Assessment of occupational health practices in Indian industries

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to assess the perceptions of safety officers on Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) norms extended to the workforce in Indian industries, understand implementation levels and find out deficiencies existing therein. Design/methodology/approach -In this study, the authors utilized factor analysis to develop an instrument specifically responsible for assessing OHS norms in three major industrial sectors through a broad-based questionnaire survey. The pattern of influence of input parameters on outputs such as injury level and material damage is difficult to establish, possibly due to existence of some nonlinear relationship among them. Therefore, a neural network approach is adopted to carry out sensitivity analysis and identify important deficient items. Findings -Exploratory factor analysis has been carried out on the responses to the designed questionnaire. In total, nine factors with 23 items have been extracted and interpreted. As neural networks are capable of mimicking human cognitive process, the perceptions mechanism of safety officers can be easily modeled via neural networks. Sector-wise deficient items have been identified and strategies for their improvement have been proposed.Research limitations/implications -The major limitation may be the number of industrial sectors considered in the study. Although the proposed model is quite generic, its performance needs to be tested with other categories of industries. Practical implications -Although perceptions of safety officers on their immediate work environment help to formulate constructive safety policy and procedures, involvement of a few representatives from the workforce during the implementation level may assist to substantially reduce injury level and material damage, since the workers are more conversant with work practices, are exposed to risk environments and can sustain injuries if accidents occur. Originality/value -The paper uses advanced statistical and intelligent techniques for assessment of OHS practices. A comparative evaluation of present practices among three major types of Indian industry has been made. Further, the paper proposes an OHS instrument for Indian industry. The paper offers new directions for researchers to devise a comprehensive methodology that aims at reducing occupational health risks.

Internal constraints to business performance in black-owned small to medium enterprises in the construction industry

“…According to some authors (Beriha, Patnaik & Mahapatra 2012;Hughes & Ferrett 2009), failure to adopt OHS standards and practices may negatively impact organisational performance, resulting in inter alia the loss of revenue, failure to retain business customers, low productivity, loss of investor confidence, demotivation and lack of commitment among employees. As seen from the study, some of these after-effects of poor OHS practices are already evident in black-owned SMEs in the construction industry.…”

Use of Neural Networks to Identify Safety Prevention Priorities in Agro-Manufacturing Operations within Commercial Grain Elevators

“…The work of Aliabadi et al [45] predicted the hearing loss threshold in high-noise industrial workplaces in a steel factory, and analyzed the effects of occupational exposure risk factors on determining the hearing loss threshold. The work of Shankar Beriha et al [46] identified the deficiencies in safety health practices in Indian industries and analyzed the influence of workplace hazards on injury level and material damage. Other studies used ANNs to analyze and classify the risk of injury from machine and drilling [47], and the slip-trip incident risk in construction-related occupations [48].…”

Effects of Safety Climate, Safety Attitude, and Safety Performance on Firm Performance: A Study of an Automobile Firm

“…The items of safety performance were taken from the study of Beriha et al (2012). Responses were taken on a five-point likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).…”

“…Occupational health and safety measures include legal imperative, ethical concerns, industrial relations, and financial performance (Beriha et al, 2012). Every organization should implement the occupational health and safety policies which will help in enhancing the performance of workers (Hinze, 1997).…”