would not be appropriate. According to Boslaugh (2012), “Establishing that a particular measurement is accurate and meaningful is more difficult when it can’t be observed directly”. As the measurement of workplace safety is based moreso on opinion and personal preferences that can be determined in survey types such as the pencil-paper surveys or internet way of collection data. The survey will include questions that can help the company to form workplace safety training programs. The data that is collected can then be utilized to compare to the primary data collected as well as any secondary forms of data. Surveys are a good way to collect data from the employees about what they actually know about workplace safety, amongst other things that can be determined through the usage of surveys. Measurement and scaling this data would be far more complex as there are so many different variables and categorizable areas. would provide useful to organizations that are using surveys to collect data to help with future plans of the company. The data that is gathered from the survey should be sufficient in aiding and providing enough information to make a training program for workplace safety. In turn, the information will continue to provide future improvements for the program.

Sampling Data

Sampling data is very critical to getting the right results. The researcher has to first identify the target population of the study. From this population, a number of sampling techniques will be used to get the sample that will be used to collect the data and consequently derive conclusions about the population as a whole. It is anticipated that the study will use common sampling techniques such as simple random sampling, systematic random sampling and cluster random sampling (Silverman, 2016).

Analysing and Presenting

The first step in analysing data obtained from the various forms of research (interviews, questionnaires, survey groups, etc), is to first review the research questions and hypothesis set forth prior to researching. The aim is to make sure the goals at hand are understood to comprehend the data gathered, to most accurately present and convey the data found as it relates to the original research question. To do this, the data must be read through to gain a clearer and more accurate understanding on the information gathered. Next, categorizing information will help organize the data to easier follow and apply accordingly (e.g. background information, concerns, recommendations, outputs, etc). The next step is putting the data gathered into perspective. It is important to compare results, and consider recommendations to help employees improve workplace training programs.

Presenting the data found can be done in a variety of ways depending on the audience involved. In this situation, employees would need to gain an understanding of workplace safety as well as how to implement such behaviours within the workplace.

Summary of the Research

In summary, this research intends to investigate workplace safety in organizations. It will do this by specifically targeting top management in organizations and their role towards safety in the workplace. Are they training their staff on what is expected of them as far as their safety is concerned? Are they enforcing workplace safety measures? These are some of the research questions this research intends to answer.

While conducting research on workplace safety I found an article on the importance and implementation of workplace safety laws and how to get workers involved in safety practices. The article also provides information on how to reduce and minimize accidents in the future as well as explores how engagement levels can affect and act as a mediator between safety systems and performance outcomes (Watcher & Yorior, 2014).

Another study was conducted on workplace safety and how it is affected by individuals within the workplace and just how their role can contribute to the safety of the company. This article is helpful in explaining the different roles that can play a part in the safety environment of a workplace and the protection of its employees and will be helpful in supporting the hypothesis. Based on the findings of these two articles, I intend to expound on this and draw meaningful conclusions about workplace safety.

References

Boslaugh, S. (2012). Statistics in a nutshell: A desktop quick reference. "O'Reilly Media, Inc".

Christian, M. S., Bradley, J. C., Wallace, J. C., & Burke, M. J. (2009). Workplace safety: a meta-analysis of the roles of person and situation factors.

Landrum, R. E. (2014). Research methods for business: Tools and applications [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/

Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R. (2016). Research methods for business: A skill building approach. John Wiley & Sons.

Silverman, D. (Ed.). (2016). Qualitative research. Sage.

Wachter, J. K., & 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, 117-130.