The Impact Of Health And Safety Procedures On Employee Turnover In BHP Billiton

Research Objectives

The BHP Billiton Company is located in Australia and is one of the largest producers of many minerals in the world.  Some of the minerals which the company produces are copper, Aluminium, iron, and manganese.   Since this is a mining company, there are many risks related to it and they affect the employees either direct or indirect. Some of the risks like UV rays may have long life effects to the employees and hence proper standards of safety should be put in place to ensure all the employees are safe so that they can carry out their duties well (De Villiers and Samkin, 2014).

This company has put up some safety measures like holding discussions with the employees to address the challenges they undergo during work. There are other measures which have also been put in place to ensure safety and smooth running of the company (Paul, 2016). This study will access all those safety standards and evaluate their impacts on the employees.

The main objective of this study is to access the safety standards set up by the BHP Billiton Company to safeguard the employees. The following are the other objectives of the study.

1. To access how the set standards affect the employees turn out.
2. To evaluate if the set standards are enough for the safety of the employees.
3. To determine if the employees are contented with the set standards.
4. To investigate if the employees are willing to continue working with the company under those set standards or they need improvement.

The following are the research questions which will be answered by this study.

1. What standards has BHP Billiton set to safeguard its employees?
2. Do those set standards affect the employees turn out?
3. Are the set standards enough for the safety of the employees?
4. Are the employees contented with the set standards?
5. Are the employees willing to continue working under those set standards?

Safety is well defined as a condition of security which makes one to able to avoid danger or injury (De Boever et al., 2014). This condition is very important to every person and one feels good when he or she realizes that is secure. In Business, safety is defined as the state whereby a producer meets all the required specifications of production. Also, safety can be defined based on organizations whereby the organizations lay out strategies to secure its staff. There are many types of safety. The following paragraph will discuss those types of safety.

One of the types of safety is called the normative safety. This type of safety is met when a producer meets all the set specifications during the production of a product (Zhang et al., 2013). Another type of safety is called perceived safety and this refers to the level of comfortability by the user when using a given product. This type of safety is also applicable to employees since it measures their level of comfort on the standards set in the organization to ensure they are secure (Kharchenko et al., 2014). These two types of safety are very important in any institution because they are the main determinants of employee’s attitude towards those organizations or companies.

Many mining company employees undergo different challenges while in their work. One of the main challenges the employees undergo is dust inhalation (Chakraborti et al., 2013).  Many employees in the mines are not given enough protective devices to prevent them from inhaling dust and hence they end up suffering from dust related diseases like black lung (Dawson and McLean, 2013). Another problem those employees undergo is noise. Mining places are very noise and the employees who work in those mines if they are not given devices to prevent them from the noise they end with damaged ear drums and this can lead to permanent deafness (Miserendino et al., 2013). Also, the employees face a challenge of UV exposure. This UV rays have longtime effects and can make one suffer from cancer and other related diseases (Xu et al., 2013). Employees who are not given safety devices to prevent them from this rays end up suffering from those diseases.

Research Questions

 Many governments set up mining rules and regulations which are basically designed to safeguard the employees of the mining companies (Dupuy, 2014). The following are some of the objectives of those rules. Safeguarding the employees from the dangerous environment which many affect them negatively during the process of mining. Also, advocating for the rights of the employees to ensure that they are paid in time and that their wages are not misused on things which are not important and which cannot help them (Manowska et al., 2017). Another objective is to ensure that all employees and employers have a neutral ground where they can base arguments and agree upon so as to avoid strikes. All these rules are drafted and are found in the constitutions of different countries which practice mining all over the world.

Underground mining is one of the main methods of mining and which is used by many companies to mine minerals which are found deep on the earth’s surface. This type of mining has many advantages and many disadvantages based on the type of safety measures taken to ensure the miners are safe. The underground mining utilizes land since it is only carried underground and the land above is not affected (Brady and brown, 2013). It also does not destruct forests like opencast mining hence it very economical and environment friendly (Brady and Brown, 2013).  However, this type of mining also has some disadvantages. One of the main disadvantages is its danger to the miners. Those employees who work as miners using underground mining method are exposed to toxic gases and the wall can collapse anytime hence posing a great danger to the workers (Bahn, 2013). Another disadvantage of this method is its high cost in terms of implementation.

