Analysis of employee participation in occupational health and safety activities in a cement manufacturing organisation in South Africa

Abstract

Globally organisations face unacceptable levels of fatalities that translate into financial losses and bad publicity, which can be attributed to the inadequate employee engagement in decision making in daily work activities. This study explores the participative role of employees in the management of occupational health and safety (OHS), and investigates the impact of employee participation on the decision making processes that create a safe workplace. The joint labour-management committees encourage employee participation that improves the injury and disease prevention programs. Four participative approaches exist in the decision making processes, namely Directed Participation, Involvement, Pro-active Participation and Ownership, that are interrelated and integrated with the decision making process. When employees are required to abide by set guidelines and procedures, Directed Participation is appropriate. This has been observed to occur with little or no input from employees, whilst the application of legislation requires the process of involvement where critical decisions are made outside the domain of the employee. The pro-active participation process entails the sharing, consulting and making of joint decisions, which is most suitable in the Safety Health and Environmental committees, ensuring the process of Ownership empowers employees to champion the OHS activities. In OHS management there are instances when numerous participative approaches are utilised simultaneously to make decisions. All employees, both blue collar workers and management have a positive influence in creating a safe workplace, with the likelihood of older and experienced employees participating more than their younger counterparts in the decision making processes within the various OHS forums. Also, the more employees assume full responsibility for their health and safety, the greater is their influence to find solutions to the safety challenges. Additionally, making joint decisions to create a safe workplace will, in turn, encourage employees to participate more. The use of the participative approaches results in an improvement in the iii decision making processes within S.H.E. committees and OHS management processes, thereby making a positive contribution. More research is recommended to explore the relationships between employee participation in decision making and the compliance to OHS legislation, employee training, the safety culture and the influence of trade unions.