Discus About The Development Pilot Test Workplace Readiness.
Occupational health hazards are considered as the situation or source that has possibility of causing harm to individuals in terms of ill-health or injury. An occupational health management plan is required to eliminate chances of such hazards within the workplace with defined goals and objectives. The idea is to protect the individuals at risk from adverse events resulting in poor health conditions. The present report outlines an occupational health management plan for an identified occupational hazard in one identified workplace which is smoking. The report puts forward the details of the workplace identified. It further describes the occupational health hazard and the associated risks at the workplace. The ethical and legal requirements along with the need for change are explained. The next section of the report gives a detailed account of the health program that addresses the concern. The desired outcomes and goals of the program are outlined and the activities that would be involved are mentioned. The process of monitoring of the occupational health management program and the tools to be used for the evaluation of the program are also discussed.
XYZ is an accounting firm based in a suburb city in Australia. The workplace has 186 employees, 90% of which are male. While half of the workforce is aged 40 years and above, the age of employees within this age varies greatly. Some of the employees come from a middle class socio-economic background and the educational level of the employees is not high. The qualifications possessed by the employees are not higher than post-graduation in the respected disciplines. Most of the employees working in the company are experienced and have been working for more than five years. The individuals are frequently exposed to smoking voluntarily and involuntarily. On an average, employees who smoke are found to be smoking 10-12 cigarettes per day. Smoking has been denoted by the employees to be stress relieving approach in the workplace.
The key occupational health hazard identified in the workplace is smoking. Tobacco smoke is a notable health hazard for smokers as well as non-smokers who are exposed to the smoke at a regular basis at the workplace. Numerous authoritative agencies have undertaken review of the scientific evidence regarding exposure to tobacco smoke and have come to the conclusion that it is a prime health hazard. Tobacco smoke is a complex mixture of particles and gases with almost 3800 different chemical compounds, out of 50 have proven to be carcinogenic to animals and humans. In the selected workplace, voluntary and involuntary exposure to smoke is due to the high smoking rate of the employees.
The risks associated with exposure to tobacco smoke have been well documented in literature. The effect of tobacco smoke on the health of smokers and non-smokers alike is a matter of great concern. The physiological changes and toxic effects of exposure to tobacco smoke have pointed out by (Zhou et al., 2016). Eye irritation, nasal congestion, headache, sore throat, cough, nausea, dizziness, loss of appetite and general annoyance are the key risks associated with exposure to smoke. Further, health conditions are aggravated due to exposure to smoke, such as heart disease, asthma, acute respiratory disease, hay fever and emphysema. In addition, several studies have pointed out that individuals who are regularly exposed to smoke are at an increased risk of developing lung cancer (Lee et al., 2017). Brief exposure to high concentrations of tobacco smoke results in small but noteworthy lung function impairment.
A change is needed on the obligation that exposure to tobacco smoke is to be reduced through behavior changes of smokers, such as cessation of smoking. The workplace does not support a strong management and control measures to reduce the health hazard. Ethical considerations arise in this context as the organization needs to set up a strong set of policies and guidelines regarding smoking in order to eliminate risks associated with it. The employer is to create a smoke-free workplace in order to ensure that the non-smokers do not face health risks associated with smoking on moral grounds (Parro et al., 2017). Further, it is the legal right of the employer to have a regulatory power over the health-related behavior of the employees within the workplace. The legal requirement for addressing smoking in workplace is also distinct. It is an offence to smoke in enclosed workplaces except a few exemptions. This mandate comes under the Tobacco Act 1987 and has been administered by the Department of Human Services. The occupier of the workplace might be liable for breaching the Tobacco Act. Under the section 21(1) of the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Act 2004, it is the duty of the employers to ensure a workplace that is safe without risks to health. For meeting this requirement, employers must take necessary actions for ensuring that employees are not exposed to tobacco smoke (worksafe.vic.gov.au, 2018).
Employer at the selected organization incurs considerable costs due to employee smoking. The costs are mainly related to increased absenteeism, decreased productivity, unproductive time, and greater number of workdays lost as a result of poor health aggravated or provoked by smoking. A comprehensive approach is thus needed for addressing the issue of smoking that would be considered ideal in stopping employee smoking (workplaces.healthier.qld.gov.au, 2018).
The health program that would be beneficial in supporting smoking cessation in the workplace would be based on the principle of counseling. Counseling the employees would include regular sessions, cessations date, dealing with relapse, and providing feedback. The work place based tailored smoking cessation program would combine telephone based counseling with face-to-face counseling to help employees quit smoking at the workplace. The weekly sessions for smoking cessation would be held for six weeks during the course of the program. Employees would have the choice to resort to telephonic counseling or face-to-face counseling, or both (Kelloway et al., 2017).
