Employers’ Obligations And Liabilities In Respect To Alex’s Ability To Perform Her Job | HRM Best Practice Strategies For Managing Alcohol And Stress In The School

Task 1

Task 1

Discuss the employers’ obligations and liabilities in respect to Alex’s ability to perform her job. You should make reference to health and safety legislation.

Task 2

As the School Business Manager (SBM – responsible for premises management, plays a role in recruitment and manages the non-teaching staff) for the school you have to deal with the immediate issue of Alex and also how best to avoid future issues.

Identify and evaluate HRM best practice strategies for managing alcohol and stress in the school.

From the given case study, it is understood that Alex was a good cook of a primary school. But after sometime she was taking alcohol regularly and for this reason she could not doing her task properly. Apart from this, she was doing her task stressfully because the other cooks were on leave. But it is not only the issue of her. Her task also affected that school in various ways. First of all, the total food making process of the school affected because she could not handle all the duties of cooking for the school properly. As a result, the students of the school cannot take food at the right time. Secondly, the management can be affected because they may receive various complaints from the guardians of the students. These incidents may cause a mess within the school premises. And most importantly, the behavior of the student can be affected from this particular incident because they may be habituated with the alcoholic products from Alex. Their life can be spoilt by this (Bell et al., 2011). Apart from these, the reputation of the school can be permanently destroyed. And as a result, the school management cannot run their business perfectly from some case study, it is also known that according to National Drug Monitoring System (NDTMS), near about 115,000 clients aged between 18 to 75 years is under the treatment of alcohol-related medical problems. So in this case school managing committee has to take the emergency action to prevent the alcoholic practices against the employees of the school (Burton and Jauniaux, 2011).

But at the same time the management of the school cannot sack Alex because only Alex is available for cooking purpose in that school. As a result, some other alternatives have to be taken by the management. So they should handle the situation very carefully. They have some obligations and liabilities regarding this sensitive issue. They can handle the situation in two different ways. As per the above case study, there was no proper prove of alcoholic practices done by Alex. So first of all it is essential to communicate with Alex from employer side in informal ways. They should arrange a meeting to this purpose. In this meeting, the employers of the school and the guardian of the students have to present. They have to teach to Alex about the harmfulness of alcoholic drink (Chaudry and Kargas, 2015). They also have to assure about the minimization of stress on Alex. They also have to do promise to arrange the alternate way as soon as possible for minimizing the Alex’s stress (Colicchia, Dallari and Melacini, 2011). 

Task 2

They can take another way to handle this situation. It can be suggested that the employee of the school can go to a psychiatrist for discussing Alex’s present condition. And if required, they have to bring her to the doctor. Apart from this, if any medicine required for leaving the alcoholic practice, the management of the school should carry the expenditure of but if the scenario does not change after the meeting, then the management of school should take the help from the Health and Safety law. But before that they should collect the exact proof of alcoholic practices by Alex from any resources (Collins, 2011).

Health and safety law is one type of law which protects the safety, health and welfare of the general public, some particular sectors of main population employees. Most of the jurisdictions have the framework of safety and health law which usually be regulated by the particular state using the regulatory control, inspectorate and crime law. In this particular case, the investigation study will have to do by United Kingdom Health and Safety law. This particular act is made by taking six different acts altogether. These are Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992, Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, Health and Safety Regulations 1992 and Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992. This law in the United Kingdom began for developing the employers and their business relationship (Galabova and Ahonen, 2011). The aims of the law are:

To secure the health and safety of the persons welfare at work

To protects other people against the risks to the health and the safety regarding the activities of the persons involving in the particular work (Glavin, 2011)

To manage and control the use of the dangerous substances

To control some particular emissions into the atmosphere

This act says that if any employee of the organization breaks the work culture within her workplace, then the act will be applicable. This is punishable on the summary conviction with fine up to $400. Apart from this if the convicted will disagree with this, then the court can demand unlimited fine from her. So the employee of the school can go with this act to rescue her from the alcoholic practices within the school premises (Hemamalini, Anitha and Devasenathipathi, 2011).

This assignment deals with the effective human resource management strategy for the management of alcohol and stress among the schoolchildren of the organization. This assignment has also dealt with best legal and regulation framework of the organization. It has also discussed different aspects of health promotion within the employees of the organization.  

Employers’ obligations and liabilities in respect to Alex’s ability to perform her job

The health promotion in the workplace is the subject in which the HR professionals have to involve themselves very frequently nowadays. In this particular area, HR staff has to acquire more than the passing knowledge. In a broader view of Human Resource Management, it can be described that the policies and the practices that cause the improved organizational as well as employee performance. However, there are some factors that influence the greater prominence of the health promotion in the Human Resource Management (Huang, 2011). The factors are-

Legal duty – The impact of health and safety related issue in EU and UK is increasing in recent years.

