PREVENTION OF INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS: MEASURES AND CHALLENGES

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1 PREVENTION OF INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS: MEASURES AND CHALLENGES Prof. Sridevi Kulenur 1, Dr. P. Nagesh 2, Amulya Dechakka K.B 3 Assistant Professor 1, Professor 2, PG Student 3 JSS Centre for Management Studies, Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering Mysore, Karnataka( India) ABSTRACT Safety issues have always a major problem and concern in any organizational or industry in the world (Clarke, 2006). Organizational nature of industrial accidents and empirical work has focus on the identification of workers attitudes, work environment, management concern for safety and conflict between productions with safety that influence accidents causation at workplace. The purpose of this study is to examine whether workers attitudes, work environment, management concern for safety and conflict between production and safety have a relationship to the number of accidents at workplace. A set of questionnaires were distributed for data gathering to 350 employees at different level of hierarchy that work at hazardous workplace in different department of Bosch Ltd (Bangalore plant, Adugodi). The results indicate that safety measures undertaken by industry has a significant relationship with dependent variable due to its positive correlations,the next output is Communication about safety issues with management does not have significant relationship with dependent variable due to negative correlations value. There are the suggestions for Bosch Ltd to control or reduce the number of accidents at workplace which are positive reinforcement, provide workers with safety training or safety educations and proper personal protection equipment (PPE). Keywords: Workers Attitudes, Work Environment, Management Concern For Safety, Conflict Between Production And Safety, Accidents At Workplace I. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Industrial Accidents An Industrial Accident is a sudden and unexpected occurrence in the industry which interrupts the orderly progress of the work. According to the Factories Act, 1948: It is an occurrence in an industrial establishment causing bodily injury to a person who makes him unfit to resume his duties in the next 48 hours. In other words, accident is an unexpected event in the course of employment which is neither anticipated nor designed to occur. Thus, an accident is an unplanned and uncontrolled event in which an action or reaction of an object, a substance, a person, or a radiation results in personal injury. It is important to note that self-inflicted injuries cannot be regarded as accidents. An industrial injury is defined as a personal injury to an employee which has 257 P a g e

2 been caused by an accident or an occupational disease and which arises out of or in the course of employment and which could entitle such employee to compensation under Workers Compensation Act, Types of Accidents Accidents may be of different types depending upon the severity, durability and degree of the injury. An accident causing death or permanent or prolonged disability to the injured employee is called major accident. A cut that does not render the employee disabled is termed as minor accident. When an employee gets injury with external signs of it, it is external injury. Injury without showing external signs such as a fractured bone is called an internal one. When an injury renders an injured employee disabled for a short period, say, a day or a week, it is a temporary accident. On the contrary, making injured employee disabled forever is called permanent accident. Disability caused by accident may be partial or total, fatal or non-fatal. No accident occurs automatically. Instead, certain factors cause accidents. It has been noticed that an accident does not have a single cause but a multiplicity of causes, which are often closely related. The same is discussed subsequently. II. CONCEPTUAL MODEL III. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY To understand what are the Safety measures undertaken by industries to prevent industrial accidents. To know what are the challenges faced by the industries in implementing Safety measures. 258 P a g e

3 IV. HYPOTHESIS Is there a significant relationship between the safety measures undertaken by the industries to prevent Industrial Accident. V. SCOPE OF THE STUDY The study will be related to Prevention of Industrial Accident and the measures adopted in Bosch Ltd, Bangalore to prevent accidents. This study is also conducted to know what are the challenges faced by Bosch Ltd, Bangalore in implementing security measures to prevent Industrial accidents. VI. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM Safety workplace is one of the core affairs considered by Bosch Ltd that are responsible for protecting and optimizing the functionality of their Human Resources. Safety issues have always a major problem and concern in any organizational or industry. Organizational nature of industrial accidents and empirical work has focus on the identification of workers attitudes, work environment, management concern for safety and conflict between productions with safety that influence accidents causation at workplace. VII. METHODOLOGY 7.1 Research Methodology In order to conduct a good research project, this study requires a proper methodology serving as general framework. To solve the problem statement, accurate data is necessary and primary sources data will be chosen in this study which means the data collected is gathered from the questionnaires that were distributed to the employees of Bosch Ltd Bangalore Plant. Besides that, secondary data also is gathered from the various journals to make this thesis more accurate This study is using Descriptive Study of purposively Bosch Ltd is selected. Descriptive Study is chosen because to learn about and describe the characteristic of a group of employees for example like their age, educational level, job status, and lengthy of service. Besides that, Descriptive Study are also undertaken to understand the characteristic of organizational that follow certain common practices. By using this study, we also are able to know is there the relationship between independent variable and dependent variable. Those variables are measured by using questionnaires which will was distributed to all selected personnel in 4 Department and their responses will be evaluated in order to get accurate data. 7.2 Research Design Data for this study is collected through a survey questionnaire that was distributed to the employee of Bosch Ltd Bangalore Plant. Elements of the independent variables are employees attitudes, work environment, management concern for safety and as well as conflict between productions and safety in order to get accurate data of problem solving. Respondents were ask to rate their level of agreement on a five point Likert scale, where 1 represents strongly disagree followed by disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree, and 5 as strongly agree. 259 P a g e

