Work Health And Safety Legislation Management: Strategies For Conflict Resolution And Employee Motivation

Employee Opinion in Decision Making

Discuss about the Work Health and Safety Legislation Management.

As discussed by Men (2014) employee satisfaction and motivation is a strategic requirement for the organizational management. A number of strategies are concerned with the issue of ensuring employee satisfaction. As mentioned by Kim and de Dear (2013) obtaining employee opinion before establishing any organizational decision is prerequisite for ensuring employee satisfaction and the motivation to carry out that decision from their end.

In this selected context, the major issue that took place is the lack of employees’ opinion in the decision making process of the new roster (Fernández-Muñiz, Montes-Peón and Vázquez-Ordás 2014). Employee roster is related to the issues like location, shift timing, assigned responsibilities, date of leaves and many other workplace related details. Now, it is important for the management to obtain prior opinion of the employees regarding their preferences of leave dates, working locations, shift timing and many more. As discussed by Hackman and Johnson (2013) communicating with the employees is significantly important in such cases.

In the provided case study, as a member of the management team I need to address and solve this conflict as early as possible because, this conflict is likely to affect the customer service of the restaurant. As mentioned by Vogelgesang, Leroy and Avolio (2013) to solve the workplace conflicts communicating with the conflicting units can be identified as the primary but the most effective approach. Here, to solve the dissatisfaction, I am going to arrange one to one meetings with the employees to obtain their opinions regarding the issues they are facing with the new roster. Moreover, I will convey them the cause of the new roster and how it is going to help the organization with personal meetings and group sessions.

On the other hand, as discussed by Bolman and Deal (2014) the organizational communication needs to be opened in both ways. Hence, I will discuss the concerns raised by the employees to the upper management and solve the issues the employees are facing now. Moreover, I will make a channel (a mail based feedback strategy) by which the employees will be able to raise their concerns regarding their workplace directly to the management team.

As mentioned by Mondy and Martocchio (2016) depending on the management or leadership styles, the managers differ in obtaining team performance, interpersonal relations and employee motivation level.

In the case of John, he is following the transformational management style in his way of leading the team. The leadership style of John deserves appreciation. As mentioned by Hassell, Crews and McLean (2016) the transformational leaders believe in leading by example and make active involvement in meeting the goals of the team. However, John is lacking the most significant criteria of a transformational leader by failing to communicate with his team members. As opined by Khanal et al. (2017) it is important for the leader to motivate the employees to meet the team goals by communicating with them. This lack of communication may make John suffer employee frustration and decreased group performance. Hence, John has to be open to his employees to address their concerns and motivate them for meeting the team goal, with the strategies like one to one meetings, group sessions, motivational speeches and experience sharing. Moreover, he needs to call for the opinions of the team members prior to make any decisions. Thus, he will be able to be a participative and transformational leader.

Conflict Resolution Strategies

In the case of Michelle, he is following the “Laissez-Faire” style of management. As mentioned by Enright (2014) the lack of leadership directions in the Laissez-Faire management style leads to lack of control over the team members. In the case of Michelle, he is facing the same issue of lack of control over the employees. Here, he needs to include certain rules of behaving and making managerial decisions. Though, the participatory pattern of decision making is increasing the employee involvement, but Michelle need to have the control on the final decision making process. It will increase the control of the manager over the team.

Maria follows the autocratic leadership style. As mentioned by Mondy and Martocchio (2016) her over control on the team is making the employees dissatisfied. Hence, she needs to opt for the strategy of transactional leadership and allow positive and negative reinforcements to the performers. It will increase the motivation of the team members and they will not opt for other jobs.

As mentioned by Enright (2014) to lead and motivate the employees for better performance setting example is the best approach. Hence, Sean needs to share his experience of success with the employees. By sharing his experience of struggle and success he will be able to motivate his employees to achieve further prosperity. In his memo, he needs to make the employees clear how the organizational success will prosper their personal and professional life.

This memo will make him introduce as an enthusiastic and interested leader to the employees. As mentioned by Bolman and Deal (2014) by clarifying the personal and professional growth opportunities the leaders can become able to create employee motivation. Thus, the memo is going to collect an increased level of employee motivation for Sean.

As Sean will be leader who makes direct involvement in the tasks for meeting the organizational goal. This will inspire the team members to act and change their loathing attitude towards the job.

As mentioned by Hackman and Johnson (2013) the trait theory advocates that a leader needs to be someone who possesses some qualities like dedication, honesty, enthusiasm and others. It creates a charismatic personality for the leader. On the other hand, as mentioned in the transformational leadership theory, a leader needs to have a vision for future, an inclination to innovation and the ability to make people believe on their dreams. Sean has the characteristics of both the leadership styles. Theses personal characteristics will help Sean to have a positive control over his team members, moreover, the administrative position will give him the authority to exercise his powers. Thus, as a manager he will have a great range of control and power.

Leadership and Management Styles

As discussed by Men (2014) for inspiring and motivating a team, providing skill development trainings, task allocations, regular feedbacks and maintaining two way communications are the prerequisites for the leader or trainer.

Here, in this selected case, I will arrange a group meeting with my team and make them aware about objectives and of the project and how the knowledge of the preparation for set menu in a restaurant is going to help them professionally. Prior to managing the team in the workplace, it will be clear to them what the project is all about.

