Occupational Health and Well Being

This report discusses the importance of occupational health and well-being in the workplace, focusing on the issues faced by employees who travel overseas. It covers relevant legislations, the significance of health and safety surrounding international travel, and steps employers can take to reduce the problems faced by travelers. The report also proposes an overseas travel policy for the organization MultiTech.

Occupational Health and
Well Being

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Overview of case.......................................................................................................................4
Relevant Legislations...............................................................................................................4
Significance of health and safety surrounding to international travel...............................5
The issues confront by travellers............................................................................................6
Aspects required to include in policy and the way it must be communicated to
employees..................................................................................................................................6
Steps that employer can take to reduce the problem faced by travellers........................7
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Occupational health emphasizes on the way work of individuals affects their health.
Occupational wellbeing includes the ability to accomplish a healthy work life balance,
developed relationship with employer and co-workers, manage work place stress while
integrating the commitment to job into lifestyle which is rewarding as well as satisfying
(Fortune and Kennedy‐Jones, 2014). In this report, the given organisation is MultiTech
which is an information technology company that employ staff of 1000 people. After
reviewing the policies and procedures of company, it has been identified that there is
little or no protection for 250 employees who travel overseas. For resolving this issue,
the report intends to propose an overseas travel policy for firm. This report discusses
some relevant legislations related to overseas travel along with the significance of
health and safety surrounding travel to international destinations. Apart from this, the
issues faced by travellers are covered along with what is required to be included in
policy and the way to communicate it to staff. At last, the steps that employer can take
to alleviate the problem or issue faced by travellers are included in the project.
MAIN BODY
Health and wellbeing of employees at occupation is very necessary as it helps in
maximizing the benefits for organisation. The way work that is being performed by
individuals at workplace affects their health is termed as occupational health. Today, it
is very necessary for each and every organisation to emphasize on health and
wellbeing of its employees in order to ensure their satisfaction. Keep the employees
happy, healthy and motivated throughout their tenure in the organisation will help it in
maintaining height practice standards as well as increase productivity which in turn
results in profitable and successful business. Ensuring occupational health will provide
various benefits to organisation in terms of increase productivity, lower level of
absenteeism, improved motivation and morale of employees, enhanced image of
company and fewer injuries. All this will help in increasing the revenues of business and
leads it towards higher success and growth (Kelloway, Nielsen and Dimoff, 2017).
The wellbeing dimensions includes actively seeking out development opportunities
as well as developing functional skills and competencies that will transfer at workplace.

There are some areas that are targeted by occupational health. These areas include
maintenance and promotion of mental, physical and social well-being of each individual
at occupation. It also involves prevention of ill health to workers caused due to work
environment or their role and the protection of employees in work surroundings from
risks that result in adverse mental or physical health or possible injury (Kuba and
Scheibe, 2017).
Overview of case
MultiTech is an information technology organisation whose around 250 employees
are travel overseas and faced several issues regarding health and safety surrounding
the international travel. In order to alleviate the issues faced by travellers, a report is
written by health and safety manager to the chairman of board of directors at MultiTech
to propose an overseas travel policy for company.
Relevant Legislations
Duty of care law: it is an English tort law according to which a person may owe
duty of care to other in order to make sure that they do not face any unreasonable loss
or harm. If an employer breaches this duty, a legal liability is imposed on that and it
have to face legal consequences of this. The need to compensate the victim or pay the
victim for any kind of losses they incur. Duty of care generates where a group or an
individual undertakes an act that can harm other individual either economically, mentally
or physically. So, as per the act, it is necessary for organizations to ensure that no
individual can harm at the time of performing their duties. In case, if they harm, then it is
the liability of organisation to compensate the victim for any kind of loss that he/ she
bear at the time of performing their roles and responsibilities (Landsbergis, Grzywacz
and LaMontagne, 2014). In case of MultiTech, if any of the employee travel overseas
regularly to attend conferences and meetings, it is required by employer to ensure their
safety. In any case if any of the individual suffers from any accident or loss, then it
would be the responsibility of firm to compensate that by providing employees with
appropriate care along with the some additional medical and other benefits.
Health and Safety at Work Act,1974: as per this act, it is the duty of employer to
provide health and safety measures to employees so that they will be protected at
workplace. This act lays down wide range of duties on employers. It is the primary duty