Performance and resourcing pressures- Evidence is developing by which it can be understood that the healthier employee has better attendance, retention and performance records (Hutchinson and Purcell, 2010).

UK employees spend up nearly 60 percent of their time in the work place. So it is so much required to provide the general health education to all level of employees of the organization for achieving more healthy lifestyles within the organization. So as per HRM strategies the SBM (School Business Manager) should provide the health education to all the employees of the school so that Apex cannot be habituated with the alcoholic practices (Kisseleva and Brenner, 2011).

In the year of 1998 the Industrial Relations Services conducted a survey on 114 UK employers regarding the health promotion activity within the organization. From the research study, they have concluded some opinion (Maley, 2011). These are as follows-

Most of the employers saw that the workplace stress is the one of the main reasons behind the various health related issues the employees face, though there are some policies to manage the stress. According to CBI, there is 16 percent of organizations who have the formal stress policies. According to above policies, the SBM of the particular school should implement the stress reduction policy for minimizing the stress of Apex.

UK employers are implementing the initiatives of health promotion of workplace that can be divided as three main categories. These are as follows-

Awareness-oriented programs- The initiatives are taken for raising the awareness among the employees as well as line managers regarding the specific health risks or areas. They can include factual information related general promotion; can involve some diagnostic approaches like as the form of the health screening (Manser, 2011).

Interventions of a lifestyle change- The initiative is particularly targeted for making changes to the individual behavior of health or lifestyle. This initiative based on the previous diagnosis (Newenham-Kahindi, 2011).

Health and safety law

So from the above study it is clear that the School Business Manager of that particular school should arrange the various awareness-oriented programs in the school premises. These programs can help to aware the students as well as the employees of the school from the harmful effects of alcoholic drinks. Apart from this, it is also so much helpful for Apex also to come again to her normal life. From the interventions of lifestyle change, School Business Manager can compare the current situation and the previous situation of Alex and from the both diagnosis, the manager can take necessary steps for proper treatment of Alex.

From the above discussion, it is seen that the growing tendency of initiatives of health promotion is the prime factors of HR professionals in the large organizations. This happens because the health promotions offer to enhance and strengthen aspects of human resource management. Sometimes this is the key priorities of the employers (Shaban and McLean, 2011). This health promotion includes-

• Branding, retention, and attraction
• Benefits, reward, and recognition
• Reducing absence caused by sickness
• Psychological and stress well-being
• Morale, performance and motivation, etc.

So from the above study, it is clear that the School Business Manager has to implement various reward, benefit, employee attraction, stress minimization policy for attracting Apex in her task. The manager of the school also has to discuss with the medical practitioner regarding the case of Apex for reducing the absence caused by sickness, psychological development, etc.

From the above study, it is seen that the number of processes is made in the health promotion of workplace. These are expressed as the both lifestyle and health benefits for Alex as well as the economic benefits of the employers (Sun and Pan, 2011).

There are mainly two primary results that are sought by the promoting health of the workplace. The first is the behavioral change within the employees which minimize the incidence regarding-

• Unhealthy eating
• Alcohol consumption
• Back injury
• Sedentary lifestyle

• Reducing absence caused by the sickness
• Improving recruitment and attraction
• Improving commitment
• Reducing cost of litigation

So from the above study it is proved that, in the above case study of Alex, the Human Resource Management team can play the vital role in solving the problem of Alex.

Stress management- Either collective or individual support, by the trained counselors, the School Business Manager should play the significant role in increasing Apex’s susceptibility to work-related stress. The manager also can arrange the Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PISD) for providing the special support to Alex.

Addiction support- School Business Manager should sponsor, support or fund for Apex to the specialist support in case of alcohol dependency. Support may be given through training.

HRM best practice strategies for managing alcohol and stress in the school

Support, advice, and counseling- Aside from the above scenario, the School Business Manager should provide the extra support to Alex through (sometimes sub-contracted) counseling and advice services. ‘Employee Assistance Programmes’ are the most effective in nature and able to give exact guidance on the range of the issues, which includes financial and personal difficulties, childcare, family or legal problems.

Apart from this, the school management should install the closed circuit television everywhere in the school premises to prevent the unethical activities. In this way, Apex and all the other employees and students also cannot take the alcoholic drinks openly within the school premises.

The School Business Manager also has to arrange the various seminars for the students for awareness in alcoholic and smoking issues.

In this way, School Business Manager can handle the Alex situation. Alex also can come out from the particular crisis happening with her.

Conclusion:

This assignment has dealt with the effective human resource management strategy for the management of alcohol and stress among the schoolchildren of the organization. This assignment has discussed some major techniques and strategies for managing the issues of human resource management within the aspect of health and wellbeing of the people. It has also discussed different aspects of health promotion within the employees of the organization.

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