Health, Safety and Wellbeing

Introduction

The essay here will be going to focus on the health, safety and wellbeing of the employee and staff members in the workplace environment and how it is important to maintain that in every organisational culture so that both the employer and the employees can be benefitted with the results. A good and proper health and wellbeing is necessary because that is the essence behind the employees to work with full attention and perform up to the standards and if they are not safe at workplaces then their performance will be hampered resulting into unsatisfactory organisational goal achievements and target fulfilments. So to manage the appropriate health, safety and wellbeing in company environment, various dimensions of the mental health is discussed which impacts the overall organisation and its future. To present a deep knowledge about the health and wellness and safety measures to resolve the related issues, the organisation chosen is Sainsbury’s company which is one of the huge food and retail brands with a huge amount of workforce working with them in UK and worldwide (Sainsbury's, 2020).

Definition of health, safety and well-being at workplace

It has been said that the employers have to be concerned about their employees’ health, wellbeing and safety within the work premises and it is the heart of the relationship between the employer and the employees with lots of positive results and benefits. The health, safety and wellbeing is not only related with the physical health but also with the mental health at the workplace and office environment related with the relationships with the higher authorities and the colleagues (Jain et al. 2018). In workplace the meaning of health, safety and well-being are all the aspects of the work life of a person starting from the quality and standards of living, safety of the physical environment. It is much essential to analyse and understand that how the staff members and workers are feeling about their work, are they satisfied with their respective job roles or not. In this regard mental peace in is the most important thing because that if the reason behind a healthy person. If an employee is mentally disturbed and unsatisfied then its impact will ultimately fall on his or her actions, tasks and job responsibilities (Oeij et al. 2017). More over if there are any conflicts within the organisation in between anyone; it will also impact the working of those employees.

In case of Sainsbury’s there wok culture and office environment is much maintained and peaceful tough there are issues also in some stages but that does not hamper their work or it is starts to get affected the team leaders, managers and other responsible person takes care of that well (Sainsbury's, 2020). Health, safety and well-being is mainly about helping the employees of any organisation to be content, happy, energetic, encouraged and engaged fully in their job roles. Sainsbury’s has a record of a healthy and happy staff where all the workforce at every level despite having minor issues have high level morale and high productivity which ultimately results into progressive on-going business results.

Explaining the importance of employee wellbeing at work

In every organisation just like Sainsbury’s workplace can be directly referred as the improvements in the mental and physical both health state in the overall workforce of the company. The importance of the health, safety and well-being is mainly related with the health condition linked with the business productivity with a happier, healthier employees and staff members which will result into a more effective and efficient productive workforce (Bakker et al. 2019). There are special teams and groups in every organisation who are responsible for looking and managing the health, wellbeing and safety measures of the employees, staffs and workers. They facilitate the promotion of healthy and happy state of both mental and physical health of the working people within the organisation.

A good health and wellbeing in directly linked with the core enabler of an employee’s engagement and along with that the organisational performances. In Sainsbury’s there they have special teams to manage the safety of the employees being at office so that any kind of stress and tension whether mental physical does not impact their work performances. There are certain rules or steps that Sainsbury’s follow to have a goof and balanced health, safety and wellbeing of their workforce and to resolve the issues if any raised.

Rigorous and regular work makes a person tired and fatigue and that will reduce their productivity so to maintain that Sainsbury’s have allowed their employees to take short breaks in between the work schedule while physically present in office (Sainsbury's, 2020).

Open communication and practicing a good all round self-care regime is necessary for having a good mental health. It is said that in every workplace employees must maintain friendly relation with their colleagues to reduce the workplace tension.

One major practice is refreshment rooms which Sainsbury’s follow as they have refreshment areas in their premises for the employees to take breaks while working for hours and have some time to relax within the work schedule (Chambel et al. 2017). This practice majorly benefits the mental healthcare aspects of the employees.

Discussing the various dimensions that can impact both an employee’s physical and mental health at work

In relation to the healthcare, safety and wellbeing, there are mainly three dimensions in the organisational context. However the health and wellbeing conversations have always been one dimensional but these three dimensions namely, financial, physical and mental are those which impacts not only the employees but the employers also since both of them are interrelated cause these three dimensions of the employees affects the organisational functions, tasks and activities.

Financial dimension

As per Arnold (2017) the old saying of many researchers is that “your health is your wealth” but in recent times this saying have changed slightly into financial health is related with the physical and mental health because a financially stable person have less tension and stress as compared with the financially struggling person. So the financial dimension somehow impacts the physical and mental both health and wellbeing. A person performs the organisational activities in exchange of the monetary and non-monetary benefits that he/she earns and if the person is satisfied and happy with what they earn, the target results can be in their performances ultimately. So both the employer and the employees are effectible with the financial dimension of the health, safety and wellbeing.

