The Role of Organizational Culture on the Management of Occupational Safety and Health - Coursework Example

Taking into account current theories and research on organizational culture and climate, critically appraise the role of organizational culture on the management of occupational safety and health. Any organized human activity, which is done in-group, will be most times constituted into structure called organization. So, Organization is a ‘structure’ with a ‘collage’ of workers doing their allocated work under the supervision of a leader, for the benefit of the organization as well as them. This team of workers like the five different fingers in one’s hand will be different from one another having different characters, attitudes, education, background etc, etc…and the unison of these different humans under a single organization to reach a target is, and will always be a difficult proposition. As these different humans could only create a different working culture, the success rate will be minimal. And, if a common working culture, if correctly said, the perfect, feasible and winnable working culture is ‘operationalised’, through out the organization, the organization will be a success story. And, the script for this success story can only be scripted, by an effective leader. That is, leaders can only actualize an organizational culture and with it other associated culture or practices like quality culture, culture of time management, disciplined base culture and importantly safety culture. Safety culture in the sense, the organization and its leader as part of the organizational culture should incorporate occupational safety and health. So, this paper taking into account current theories and research on organizational culture and leaders’ role in it will critically appraise the role of organizational culture on the management of occupational safety and health. Discussion of culture and climate One of the important first tasks of a leader in an organization is the creation of a Culture. That is, the task of the leader is to create a working culture, embed the working culture in the working group and environment, sustain it and also rectify it, when faults occur. According to Edgar Schein (2004, p.17), “The culture of a group can now be defined as a pattern of shared basic assumptions that was learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems”. So, apart from policy formulation and decision-making, it becomes all more important to look at the other side of the leader, in culture creation. The leader, who as a founder of an organization need to create a culture, then as a managing director or CEO of an organization need to manage and implement the culture, and then as a wise creator of a culture tune it, according to the needs of the situation. Normally, Culture is created by shared experience of the group working, but it is the leader who initiates this process by imposing his or her beliefs, values, and assumptions at the outset. That is, instead of restating the existing organizational culture, it would be better and optimum if the leader creates, his/her own according to the needs of the organization and importantly employees. “Organizational cultural interventions involve more than simply restating values, beliefs, or norms and communicating them to individuals. Cultural changes involve a complex process of replacing an existing paradigm or way of thinking with another.” (DeSimone, Werner & Harris, 2002, p. 594). The leadership plus cultural theories of Max Weber brought out three types of leaders - bureaucratic, charismatic and traditional. In all these three leadership type, Weber believed imposition of ones’ assumptions will form into an organizational culture. That is, when the apt employees are recruited, it is the duty of the leader of the organization to impose his/hers assumptions, ideas, principles, etc on the employees and thereby form an organizational culture including the safety culture. As leaders are the man in lead, they usually have a major impact on how the group initially defines and sets into an organization. Typically, the leaders have strong assumptions about the nature of the world, the role that organizations play in that world, the characteristics that make up human nature and relationships, how truth is arrived at, and also how to manage the health of the people around him/ her. (Schein, 1978, 1983). They will, therefore, be quite comfortable in imposing those views and personal cultures, on their partners and employees as the organization copes with challenges and targets. This imposition of founder’s assumptions, as a form of good culture is one of the good leadership traits, because as the individuals mind will be fresh in their new organizational setup and also as their mind will be willing to make a good beginning, the new culture could be easily adopted. Also, as the safety culture is only for the benefit of the employees, they will be quite ready to follow their leaders’ assumptions. “Leadership focuses on developing corporate culture and human capability, patiently building trust and emotional commitment to the company through teamwork and communication.” (Beer and Nohria 2000). But, in some organizations, the challenge to this imposition of a new culture will come in the form of experienced workers who will be slugging out in the same job in the same environment, importantly in the same mindset for years