The organization needs to bring specialists such as a Smoker’s Helpline counselor who would be in charge of providing counseling at the workplace. The counselors need to be skilled and experienced enough to provide individualized counseling to the employees. Though individual psychological counseling has been proved to be effective in helping smokers quit smoking, a large section of the employee population might not be interested to take part in such sessions. It is therefore crucial to follow a robust guideline for facilitating the counseling process. It would be critical to assess the motivation of individual employee to quit smoking. The counselor would need to adhere to the five R’s strategy for providing motivation to individuals to quit smoking at the workplace (Nieva et al., 2017). The components of the strategy would be Relevance, Risks, Rewards, Roadblocks and Repeat. The employees are to be motivated and encouraged to identify reasons to quit smoking that have personal relevance. The employees would then be advised on the harmful effects to both smokers and non-smokers due to exposure to smoking. Rewards are to be decided upon for initiating behavior change within a set time. The barriers to cessation are to be explored that an employee might encounter. Lastly, the five R’s are to be included in the next contact with an unmotivated individual.
The goal of the health management program for smoking would be to reduce the incidence of smoking in the workplace by 90% within a span of six months. The objective would be to motivate employees and support them to quit smoking in the workplace in a gradual manner over the set time frame.
A needs assessment is to be carried out prior to the initiation of the program. To make sure that the program meets the needs of the employees, it would be crucial to carry out a needs assessment, information collected from which would guide in supporting the program. The assessment is to be carried out through a survey. The focus would need to be on the number of employees currently smoking or ex-smokers; the motivation level of the employees, the preferred methods from smoking cessation and the barriers preventing them. The needs assessment would reveal the level of motivation which would denote the stage of change the employees are at.
Conceptualization of the behavior change can be done into five progressive stages. It is important that the employee is at any one of the five stages of smoking cessation process. These are precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. Precontemplation relates to no intention of taking action within the foreseeable future. Contemplation refers to the stage where interest to quit smoking is shown within the next six months. Preparation relates to planning to take action within the next month. Action would refer to active change behavior after the set time frame and maintenance would be denoted by more than six months after change in behavior (Wang et al., 2018).
Engagement of stakeholders and effective communication would be critical for ensuring the effectiveness of the program. The workplace stakeholders are to be engaged for embedding diverse perspectives into the program and ensure that the concerns of the employees are heard. Engagement of employees would initiate with the participation in the needs assessment. The managers are to be engaged through the planning, implementation and evaluation process to understand that the program is responsive to the needs of the employees. It is recommended that a stop smoking program committee is formed with representatives from all levels of stakeholders in the setting. Input might also be achieved through health and safety committees of other organizations where similar program has been implemented (Hausherr et al., 2017). Communication is a cornerstone of the success of the program once it has been established. The utility of the program is to be profoundly communicated to engender a strong interest and inspire employee to participate (Asfar et al., 2018).
Monitoring of the success of the program would be essential to highlight the future needs in regards to bringing changes in the program. Monitoring would be done by to assess whether smoking rates among employees at the workplace have changed for the better or not. Data collection is to be done on regular basis for a period of six months. Measurement of smoking rates is to be done quantitatively with the help of feedback received from employees (Egelhoff et al., 2015). Evaluation of the success of the program does not have to be a complicated process. A survey would act as the evaluation tool for gathering information about the program. The survey would have a questionnaire with close-ended as well as open-ended questions, the response of which is to be analyzed. Cahil and Lancaster (2014) indicated that for evaluating a program’s performance, the questions included in the survey are to indicate the qualities of the program’s outcome, the activities needed for accomplishing the outcome, and the indicators of progress. The proposed survey questionnaire would therefore focus on the employee’s perspectives about the goal of the employee at the time of joining the program; the present status of smoking; the level of motivation after the program to quit smoking; the useful part of the program; suggestions for the program and eagerness to recommend the program to others (Hannon et al., 2017).
Conclusion
Smoking is a significant occupational health hazard, the risks associated with which are multidimensional. Such health hazards develop over a considerable time frame due to workplace conditions. A health program would be essential to address this concern and reduce exposure to tobacco smoke in the workplace. Counseling sessions would be the cornerstone of the program wherein the idea would be to provide necessary resources and motivation so that smoking cessation is a process undertaken in a smooth manner. Mental and physical wellbeing of the individuals would be the prime focus. Stakeholder engagement is of prime importance in this regard as support is needed at the maximum. Communicating the program at all levels would ensure optimal participation. Evaluation of the effectiveness of the program is to be done through the help of a survey. The input gathered from the survey would be critical to understand the need of future development in this domain.
References
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