Safety Issues Faced By Employees In Rio Tinto: A Research Report

Management Problem

Discuss about the Business for Mining and Metals Organization.

Rio Tinto, the mining and metals organization in Australia has been gaining controversies around the globe regarding the employees that had been facing issues in health and safety. Although, the company states that the safety and health accounts for utmost priority but with according to annual reports and news, the company has been hiring casual labour hire that has been affecting job security and discouraging workers while bringing up the safety issues. The issues for the existing employees have been worsened, as they are not getting treatment as the new workers, which is directly affecting their health and safety (Hangemann 2015).

Overall, the safety issues is a concern that is being raised by the employees and is indirectly impacting the production and the fear of leading to accidents due to sickening conditions of the employees (Nkosi 2015).

The health management problem highlighted in the report is due to the employees that are working in Rio Tinto (industriall-union.org 2015). As per the recent discussion, the health management problem in Rio Tinto is not only creating a degrading effect on the company but is also impacting the workforce of the company as raising a safety issue is a dangerous trend. This bad outcome for workers is not only bad for their health regarding being exposed to occupational disease or illness but also creates substantial impact on the wellbeing of the family as well as the organization (Scott and Grayson 2011).

The research questions that highlight the research report can be given as:

1. What is the perception of employees on the health and safety issues being faced in Rio Tinto?
2. How worsening conditions of employees working in hazardous environments have been resulting on the level of production and performance of Rio Tinto?
3. What are the possible challenges faced by Rio Tinto in the problem of health and safety management?

The research program carried out in the research is based on quantitative as well as qualitative research based on the questionnaire that has been given to the employees of Rio Tinto. The questionnaire carried out incorporates questionnaire style of open ended as well as close-ended questions. The close-ended questions are based on five point Likert Scale whereas open-ended questions are unstructured in nature (Agumba 2014). On the other hand, a quantitative as well as qualitative study will be suited for the research in understanding the nature and outlook of the plight of the employees. The research holds positivism as well as interpretivism philosophy on the primary as well as secondary data respectively.

The data collection method is of two types that is primary and secondary method. However, the collection method undertaken in the research is primary data collection method to define systematically the decision making process (Zikmund et al. 2013). The primary data has been studied using the questionnaire strategy based on the data gathered from the employees. The primary data is the first hand research done as fresh in the research. Although, the study has been analysing 50 employees of Rio Tinto working as coal miners for quantitative research and analysing 5 senior employees for qualitative approach.

Research Question

The plan for the report is based on two methods that is quantitative and qualitative method. The research is based on 50 employees of the Rio Tinto based on primary and secondary data. The survey questionnaire will be distributed among the employees based on convenience sampling. However, the analyses undertaken holds to be important in evaluating a general viewpoint on the health and safety issues followed by qualitative research that will help the report in bringing out the impact of the health and safety management status of the organization. The quantitative results gathered will be studied using Excel on the Likert Scale (Khalid, Abdullah and Kumar 2012).

The results and findings of the task can be evaluated based on the quantitative and qualitative questionnaire undertaken.

According to the questions, it has been seen that Rio Tinto has been differentiating between its hire of casual labour which is impacting the condition of the existing employees as given by the bar chart which shows that 14 of the 50 employees “strongly agree” for the distinction done at the workplace regarding health and management issues.

Figure 1: Healthy and Safety Management Policies

Source: (Created by Author)

On the other hand, the management actions provided does create a stronger effect but remains negligible with the effects on the employees who are a part of Rio Tinto from a long time. The management actions are devoid of any motivation to the existing employees relating to safety issues.

Figure 2: Management Actions

Source: (Created by Author)

Conversely, the challenge undertaken by Rio Tinto in providing effective policy largely has been affected employee whether in performance or production. There is lot of variability as the employees are not happy with the treatment given by the organization, Rio Tinto being one of the global market share in metal and mining company.

Figure 3: Healthy and Safety Management

Source: (Created by Author)

The qualitative study done of 5 employees have been undertaken on two questions. Firstly, the employees are of the view that health and safety policy provided by the organization is to meet the employee’s demand but due to influx of new employees, the attention has been shifted. Moreover, more skilled labourers in the mining industry; less preference would be given to years old employees as well. As a result, the employees are devoid of proper health and safety policies and continue to work as it is. One of the employees who is a new employee seems to be satisfied as he is given proper care with his family in event of accident or any safety related issue.

Research Program

Secondly, the possible challenges faced by Rio Tinto in event of health and safety management issues is that it may lose its old yet efficient workers. Moreover, there may be a strike against their operations. In addition, there loss of any worker due to health issue can deteriorate the production as well as the reputation of the company and can possible result in havoc. The competitors will have a fourfold advantage in hiring our workers from the field through additional money.

The possible recommendation for the study is that the methodology of the research carried out should be based on the large sample of employees, as this sample will not be able to justify the result. Moreover, the use of qualitative research in the questionnaire can give bias results as the employees might consult their responses. In additional, the use of unstructured interview can be a way in which the result can be beneficial (Walliman 2015).

The management problem can be managed if the existing employees are also given proper advantage regarding the issue and no new employee is treated preferably with extra advantages. Moreover, all the employees needs to perform the task with efficient results in a way that in event of fatal accidents and occupational hazards, every employee should motivate and build confidence with others that will in a way will increase the production and the management will change the outlook of the existing employees (Ewekoro and Felix 2012).

Conclusion

To conclude, it can be said that the report highlight the management problem in the health and safety issues as there is differentiation created in the new casual labour hired with the motive of increase motivation. As a result the existing employees of Rio Tinto ate lacking motivation, support, guide to any issue, and are not being properly taken care of. The report carried the work on primary data collection method using qualitative and quantitative method. However, the research has future scope as it can be help in analysing the issue in depth. 

References

Agumba, J.N., 2014. Quantitative and qualitative approach of validating and identifying health and safety performance improvement indicators: experience of using Delphi technique. ICESS.

Ewekoro, L.W.P. and Felix, B.O., 2012. Effects of Organizational Health And Safety Policies On Employees ‘performance In.

Hangemann, B. 2015. Rio Tinto to face rehab and labour hire concerns at AGM | Australian Mining. Australianmining.com.au. Available at: https://www.australianmining.com.au/news/rio-tinto-to-face-rehab-and-labour-hire-concerns-at-agm/ [Accessed 27 Sep. 2016].

industriall-union.org. 2015. Rio Tinto: The Way it Really Works. Available at: https://www.industriall-union.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/Rio_Tinto_Campaign/pre-agm_handout_hires21.pdf [Accessed 27 Sep. 2016].

Khalid, K., Abdullah, H.H. and Kumar M, D., 2012. Get along with quantitative research process. International Journal of Research in Management.

Nkosi, L., 2015. Social impact of mining (Doctoral dissertation).

Scott, D. and Gray son, R. 2011. Selected Health Issues in Mining. cdc.gov. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/userfiles/works/pdfs/shiim.pdf [Accessed 27 Sep. 2016].

Walliman, N., 2015. Social Research Methods: The Essentials. Sage.

Zikmund, W.G., Babin, B.J., Carr, J.C. and Griffin, M., 2013. Business research methods. Cengage Learning.