and changing them to accept the new effective assumptions and work culture will be difficult. In that case also, the leaders should play an effective and influencing role. That is, the leaders should speak to those experienced personnel in a personal way and try to convince them about the positive effects of the common culture. “The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority” (Blanchard). But, even then, they refuse to change and form a group of their own with separate culture, the leader should show their authority and weeds out these individuals. That is, the workers should be given the space and freedom to think and act in a way that could benefit the company, but at the same time should be controlled and disciplined by the leader, if that thought process and action is detrimental to the organizational culture. They got the right people on the bus, moved the wrong people off, ushered the right people to the right seats - and then they figured out where to drive it” (Collins 2007). So, leaders should need to show decisiveness in appropriate cases, when the employee becomes too lazy, self-seeking, troublemaker and having many bad attributes. In those cases, the decisiveness can be outputted, by firing them or suspending them from the organization. The organization would do well without these individuals.” Executives owe it to the organization and to their fellow workers not to tolerate non performing individuals in important jobs” (Drucker). According to the theories of Daniel Goleman, Emotional intelligence will be exhibited by individuals who have a matured and motivated mind. So, one of the important aspects of emotional intelligence is the increased level of motivation. That is, only if the motivation of employees reaches good levels, he/she will have good emotional intelligence. So, a motivated individual will only be called as emotionally intelligent. The mind of the worker is the crucial thing that will make an organization work and so measures should be taken by the leader to protect and motivate the mind, as part of the safety and health based regulations. Biologically, it is mind of the worker, which will make the worker ‘work’. That is, only if the mind of the worker is filled with positive thought process, it will get motivated and make mental as well physical organs work for the benefit of the organization. The motivated mind will only ‘configure’ the mind as well as the physical body, to function in an optimum way or even ‘push’ them in a maximum way to derive beneficial outputs for the workers themselves as well as the organization. So, the leaders by providing comfortable, stress free and safe working environment to the employees as part of the organizational culture, can optimize the functioning and productivity of the employees Influence on Occupational Health and Safety Management Employees’ physical and mental health could be threatened by various industrial injuries as well as unfavourable mental pressures. Every environment, which involves physical and mental activity, can also be the stage for physical injuries as well as mental stress. The working environment is no exception. Even though, physical and mental activities outputs in the form of profit for the organization and also the individuals, it sometimes results in problems or tragedies. So, if organizations and importantly its leader as part of the organizational culture and the associated safety culture incorporate apt safety and health regulations, it can protect and optimize the physical and mental condition of the workers. In other words, a ‘safe’ organization—results from the constant engineering of diverse elements - for example, skills, materials, relations, and communications. (Gherhardi and Nicolini 2002). Firstly, the organizational leaders should implement a system of inspections and investigations regarding the health and safety aspects. That is, after incorporating safety aspects and safety culture as part of the organizational culture, the leaders should implement a system in which the employees are inspected whether they are following the safety cultures. But, some employees within the organization forming a group among themselves will try to override the regulations using their dubious clouts. They will sometimes be supported by lobbies, who don’t want those safety regulations. That is, as those lobbies will have extraneous reasons, they block those regulations through the in-house workers. “Powerful business lobbies have indeed been using their influence to try to bring about changes and regulation… these efforts have been directed not towards providing greater protection for workers—but at diluting or removing measures which opponents routinely describe as constituting a ‘burden on business” (Bain 1997). In those cases, the grouping of workers in the form of trade unions and importantly as groups with separate organizational culture should be countered at the outset. This is because apart from not following the regulations themselves, these groups of workers will also prevent the other employees from following the regulations. “For many trade unionists, health and safety had become an extension of collective bargaining.” (Beck and Woolfson 2000). So, the leaders by actualizing an organizational culture with safety culture, should implement a system of inspections of safety regulation to safely manage the organizations. The resultant safety regulations