4 7.3 Data Collection Method In this study, the data is collected through two sources which are primary and secondary data Primary Data The primary data will be gathered through structured questionnaire. The data will be collected via personally administered questionnaire since this is the best way to get full response from respondents within a short period of time and any doubts that the respondents might have on any question could be clarified on the spot. This questionnaire contains structured or closed-ended question that is a rating scale or Likert Scale to provide answers for organization. The data are also obtained through unstructured interview with their senior safety officer in order to get information about safety at workplace that they are implemented at Bosch Ltd Secondary Data The study will use two types of research data, which are external and internal sources. The external secondary data is the data available outside the organization which come from one main source which is from library. For this research, the researcher will use the data from library, internet journal, articles, online publications and etc. VIII. SAMPLING PROCEDURE Survey are useful and powerful in finding answers to research questions through data collection and subsequence analyses, but they can do more harm than good if the population is not correctly targeted. That is, if data are not collected from the right people that can provide the correct answer to solve the problem, the survey would be in vain. IX. TARGET POPULATION The target population for this study is all employees at all departments as mention earlier. The total number at all departments is 3000 employees that work at hazardous workplace X. SAMPLING SIZE The sample size for this study is 350 employees at different level of hierarchy will be taken as respondents from each division that works at hazardous workplace. XI. SAMPLING METHOD The sampling technique used is no probability sampling technique because the elements in the population do not have any probabilities attached to their chosen as sample subject. Under the non-probability sampling technique, the sampling design chosen is Judgment sampling since it calls for special effort to locate and gain access to individual who do have the requisite information of safety that only work at hazardous workplace. XII. DATA ANALYSIS The collected data was analyzed by using SPSS through the use of Pearson Correlation to determine the correlation of the variables either there is any correlation to one another or vice versa. Pearson Correlation Matrix shows any relationship between independent and dependent variables. Pearson Correlation is used 260 P a g e

5 because all variable in the questionnaire measured using interval scale. It is an integrated set of computer program that help researcher to tabulate the findings easily. XIII.. DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION Reliability Test The reliability of a measure indicates the extent to which it is without bias (error free) and hence ensures consistent measurement cross time and cross the various items in the instrument. Reliability testing was done with the purpose of checking whether the data obtained from the survey is reliable or not for the research. When conducting the reliability test, the closer the reliability coefficient gets to 1.0, its shows the better reliability. According to W.Zikmund (2003), when Cronbach s Alpha is between 0.7 and 1.0 it is very good. If the reliability is between 0.5 and 0.6, it is average and if the reliability is below 0.5, it is poor. It is important to note that all the negatively worded items in the questionnaire should first be reversed before the items are submitted for reliability test. Unless all the items measuring a variable are in the same direction, the reliabilities obtain will be incorrect. VARIABLES CRONBACH S ALPHA SAFETY MEASURES WORKERS ATTITUDE WORK ENVIRONMENT COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT CONCERN XIV. PEARSON CORRELATION Correlations Factors Industrial Safety Conflict Between Workers Management Communicati Work Accident Measures Production And Attitude Concern on Environment Safety Pearson Correlation ** **.242 **.221 **.158 ** Industrial Accident Sig. (2-tailed) Pearson Correlation.452 ** ** **.330 **.222 ** Safety Measures Sig. (2-tailed) Pearson Correlation ** Conflict Between Sig. (2-tailed) Production And Safety Pearson Correlation ** ** ** Workers Attitude Sig. (2-tailed) Pearson Correlation.242 **.369 ** **.414 ** Management Concern Sig. (2-tailed) Pearson Correlation.221 **.330 ** **.392 ** ** Communication Sig. (2-tailed) Pearson Correlation.158 **.222 ** **.414 **.270 ** 1 Work Environment Sig. (2-tailed) **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). 261 P a g e