Mental dimension

This dimension purely means a good and stable mental condition of the employees. It is obvious that when an employee will be in any kind of workplace stress or tension or any kind of stress due to personal issues, those effects can be seen in their work performances and irregular tasks accomplishments for losing the targets and deadlines sometimes too (Anjum et al. 2018). So it is the responsibility of the employer to keep their employees in god mood and stable behaviour in order to get best results. In this regards, there many measures which organisations can apply like having play areas for cafes within the office premises where the employees and sit and relax and spend some time in peace or cam have friendly conversations with their colleagues to chill out their mind and body. A good managerial communication also works as magic in this dimensional issue resolution.

Physical dimension

The physical health is of course an important and prominent aspect of the healthcare, safety and wellbeing aspects which are those elements on which almost every workplace wellness programs focuses on. These kinds of wellness programs are specially designed for the employees in an organisation to drive their physical health into improvement which is counted as an employee privilege. The wellness programs in every organisation are important to be designed which will fit the workforce population and the workplace culture. It must be adopted by all the employees happily and willingly so that both the employer and employee can get best results out of them.

Considering how the issues are addressed within the organisation

Like in every other function and activity, there are issues in the health, safety and wellbeing in the organisational workforce too which can be resolve d with appropriate measures and tasks which can be taken by both the employer and the employees themselves. The two significant issues are:

Demographics and Gender

The workplace environment and culture is continuously changing day by day just like in Sainsbury’s so it is important that the healthcare policies, safety measures and wellbeing programs should also be updated as per the requirements (Sorensen et al. 2018). The workplace bullying, safety of females in office premises and healthcare management are some common issues faced by Sainsbury’s which can be addressed and resolved with proper strategies and plans as the requirements can be found. Sainsbury’s human resources management team looks after all these issues and tries to resolve as much as possible by developing and continuous changing in the workplace and work culture policies and protection plans.

Health and Safety Cultures

One of the major issues is the lack of proper health, safety and wellbeing policies and standards to protect the employees from the negative effects within the organisations. Sainsbury’s protection plans and policies are no doubt good but they also lack new changes and improvements in the regulations (Sainsbury's, 2020). This has been a vital issue and moreover it has been seen that most of the employees are unaware of their rights and the company protection policies (Shanafelt et al. 2017). So it is very much essential to make all the new and old employees aware of what their rights are and how they can complain about any difficulty they are facing while within the office premises and get them resolved as soon as possible. For this the health, safety and wellbeing protection teams needs to be more specific in their actions and more active in their work.

Conclusion

This essay above declares that how much the health, safety and wellness is important in the organisational culture. This above essay states the three major dimensions of the healthcare and wellbeing as the financial dimension, physical dimension and the mental dimension. The issues which were raised in this assessment regarding the employee protection policies and plans of Sainsbury’s along with the how they can be addressed and resolved are also mentioned. It can be concluded at last that the wellness programs in every organisation are important to be designed which will fit the workforce population and the workplace culture & must be adopted by all the employees happily and willingly so that both the employer and employee can get best results out of them.

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References

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Arnold, K.A., 2017. Transformational leadership and employee psychological well-being: A review and directions for future research. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 22(3), p.381.

Bakker, A.B., Hetland, J., Olsen, O.K. and Espevik, R., 2019. Daily strengths use and employee well‐being: The moderating role of personality. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 92(1), pp.144-168.

Chambel, M.J., Carvalho, V.S., Cesário, F. and Lopes, S., 2017. The work-to-life conflict mediation between job characteristics and well-being at work. Career Development International.

Jain, A., Leka, S. and Zwetsloot, G.I., 2018. Managing health, safety and well-being. Netherlands: Springer.[Google Scholar].

Oeij, P., Rus, D. and Pot, F.D. eds., 2017. Workplace innovation: Theory, research and practice. Springer.

Sainsbury's, 2020. Corporate Responsibility, available at: https://about.sainsburys.co.uk/making-a-difference/corporate-responsibility

Shanafelt, T., Goh, J. and Sinsky, C., 2017. The business case for investing in physician well-being. JAMA internal medicine, 177(12), pp.1826-1832.

Sorensen, G., Sparer, E., Williams, J.A., Gundersen, D., Boden, L.I., Dennerlein, J.T., Hashimoto, D., Katz, J.N., McLellan, D.L., Okechukwu, C.A. and Pronk, N.P., 2018. Measuring best practices for workplace safety, health and wellbeing: The Workplace Integrated Safety and Health Assessment. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine, 60(5), p.430.