Since this study will be based on the company BHP Billiton, it is important to study the company under the literature review. The company BHP Billiton started in 2001 after two companies merged to form it. It is one of the largest mining companies in the world and it more than one hundred thousand workers and operates in more than twenty countries in the world (Mayes et al., 2014). The headquarters of this company is in Australia but it has different administration offices in different parts of the world.  The company is a leading producer of different minerals in the world. The following are some of the minerals; aluminium, copper, manganese, iron, uranium among others. These minerals are mined in different parts of the world. The following paragraph will outline mining of different minerals by the company across the world.

The first mineral to be discussed is Aluminium.  The company is the seventh leading producer of aluminium in the world (Floris et al., 2013). The operations which are carried on aluminum by the company include the smelting of the aluminum metal among others. The assets of the company in terms of aluminum are found in Brazil, Australia, Mozambique, and South Africa.  Australia has the largest percentage of Aluminium assets. The Assets of uranium are only found in Australia. All the other minerals are found in different parts of the world and the company operates in those countries. The operations of this company are very successful around the globe and hence many studies related to mining have been based in the company. Also, that is one of the motivating factors which led this study to be based on the company.

Literature Review

The company ensures that its entire staff is paid in time and that motivates the workers and hence works more and more leading to the success of the company. Also, many of the employees say that the staff is very friendly and they promote employees often. This is based on the good culture of the company and hence many people are willing to work with the company. The payments are also good.

There are many challenges which the company faces in its operations across the globe. One of the main challenges is poor infrastructure. Some parts have poor roads and even lack railways. The operations of the company in those areas are very hard and it makes it very hard to transport the minerals hence leading to high costs of transport. The high costs reduce the profits of the company.

Another challenge which the company faces is insecurity. Some parts have hot beds of terrorism and the employees are not willing to work in that area hence that makes very hard for the company to convince them and go to work in those areas. Lack of employees in those areas leads to a loss and hence the company is faced with the challenge of its operation.

Another challenge is mismanagement in some parts whereby the staff sends in those areas either steal from the company or they become corrupt and hence reduce the competence of the company in the globe.  There are other many challenges which the company also faces like climate change and hostile weather which does not allow mining.

The company is composed of two companies which operate under one umbrella. The two companies are run by a unified board of directors and hence it operates as just one company. That operation portfolio allows the company to operate in many parts of the world.  The company is run under some other branches which allow it very simple to operate all over the more than twenty-five countries in the world. It has assets in many parts of the world.

The company uses technology in its operations and hence making it a technology company. The technology helps it to run effectively its operations and to pay workers in time. This allows the development and great success in the company. The main management is based in Australia and that is where directions on how to operate come from and then they are passed on in the other parts where the company has operations.

The global functions of the company are coordinated by the board of governance that is tasked with ensuring that the company is run in an effective manner. The board of governance ensures that all the activities run smoothly in different parts of the world and hence making the company successful. They are also responsible for the drafting of the company’s constitution and also for the review of the same constitution.

The high cooperation in the company ensures its success and hence this study is based on it to access the gaps which need further research and the challenges which still the company undergoes. The findings of the study will make it possible to make the necessary changes to all mining companies and hence boost business through job creation. Also, the economy will grow globally if the recommendations are put in place.

History of BHP Billiton

Data analysis deals with the description of the methods applied in carrying out the research. It describes the research design, target population, sampling techniques, the instruments which will be used to collect data, data collection procedures and data analysis.

This research will be a quantitative research. Quantitative research is defined as an empirical investigation whose aim is to respond to a claim by use of scientific methods and statistical tools (Neuman and Robson, 2014). This type of research has twelve parts. The following is a discussion of the twelve parts included in the research.

The first part is the identification of the problem or the issue to investigate. In this step, the researcher comes up with a problem which needs to be researched upon. The problem should be researchable and should allow for the collection of empirical data (Davies and Hughes, 2014). The following step is the definition of the purpose of the research. In this step the researcher explains well the reason why he or she intends to carry out the research and how will it be helpful and to whom will it help. The next step is coming up with objectives of the research where by the researcher explains well the objectives to be met after the research is carried out.