On the job site, I will divide the job roles to each of the team members according to their skills. However, prior to this, I will ask for the preferences of my team for any job role and then make the roster. However, the team members will be made known if contraventions of their choices occur. On the other hand, I will set performance objectives for each of the team members and provide them regular feed back upon their progress level. As discussed by Bolman and Deal (2014) a clearly set performance goal helps the employees to focus on their job role. In addition to this, I will arrange regular workshops and trainings on the issues like how to manage a busy commercial kitchen, the strategy of time management, the safety requirements and cooking lesions. 

Moreover, I will lay a regular feedback policy which will be aimed to collect the concerns of the team members they are facing in the course of this particular project. As mentioned by Mondy and Martocchio (2016) this open communication channel will help me to eliminate issues those are bothering the members low down the frustration among the team members and increase productivity of the team. Moreover, I will follow the strategy of rewarding my team members for their achievement of the performance goals and any innovative contribution to the job. As mentioned by Kim and de Dear (2013) positive and negative reinforcement helps in maintaining employee motivation and commitment. Thus, I will be able to keep my team motivated and sustain the performance.

In the Australian set up, conforming to the workplace health and safety measures is the prerequisites for the organizations to avoid legal threats. Hence, in the selected training sessions the followings will be discussed:

The participants will make known about the guidelines of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, 1984 of Australia. As mentioned by Mondy and Martocchio (2016) the act provides the rights of knowing occupational threats, rejecting the unsafe tasks, the OHS guidelines of the organization and the participation in the OHS process. Hence, employees will be made known about the threat related to the restaurant operation like “Burns, Cuts/open wounds, Sprains/Strains and others” (Bolman and Deal 2014). Moreover, the employees will be made known about the organizational guidelines regarding handling of the products and equipments, cleanliness, contamination and weight lifting.

Motivating Employees

All the employees will be provided a safety manual and regular workshops will be arranged to make the employees updated to the changes in the OHS policies and their needs in maintain workplace safety.

The employees will be provided a suggestion form for obtaining idea from them in the context of creating an OHS policy for the organization. Moreover, employee survey will also be arranged to collect the view of the employees about the effectiveness of the OHS policy.

The employees will be made known how the organization is going to address the raised concern of the employees regarding the safety issues. Moreover, the organization will present the success rate of addressing the concern of the employees and show how the recent changes such as the regular employee training policy, installation of auto-cut appliances, provide work wear etc. are being helpful in addressing the employees’ concerns.

For reporting the concerns identified by the employees, they will be provided a separate mail ID handled by the management team to raise their OHS concerns.

For evaluating the effectiveness of this session, the participants will be provided a feedback form with criteria of rating the session. Moreover, the knowledge of the employees will be evaluated with on site observation. A “15 days observation session” will be arranged to identify the effectiveness of the training session.

For conducting this training, microphones, sitting arrangements, projectors and stationery products will be needed.

Hazard	Risks	Complaints	Actions required	Date of action
The electrical appliances	Short circuit	Yes	Installation of auto cut appliances	24/10/2016
Weight lifting	Health threat	No	Installation of carriages	1/1/2016
The sharp appliances	Health threat	Yes	Formation of first aid team	Not Yet

Figure: Action Plan

(Source: Bolman and Deal 2014)

The OHS policy of the company is successfully handling the OHS threats of the organization. In spite of the actions those have been taken for addressing the OHS issues, the company needs a team comprising of an emergency doctor and a dressing team for first aid requirements. Moreover, as mentioned by Mondy and Martocchio (2016) work place safety is both the legal and human rights concern for the organizations. Hence, the company needs to concentrate on this requirement with greater precession. Moreover, after the installation and policy formulation, the employees need to make known about the way of accessing the OHS services by the company. In addition to this, the feedbacks collected from the employees showing that, they do not have any channel or platform to raise their concerns regarding the occupational health and safety issues they are facing. It is only the periodical meetings that provide them the chance to raise their concerns. Hence, it is important to create a channel of information that will help them to raise their concern direct to the management.

Reference:

Bolman, L. and Deal, T., 2014. Leadership and management. Christian Youth Work in Theory and Practice: A Handbook, p.245.

Enright, P.T., 2014. Work Health & Safety legislation; the fire engineer’s neglected duty?. Case Studies in Fire Safety, 2, pp.1-8.

Fernández-Muñiz, B., Montes-Peón, J.M. and Vázquez-Ordás, C.J., 2014. Safety leadership, risk management and safety performance in Spanish firms. Safety science, 70, pp.295-307.

Hackman, M.Z. and Johnson, C.E., 2013. Leadership: A communication perspective. Waveland Press.

Hassell, L., Crews, K. and McLean, L., 2016. Human Resources (HR) Management. In Pathology Practice Management (pp. 161-178). Springer International Publishing.

Khanal, S., Lloyd, B., Rissel, C., Portors, C., Grunseit, A., Indig, D., Ibrahim, I. and McElduff, S., 2017. Evaluation of the implementation of Get Healthy at Work, a workplace health promotion program in New South Wales, Australia. Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 27(3), pp.243-250.

Kim, J. and de Dear, R., 2013. Workspace satisfaction: The privacy-communication trade-off in open-plan offices. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 36, pp.18-26.

Men, L.R., 2014. Strategic internal communication: Transformational leadership, communication channels, and employee satisfaction. Management Communication Quarterly, p.0893318914524536.

Mondy, R. and Martocchio, J.J., 2016. Human resource management. Human Resource Management, Global Edition.

Vogelgesang, G.R., Leroy, H. and Avolio, B.J., 2013. The mediating effects of leader integrity with transparency in communication and work engagement/performance. The Leadership Quarterly, 24(3), pp.405-413.