OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY AS A DETERMINANT FOR EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY

1.1 Introduction

The concept of safety performance focuses on maintaining workplace safety through different interventions (Christian et al., 2009). These interventions are mainly considered safety behavior with coworkers while performing a job task (Huang et al., 2016). According to Townsend and Gebhardt (2006), positive behavior of employee’s engagement supports to share safety knowledge with coworkers. Furthermore, the performance of workplace safety is measured to minimize accidents and occupational injuries. A number of studies addressed that researchers need to point out the factors that lead to serious injuries and accidents and near misses in an organization (Zohar, 2010). According to Miller (2017), safety performance is also associated with an employee’s safety compliance and safety commitment in the workplace. While safety behavior indirectly supports the development of a safety culture and enhances safety performance (Grill et al., 2017).

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

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1.2 Background of Study

Labour is one of the vital resources required for high level productivity at both organizational and national level. Without labour, other factors of production like capital, machines and land may remain passive. This is so because it is labour that put other factors into effective use. Perhaps, this explains why labour is often held responsible for whatever goes wrong in the production process. Suffice it to say that without efficient labour, high level productivity particularly in the manufacturing sector may be elusive. It however requires a sound health and well safeguarded working environment to have an effective and efficient workforce that is highly productive and capable of accomplishing the corporate goals of organization.

In view of the central and critical role played by labour in the economic growth and survival of organizations, it becomes imperative for employer of labour especially in the organized private sector to ensure that the health and safety of their employees are given adequate attention.

It is however noteworthy that in Nigeria industrial relations practice, emphasis is placed almost exclusively on issues relating to the formation and functioning of trade unions, employers' association and the promotion and settlement of collective disputes, while the issues of safety and health of workers are relegated to the background and therefore regarded as peripheral to industrial relations practice (Yesufu, 2000).

The above perception of industrial relations practitioners in Nigeria is parochial because the issues of safety and health on the fundamental human element in the workplace, without which no organization or nation can grow or survive. For instance, the rate of industrial accident in an organization is often used as the index of its level of inefficiency; therefore, any organization which is prone to high industrial accident probably due to absence of adequate safety measure is likely to suffer high labour turnover, absenteeism, low productivity, high labour cost and reduced profitability.

In the same way, an organization that could not maintain the health of its workers is likely to face the problem of weak, feeble and unproductive workforce. It is therefore important that as a country advances in industrialization, issues of health and safety especially in the manufacturing sector, which is the real sector that determines the economic growth and development of a nation, should be given a priority. It is against this backdrop that this study investigated the influence of occupational health and safety on employee productivity in manufacturing sector in Ogun State, Nigeria.

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1.3 Statement of Problems

It has been observed that majority of workers m the manufacturing sector are daily exposed to diverse occupational health and safety hazards. This has impaired their health status and adversely affected their productive capacity. In the same vein, their prunes to industrial accidents had equally incapacitated physically some of the factory workers, which in turn had caused a decline in their level of productivity. Therefore, there is need to investigate empirically the relationship between occupational health and safety and employee's productivity in the manufacturing sector using NESTLE PLC, Agbara as a case study.

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1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to scrutinize the Occupational Health and Safety as a Determinant for Employee Productivity. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To find out the meaning of the concepts of occupational health and safety.
2. To examine the joint effect of occupational health and safety on employee's productivity.
3. To determine the relative effects of occupational health and safety on employee's productivity.
4. To offer suggestions on how occupational health and safety could be used to enhance employee's productivity.

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1.5 Research Questions

The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:

• What is occupational health and safety?
• What is the joint effect of occupational health and safety on employee's productivity?
• What is the relative effect of occupational health and safety on employee's productivity?
• What could be done to improve employee's productivity using occupational health and safety?

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1.6 Research Hypothesis

In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.

Hypothesis One

• H0: There is no significant relationship between occupational health and employee's productivity
• H1: There is significant relationship between occupational health and employee's productivity.

Hypothesis Two

• H0: There is no significant relationship between occupational safety and employee's productivity.
• H1: There is significant relationship between occupational safety and employee's productivity.

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1.7 Significance of Study

The findings of this study will help to ameliorate the debilitating working conditions of the factory workers.

Also, it will go a long way to enhance the performance of workers in the manufacturing sector. By extension, the economy generally will be boosted because manufacturing sector is the real sector of the economy.

In the same vein, the profitability of the organizations in the manufacturing sector would be augmented. This may lead to employment generation.

Again, the findings of this study will add to the existing knowledge in the area of occupational health and safety as it relates to employee's productivity.

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1.8 Scope of Study

The study focuses on the Occupational Health and Safety as a Determinant for Employee Productivity. The study is further confined to one organization in the manufacturing sector. The company is Nestle Nigeria Plc, Agbara office in Ogun State.

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1.9 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
4. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

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1.10 Operational Definition of Terms

Occupational Health: It is the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social well ­being of workers in all occupations.

Occupational Safety: It is a state of being free from harm, injuring, death, loss, damage and pollution.

Productivity: It is ratio or proportion of output of the commodity to the input of the factor of production

Employee Productivity: It is the volume of goods and services produced per employee within some specified unit of the year, month, week, day or hour.