There follows the step of literature review. In this step, the researcher revisits the already existing literature of the topic under study. He or she identifies the gaps in that literature and areas which need further research. This step is very important because it makes the researcher have a solid background about the topic under study.

Then it follows the step of hypothesis formulation whereby the researcher comes up the hypothesis to be tested by the collected data.  The hypothesis is designed in line with the set objectives. Then it follows the step of coming up with the research design which will be used to carry out the research. The next step is selection of the sample and the process of data collection. In this two steps the researcher selects a sample to be included in the study by use of he selected sampling procedure and then collects data from the sample. Then it follows the step of data analysis. During data analysis, the researcher analyzes the collected data to get insights from it. The next step is communication of the findings and recommendations.

A research design is a conceptual framework within which the research is conducted and contains a blue print for the methods of data collections and analysis (Mackey and Gass, 2015). This research will use secondary data which has been retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/274234/number-of-employees-at-bhp-billiton-by-region/ . This data displays the number of employees either male or female of BHP Billiton from the year 2012 to 2017.

The target population will be the number of employees per year from different regions where the company operates. This data of employees will be a secondary data and it will be analyzed to access the rate of change of number of employees per annum.

Security measures BHP Company takes to its employees

Sampling method is the procedure used to collect data for any study. This study will not use any sampling method since it will rely on secondary data which does not want to be collected since it is already available. The data will be acquired from a secondary source which gives the number of employees per region from the year 2012 to the year 2017.

The study will use secondary data and hence there will be no instruments of data collection. This is because secondary data is readily available.

I will seek permission from Statistica Company to obtain secondary data from their site. This data will include the number of employees of the BHP Billiton Company from the year 2012 up to date.  

Data analysis is the process of bringing order and meaning in a mass of collected data (Gelman et al., 2014). The study will use secondary data from the statistica company. Analysis will be done by the use of SPSS software to transform the data in to information and get insights.

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics
	N	Minimum	Maximum	Mean	Std. Deviation
Australia	6	10100	15906	12545.67	1953.053
southamerica	6	9000	17829	11649.67	3241.999
Africa	6	8900	15876	12679.67	2498.010
northamerica	6	7432	13500	11072.00	2120.355
Europe	6	10000	15678	13139.00	2034.173
asia	6	6700	17890	13326.00	3833.430
Valid N (listwise)	6

Descriptive statistics from the six regions are shown in table one. It is evident that Asia region had the highest number of employees for the period of five years with a mean of 13326. It was followed by Europe which had a mean number of employees as 13139 and then followed by Africa with 12679. Australia followed with a mean of 12545 and South America had a mean of 11649. The region which had the smallest number of employees was North America with only 11072 for the five years.

Table 2

Correlations
	australia	southamerica	africa	northamerica	europe	asia
Australia	Pearson Correlation	1	-.128	.300	-.602	.342	.480
Sig. (2-tailed)		.808	.564	.206	.508	.335
N	6	6	6	6	6	6
southamerica	Pearson Correlation	-.128	1	.044	.522	-.384	.038
Sig. (2-tailed)	.808		.934	.288	.452	.943
N	6	6	6	6	6	6
Africa	Pearson Correlation	.300	.044	1	-.143	-.278	.902*
Sig. (2-tailed)	.564	.934		.787	.594	.014
N	6	6	6	6	6	6
northamerica	Pearson Correlation	-.602	.522	-.143	1	-.709	-.042
Sig. (2-tailed)	.206	.288	.787		.115	.937
N	6	6	6	6	6	6
Europe	Pearson Correlation	.342	-.384	-.278	-.709	1	-.201
Sig. (2-tailed)	.508	.452	.594	.115		.702
N	6	6	6	6	6	6
asia	Pearson Correlation	.480	.038	.902*	-.042	-.201	1
Sig. (2-tailed)	.335	.943	.014	.937	.702
N	6	6	6	6	6	6
*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

It was evident that from the correlation matrix, the number of employees was not significantly related from the workers form all the other regions that is South America, Africa, North America, Europe and Asia. The P values from the five regions in relation to Australia were as follows 0.8, 0.6, 0.2, 0.5, and 0.4.  All of them were not significant hence the meaning there were no relationship. Also the number of workers from South America was not significantly related from the number of workers in the other remaining four regions. The remaining four regions were Africa, North America, Europe and Asia with P values of 0.9, 0.2, 0.5 and 0.9 respectively. All this P values were not significant hence making the relationship non-significant.  Africa had no correlation with two regions that is North America and Europe with P values of 0.8 and 0.6 respectively. However, there was a strong relationship between number of workers in Asia and Africa with a P value of 0.1 which was very significant.