that can be implemented will surely have positive spin-off in the total functioning of the organizations, as it will prevent illness, injuries, etc. That is, the system of inspections will push the employees to follow and maintain the safety measures. “Increasing evidence of employers and governments promoting and implementing policies and practices designed to reduce the horrendous toll of illness, injury, disease and death” (Bain 1997). As discussed above, an important function of leader, as part of implementing a common organization culture, is to optimally motivate the employees by providing them comfortable, stress free and safe working conditions. To provide such kind of optimal environment, the leader should set safety regulations to prevent or even reduce the stress levels of the employees. With stressed and less motivated mind, the employees will be hard-pressed to use his/hers physical and mental part, to work effectively for the organization. Stressed mind in the sense, due to the poor match between work load and the capabilities, resources etc of the worker, the mind of the worker could be become disoriented leading to the damaging of workers biological, psychological or social systems. They could even indulge in aggressive or even violent actions. The issue of work related violence is one of the increasing concerns for the employees, who can suffer from pain and distress (Boyd 2002). So, the stress levels of the employees should be kept at bare minimum by the leader for the benefit of the employees. Leaders should be able to identify a range of signs that to them indicated that people in their organization were under stress (Dewe and O’Driscoll ). The option of giving more rest and spaced out holidays for physically and mentally stressed out workers to increase their concentration and motivation level is a feasible, which can be incorporated as part of safety regulations and culture. The workers if given adequate rests will become re-energized and will be able to provide double the amount of work both quantity wise as well as quality wise. Also, the designs of the organizational infrastructure should be modified as part of the safety culture to improve the mental attitude of the workers and thereby minimize their stress levels and violent streaks. “ Overcrowded, poorly ventilated, dirty and noisy premises experience higher rates of violence than do those which exhibit good physical design features” (Homel and Clark 1994). “The quality of work and the living conditions of workers play an even more important role to bring about health-promotive changes at the workplace (Chu and Simpson 1994). Conclusion Any organization and also its leader should not stagnate and saturate, and should continue to develop further. Schein (2004, p.418) pushes forward this idea by stating “that the leader of the future must be a perpetual learner”. Perpetual learner in the sense, the leader should learn new levels of perception for running an organization particularly in the sphere of safety. That is, leaders by actualizing a common organizational culture and incorporating the safety culture with it, can provide the employees safe and healthy working environment. In that safe and healthy environment only, employees can perform optimally. Unison of workers with an urge to usher an organization into top echelons will be successful, if the leader creates a perfect organizational culture. If a perfect organizational culture with apt safety culture is created, the organization would have a ubiquitous presence all over the world. References Bain, P, 1997, Human Resource Malpractice: the deregulation of health and safety at work in the USA & Britain, Industrial Relations Journal. 28 (3). 176–191 Beer, M. & Nohria. N, 2000, Cracking the Code of Change. Harvard Business Review. May-June, 133-141. Beck, M. & Woolfson, C, 2000, The regulation of health and safety in Britain: from old Labour to new Labour, Industrial Relations Journal. 31 (1). 35-50. Blanchard, K, Leadership Quotes, viewed on November 28, 2008 http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_leadership.html Boyd, C, 2002, Customer Violence and employee health and safety. Work Employment and Society. 16 (1), 151-169. Chu, C. & Simpson, R, 1994, Conceptual issues in work site health promotion, viewed on November 28, 2008. www.ldb.org/whpr.htm Collins, J, 2001, Level 5 Leadership: The triumph of humility and fierce resolve, Harvard Business Review, Jan, 66-76 DeSimone, R.L., Werner, J. H., &Harris, D. M, 2002, Human resource development. Orlando: Harcourt College Publishers. Dewe, P. & O’Driscoll, M, 2002, Stress Management interventions: What do managers actually do? Personnel Review, 31(23). 143-165 Drucker, P, Inspirational Business Quotes, viewed on November 28, 2008 http://www.woopidoo.com/business_quotes/leadership-quotes.htm Gherhardi, S. and Nicolini, D, 2002, Learning the Trade: A Culture of Safety in Practice, Organization, 9 (2), 191-223 Homel. R and Clark. J, 1994, The prediction of violence in pubs and clubs, Criminal Justice Press. 3: 1-46 Schein, E. H, 1978, Career dynamics: Matching individual and organizational needs. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Schein, E. H, 1983, The role of the founder in creating organizational culture, Organizational Dynamics. Summer, 13–28. Schein, E. H, 2004, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd. ed, Jossey-Bass. Read More