A Study on the Status and Effectiveness of Safety and Health Education for Office Workers

Abstract

The current Occupational Safety and Health Act does not apply the regular safety and health education provisions of Article 32 of the Act to businesses that employ only office workers. However, it is stipulated that regular safety and health education of at least 3 hours per quarter is required for office workers working in the field. However, office workers are also at risk of being exposed to long hours of work, emotional labor, and musculoskeletal disorders, and it seems that there is no small need for safety and health education. Therefore, this study was conducted to classify office workers into general office workers and field office workers, to understand the actual situation of safety and health education, and to verify the necessity and economic effect of safety and health education and use it as evidence for expanding the subject of education. In this study, first, in order to understand the status of safety and health education of office workers, a survey was conducted on 123 office workers and statistical analysis was performed using frequency analysis and multiple response analysis. Second, to confirm the effect of safety and health education, using the 2018 workplace safety and health survey and the 2019 industrial accident statistics accident rate, we quantified the effect of education for office workers on the occurrence of industrial accidents and estimated the benefits of the effect of reducing industrial accidents. As a result of the study, it was found that general office workers' accident experience and awareness of accidents and diseases were higher than those of on-site office workers, and the subjects of safety and health education were supervisors and safety and health managers, and education was mainly provided by internal employees. The awareness of the effectiveness of regular safety and health education was high at 89.4%, and the need for flexible operation of training hours and an increase in the number of training sessions to vitalize regular safety and health education was found to be high. In particular, there was a high awareness that it was necessary to expand ‘outsourced education support’ for revitalization of education in small businesses and to manage ‘confirmation of safety and health education’ in order to establish regular safety and health education. Compared to workplaces that do not provide training, the effect of preventing industrial accidents is higher, and thus it is expected to contribute to the reduction of accidents and labor loss. Through this study, it was possible to confirm the perception that safety and health education is necessary for general office workers in addition to the field, and it was identified that flexible operation of education suitable for the characteristics of the workplace and management of workplace implementation were necessary.