Health and Safety in the Workplace: Towards Enhancing Work Environment

Abstract

Health and safety management is about commitment to and providing conducive working environment to employees. Human resources department plays a prominent role in ensuring employee’s health and safety as they discharge their duties in the workplace. This study examines the importance of health and safety in workplace, safety and health hazard, stress and its causes, consequences of stress at workplace, strategies for making the workplace safer, risk assessment, managing health and safety among others. The objective of this study is to ascertain the essence of health and safety in the work environment. It is a truism that a healthy man is a wealthy man and for an organisation to achieve its goals its workforce must be fit physically and mentally to carry out their tasks. The study observes that the health of the workforce is an immense valuable asset to the organization and should not only be preserved but should be fostered. The findings of this research reveal that for organisations to be productive and profitable, adequate attention must be given to the wellbeing of the work force. Hence, it is recommended among many others that management should carryout periodic written safety inspections of the workplace, including follow-up entries explaining what was done to mitigate all deficiencies.