1. Australia

Coefficientsa
Model	Unstandardized Coefficients	Standardized Coefficients	t	Sig.
B	Std. Error	Beta
1	(Constant)	2006.413	4.489		446.930	.000
australia	.001	.000	.673	1.819	.143
a. Dependent Variable: year

There was no relationship exhibited from simple linear regression for the five years data and hence the data could not be used to design a model of prediction.   The P value P< 0.1 was not significant and hence could not be used for creating a prediction model.

1. South America

Coefficientsa
Model	Unstandardized Coefficients	Standardized Coefficients	t	Sig.
B	Std. Error	Beta
1	(Constant)	2016.359	3.333		605.014	.000
southamerica	.000	.000	-.277	-.576	.596
a. Dependent Variable: year

Also there was no any relationship for the data used to compare the number of employees for the five years in South America. The P value P < 0.6 was not significant; hence the data could not be used to make any model of prediction.

Challenges faced by the company

3. Africa
Model	Unstandardized Coefficients	Standardized Coefficients	t	Sig.
B	Std. Error	Beta
1	(Constant)	2009.876	4.214		477.000	.000
africa	.000	.000	.487	1.115	.327
There was also no significant relationship for the data from Africa with P values of p<0.3 which was not significant hence the data could be used to make a model for prediction. 4. North America, Asia and Europe

Coefficientsa
Model	Unstandardized Coefficients	Standardized Coefficients	t	Sig.
B	Std. Error	Beta
1	(Constant)	2022.932	2.504		807.962	.000
northamerica	-.001	.000	-.863	-3.419	.027
a. Dependent Variable: year

Coefficientsa
Model	Unstandardized Coefficients	Standardized Coefficients	t	Sig.
B	Std. Error	Beta
1	(Constant)	2011.603	3.010		668.312	.000
asia	.000	.000	.445	.995	.376

Discussion

From the data analysis it was evident that the different regions data was not related at all. This could be due to different factors.  For any growing company, holding all the other factors constant, the number of employees should linear and should be able to predict the future of the company. However that is not the case with this study hence that means the uncorrelated data of the workers may be caused by the safety measures. In different regions, the number of employees keep decreasing hence raising a concern about the reason behind that.  Many workers may not be interested to work with the company hence contributing to their decrease.

The descriptive statistics also show that for the five years the growth of the number of workers was very low. This means that many people may not be willing to work with the company hence the low growth rate of workers.  This can only be caused by either the violation of the workers’ rights or the failure of the company to keep high standard safety measures for the workers.

Also, due to the low growth of workforce the data to some point exhibits a negative correlation even though the correlation is not significant. This means that with time the number of employees maybe reducing hence there is need for the company to carry out a research and know the cause.

Conclusion

This section will address the aim of the research questions, limitations of the study and the recommendations.

Aims of the research questions

The aim of all the research questions of this study was to evaluate the impact of health and safety measure set by the company under study for its workers. It is evident that from the data analysis the safety measures may have negative impacts to employees. This is because there are a decreased number of workers and the growth rate of those workers is not significant. Due to this low growth rate, the workers may not be willing the company due to its set safety measures.

Limitation of the study

There are few limitations on this study. First the data used for analysis did not specify the number of female employees and male employees. This makes it very hard for the researcher to know the gender which has been affected negatively by the set safety standards. Also, there was limited time to carry out the study and hence the data was not analyzed exhaustively hence some important information may have been left.

Since it was evident that the set health and safety standards were not positively impacting the workers, it is important for the company to look for good ways on how to improve them. This can only be achieved if the company carries out a research to know why the standards are not favoring the employees. Also, the company should advocate for the rights of the employees and set a strategy on how to encourage them. These are the only ways which the company can have a positive workers growth rate.

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