6 14.1 Pearson Correlation Pearson correlation coefficient is appropriate to know how one variable is related to another. A Pearson correlation will provide this information, that is, it will indicate the direction, strength, and significance of the bi-variate relationships of all the variables in the study. The Pearson correlation matrix obtained for the five interval-scaled variables is shown in table above. From the results, it shown that the independent variable which is safety measures given by industries has a significant relationship with dependent variable due to positive correlations value (.452). So that, hypothesis H1 is substantiated. I can conclude that without safety measures, it may cause industrial accidents. The next output is conflict between production and safety does not have any significant relationship with dependent variable due to negative correlations value (-.024).The correlation table shows that workers attitude is not statistically a critical factor in influencing accidents at workplace. From the results, it can be said that safety measures is one of the factors of accidents at workplace but not the major factors at Bosch Ltd because based on the answer stated in the questionnaire, all the negative questions under this independent variable is agreed by the respondents. Finally, other variables which are work environment and communication has shown positively with moderate relationship due to the significant value. From the results, it can be said that work environment and communication and management concern are the factors which can reduce accidents at Bosch Ltd workplace. XV. CONCLUSION This research had done at Bosch Ltd (Adugodi Plant) Bangalore. The area of this study is to examine whether safety measures have a relations to the number of accidents at workplace. To conduct this study, 350 respondents had answered the questionnaires which are from four major departments at Bosch Ltd Bangalore. This study conducts six independent variables and one dependent variable. As conceptual framework illustrate before at figure 2, accidents at workplace is the dependent variable for this study. Followed by independent variables which are workers attitudes, work environment, management concern for safety, conflict between production and safety, safety measures, communication. Then, this study used questionnaire as a medium to obtain the data needed. There are 7 sections in the questionnaire, consisting of Section A: Demographic segmentation, Section B: Employees attitudes, Section C: Work environment, Section D: Management concern for safety and section E: Conflict between production and safety, Section F: Safety measures, Section G: Communication. All the sections except section A are using Likert Scale from 1 for strongly disagree to 5 for strongly agree. Besides that, this study is using SPSS for interpret all the data gathered from questionnaire. Regarding respondents profile, it can be concluded that majority of respondents were male with the percentage of 78%. The results of this research has led to answer the entire hypothesis whether independent variable have a significant relationship with dependent variable or not. According to the results also can answer the entire research objective. The first objective is to determine the significant relationship between safety measures undertaken by Bosch Ltd (BanP) and accidents at workplace. From the results, it can be says that safety measures is one of the factors which can decrease the number of accident. Workers attitudes at Bosch Ltd are in good spirit because enough training is given to them before they perform their task at hazardous workplace. It can be conclude that work environment is one of the factors that can raise the number of accidents at workplace. According to the results, management concern for safety is one of the factors towards accidents at workplace 262 P a g e

7 due to the positive correlations. I can wrap up this point that Occupational safety and health department at Bosch Ltd is doing great because all required policies and training is well implemented by them. As a conclusion to this point, Bosch Ltd shall not be held guilty and cannot be blamed if accidents occur because of workers negligence. Based on the findings and analysis, it is shown that conflict between production and safety as no significant relation with accidents at workplace due to the negative correlations. According to the findings above, Occupational Safety and Health Department must focus on one independent variable that have positive correlations with dependent variable which are work environment. Then, based on the answer from questionnaire also we can say that OSH department had done their job/task very well because their employees realize job made by their employer like training, seminar, inspection and so on. XVI. RECOMMENDATIONS [1.] The study highlights the effect of safety measures towards accidents at workplace. As a recommendation, Bosch Ltd (BanP) can develop tools that department of safety can use to motivate high performance and prevent workers from appealing in other behavior s that block from organizational effectiveness. These tools are positive reinforcement or punishment. These tools are now discussed with respect to develop workers safe work behavior at workplace. [2.] Positive reinforcement can be defined when employers gives workers outcomes (positive reinforces) they desire when they perform their task at workplace. By implementing this tool, it can motivate workers to perform their jobs in a safe manner and automatically unsafe behavior resolve. There are example of positive reinforcement such as monetary rewards, bonuses and job promotion. Monetary or bonuses can be implementing for example once a year or twice a year for workers who do not involve in accidents at workplace. [3.] Punishment involves administering an undesired or negative consequence when dysfunctional behavior occurs. As regards to job safety, punishments can include pay cuts, temporary suspensions and firings. However, punishments may lead to resentment and loss of self-respect; therefore, should be used only when necessary. Besides that, punishment should also be carried out in private, so as not to hurt the workers selfrespect, lower his/her esteem in the eyes of co-workers and can make other co-workers feel uncomfortable. In the case of punishment, it is administered when unsafe work behavior is performed [4.] Then, to enable workers to adopt safe work practices, they need to be trained, to equip them with the skills to carry out the work and in the area they will perform their task. Workers can be sent for more holistically approach safety training especially in areas pertaining to design and hazards identification to increase their risk awareness. At the same time, workers should also be issued with proper personal protection equipment (PPE) that meet safety protection requirements. Although, personal protection equipment must have maintenance scheduling of PPE in order to maintain their safety requirements. PPE also must be given to them that suitable with their task and teach them how to wear it. 263 P a g e

8 REFERENCES [1.] Clarke, S. (2006), Safety Climate in an Automobile Manufacturing Plant The effect of work environment, job communication and safety attitudes on accidents and unsafe behavior, Automobile Manufacturing Plant, Vol. 35 No. 4, PP [2.] D. Jones. Nomenclature for Hazard and Risk Assessment in the ProcessIndustries. 2nd edition, [3.] International Labour Organization. Prevention of Major IndustrialAccidents.ISBN [4.] Work Life 2000, New strategies and types of occupational health and safety (development and types of occupational health and safety management). National Institute for Working Life, [5.] JMM Hill, EL Trist - Industrial Organizations and Health, 2013 [6.] FP McKenna - Accident Analysis & Prevention, Elsevie 264 P a g e