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A healthy and safe workforce is an essential component for any business to run
successfully. This is evident in the enormous interest by organizations in the activities
related to Occupational Health and Safety practices and organizations have used this
as part of enhancing employee productivity. Organizations tend to concentrate on
factors or variables which enhance productivity and sometimes ignore Occupational
Health and Safety practices and take it as a side issue. As much as other variables
contribute substantially to employee productivity there is need to integrate
Occupational Health and Safety practices as one of the parameters that contribute to
employee productivity. The objectives of this study were to: identify Occupational
Health Safety activities in the organization, determine effects of Occupational Health
and Safety on employee productivity, ascertain challenges faced in implementing
occupational health and safety practices and explore appropriate techniques of
implementing Occupational Health and Safety practices. This study was based on
Maslows hierarchy of needs theory. The researcher sought to examine one
organization in the sugar industry in detail and therefore adopted a case study design.
The target population of the study was 1603 employees in Mumias Sugar Company
Limited. Stratified and purposive sampling technique were used to sample 185
respondents, which include; top management, middle level management, supervisors
and sub-ordinate. In addition simple random sampling was applied in selecting
representative sample of the middle level management, supervisors and subordinates.
Observation, Questionnaires and interviews were the instruments used to collect data.
The data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics and the results
presented using tables, charts and graphs. The Multiple Regression showed that the R 2
= .812 indicated that all the occupational health and safety practices in the model
account for 81.2% variation in the employee productivity in Mumias Sugar Company.
The Occupational Health and Safety practices which had positive relationship with
productivity of employees include; fire prevention and protection, lighting and
ventilation, personal protective equipments and good house keeping, while
chairs/tables and facilities for sitting, first aid kit and medical facility and drinking
water and sanitary facilities had negative relationship. The study concludes that when
an organization fully implements occupational health and safety practices employees’
productivity improves. It was also realized that absence of Occupational Health and
Safety practices could easily result in absenteeism, high employee turnover, increased
medical bill and insurance claim, injuries and frequent accidents. The study
recommends continuous improvements of occupational health and safety practices as
it greatly influences employee satisfaction, commitment, performance and
productivity. |
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