Documents OSH management system 234 results

"Objective:Business cases are commonly developed as means to rationalize investment. We systematically reviewed 26 reported cases on occupational safety and health (OSH) interventions to assess if health and productivity arguments make a good business case.Methods:To be included in the review, studies had to analyze the costs and benefits, including productivity, of an OSH intervention at the enterprise level. We searched Medline and Embase for studies and used Google search in addition. Two reviewers independently selected studies and extracted data. The intervention profitability was calculated in euros (€ in 2008) as the first year's benefits minus the total intervention costs per worker. The payback period was calculated as the intervention costs divided by the first year's benefits.Results:We found three ex-ante and 23 ex-post cases. In 20 cases, the study design was a before-after comparison without a control group. Generally a 100% reduction of injuries or sickness absence was assumed. In two cases, productivity and quality increases were very large. The main benefit was avoided sick leave. Depreciation or discounting was applied only in a minority of cases. The intervention profitability was negative in seven studies, up to €500 per employee in 12 studies and more than €500 per employee in seven studies. The payback period was less than half a year for 19 studies. Only a few studies included sensitivity analyses.Conclusions:Few ex-ante business cases for management decisions on OSH are reported. Guidelines for reporting and evaluation are needed. Business cases need more sound assumptions on the effectiveness of interventions and should incorporate greater uncertainty into their design. Ex-post evaluation should be based preferably on study designs that control for trends at a time different from that of the intervention."

"Objectives In many European countries, external economic incentives are discussed as a policy instrument to promote occupational safety and health (OSH) in enterprises. This narrative case study review aims to support policy-makers in organizations providing such incentives by supplying information about different incentive schemes and their main characteristics such as effectiveness, efficiency, and feasibility.Methods The focal point and topic centre network of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work were used to collect case studies about incentive schemes aimed at supporting the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases in enterprises. Such incentives are rarely described in the scientific literature. To be considered for this review, studies had to focus on external financial benefits that could be provided as part of an insurance-related incentive or a governmental subsidy scheme. Results In total, 14 cases were included in the review: 6 insurance premium- and 8 subsidy-based schemes. Of these, 13 contained an evaluation of the incentive scheme, of which 7 use quantitative criteria. Three cases provided sufficient data to conduct a cost–benefit analysis. Most qualitative evaluations related to the successful management of the program and the effectiveness of the promoted measures in the workplace. Regarding the latter, quantitative criteria covered accident rates, sick leave, and general improvement in working conditions. The cost-benefit analyses all resulted in a positive payout ratio, ranging from €1.01-4.81 return for every €1 invested.Conclusions Generally, we found economic incentive schemes to be feasible and reasonably effective. However, analysis regarding the efficiency of such schemes is scarce and our evaluation of the cost-benefit analysis had to rely on few cases that, nevertheless, delivered positive results for large samples. Besides this finding, our study also revealed deficits in the quality of evaluations. In order to enable policy-makers to make well-informed decisions about public investments in OSH, better standards for reporting and evaluating incentive schemes are needed."

"This paper provides a descriptive account of two models of occupational safety and health (OSH) regulation, the introspective perspective of OSH, and the extrospective perspective of OSH. It presents the comparative view of those perspectives of OSH standards by assessing some of the institutional roles that trade unions could play in the promotion of the highest standards of OSH legal protections which workers are entitled to, in the US and in the EU, drawing insights from Kathleen Thelen's 2014 book Varieties of Liberalisation and the New Politics of Social Solidarity. The paper also examines whether unionisation plays any significant roles in the implementation of the best institutional standards for the occupational safety, health and wellbeing of workers in their working environments. Two aspects of unionisation will guide the evaluative assessment of OSH standards in Thelen's liberalised market economy (LME) versus coordinated market economies (CMEs): (i) factors attributable to unionisation in the practice of institutionally set legal OSH standards, and (ii) factors attributable to unionisation in the socio-political practice of institutional policy standards for OSH. With introspective versus extrospective OSH at the back of mind, the paper further considers the importance of unionisation/ union density in Thelen's account of industrial relation, vocational education and training (VET), and labour market policies in the LMEs versus the CMEs. In considering the standards that could be attributed to high or low union density, the paper highlights why lmes tend to practice introspective OSH standards, whereas the cmes have the tendency to practice OSH standards that are extrospective in nature. In summation, it is argued that constructive social dialogue, efficient OSH VET, and coordinated labour market policies are crucial drivers of extrospective OSH standards; and that many workers in the introspective OSH system are still far from enjoying the high OSH legal and institutional protection standards which are generally available to workers in the extrospective OSH systems."

"Objective:Human resources and health issues are crucial in terms of corporate competitiveness. However, systematic, continuous and strategically aligned occupational safety and health (OSH) management is scarcely applied in companies. One major reason for this could be the lack of generally accepted and standardised OSH control methods. Our objective was thus to conceptualize a method by which qualitative factors such as human resources and OSH aspects contribute to the performance or value-added layer of an organization.Methods: We developed a business case based on the well-known and accepted Balanced Scorecard approach, which we adapted and applied to the management of OSH issues. The concept was implemented in the course of a comprehensive case study at a German automobile manufacturer. We gathered health as well as finance data in order to test which health-related indicators had an impact on financial performance. The demonstration of, and reporting on, how the promotion of workplace health contributes strategically to the organization is crucial for both health and human resource managers.Results: Based on multivariate regression analyses, our main finding was that the Balanced Scorecard approach is an adequate means to control OSH issues in terms of strategic health management. Our analyses demonstrated that health-related interventions contribute significantly to performance aspects such as quality, productivity, absenteeism, and cost reduction. Therefore, the financial impact of health-related aspects / interventions could be demonstrated by means of the OSH scorecard.Conclusions:The availability and quality of health data within the context of overall corporate performance data needs to be improved in order to bridge OSH-related and performance issues of an organization."

"Objective The ability of occupational health and safety (OHS) legislation and regulatory enforcement to prevent workplace injuries and illnesses is contingent on political, economic, and organizational conditions. This systematic review of qualitative research articles considers how OHS legislation and regulatory enforcement are planned and implemented.Methods A comprehensive search of peer-reviewed, English-language articles published between 1990 and 2013 yielded 11 947 articles. We identified 34 qualitative articles as relevant, 18 of which passed our quality assessment and proceeded to meta-ethnographic synthesis. Results The synthesis yielded four main themes: OHS regulation formation, regulation challenges, inspector organization, and worker representation in OHS. It illuminates how OHS legislation can be based on normative suppositions about worker and employer behavior and shaped by economic and political resources of parties. It also shows how implementation of OHS legislation is affected by “general duty” law, agency coordination, resourcing of inspectorates, and ability of workers to participate in the system. Conclusions The review identifies methodological gaps and identifies promising areas for further research in “grey” zones of legislation implementation."