of employers to provide healthy and safe workplace to employees so that they enable to
work effectively. This legislation covers occupational health and safety. Some general
duties that sets out by this legislation the responsibility that employee have towards
workforce and employees have towards each other. There are some main objectives of
this act including ensuring health, welfare and safety of employees at workplace,
protecting non-employees against the risk arise from operations and activities of
company and controlling the use of dangerous substances (Leka, 2014). As per this act,
it is necessary for the organisation to provide employees with appropriate measures that
helps them in protecting themselves against any injury. In context of MultiTech, it is
necessary for it to provide all its employees with appropriate health and safety
measures. This will help in improving satisfaction level of employees and in turn
enhance productivity of organisation.
Significance of health and safety surrounding to international travel
Health and safety of employees surrounding international travel is very necessary
to prevent them from harm by any unintended occurrences. As the destination at which
employees will travel have different cultures and languages, so there are high chances
of risk in travelling and possibility of causing offence due to differences in culture. So
health and safety of employees who travel to different destinations is very necessary.
Apart from this, overseas travel may create health related risk employees so ensuring
their health and safety is crucial for the employer by undertaking various measures like
pre travel health risk assessment. In addition to this, emergency risk management
system is also helpful for the overseas travel as it involves actions that are needed to
minimise the health risk of employees. So, it is important for organisation to provide
employees with health insurance as well as other health and safety measures that helps
them in preventing from any kind of issues related to health or any other incidents ( Li,
Shaffer and Bagger, 2015). Show surrounding international travel, health and safety of
employees is very necessary as it will help in protecting them from any health issue or
hazards. This also helps in satisfying the employees and creating a sense of
belongingness among them which in turn helps in improving the productivity of
MultiTech.

The issues confront by travellers
There are various issues faced by travellers at the time of travelling to other
destination. One among the issues includes climatic conditions. Many people will
encounter humid, hot or cold extremes which poses health related risk employees. They
may suffer from cold, fever, malaria etc. due to which there is high risk of getting sick.
Apart from this, the another issue is stress. In comparison to non-travellers, the
travelling employees take more stress and suffer from mental health problems (Nielsen
and Taris, 2019). Travelling abroad for the purpose of work for long period of time can
lead them to feel isolate and anxiety that adversely affect the emotional wellbeing of
employees. Moreover, under the travel stress, pre-existing mental issues or disorders
can also be exacerbating. There are various factors that can increase the risk of stress.
This factors includes fear of workload on return, separation from friends and family and
social support systems, family and personal concerns, jet lag, difficulties in adjusting to
foreign cultures, lack of rest or relaxation on return and unfamiliar threats or risk to
health and safety. In addition to this, an another issue that overseas travellers face
includes jet lag. In this employees feeling trouble in waking up, confusion, tightness
during the day, headache, stomach upset, irritability, sore muscles, feeling of not being
well etc. All this will adversely impact the health of an individual who travel overseas. It
is required for the management of MultiTech to aware the employees about all such
issues which they may face while travelling overseas.
Aspects required to include in policy and the way it must be communicated to
employees
In the health and safety policy associated with overseas travellers, there are
various aspects that needs to be considered and included by the management of
MultiTech in order to ensure better health and safety of workers. They should include
pre travel assessment test of employees who will visit other destinations in order to
ensure that pre-existing health issues are not compounded by work related activity or
overseas travel (Prior, Maxwell, Szabó and Seton, 2015). This should ensure time for
required treatment to be completed before the travel. Apart from this, the company must
involve a framework for protecting its workforce while overseas travelling in its health
and safety policy. It must cover the responsibilities and duties to workers travelling to

different destinations and working in the Nations they are not familiar with. In addition to
this, organisation must outline the procedure to protect, prevent and mitigate accidents
and should respond to accidents prior, during and post travel and provide staff with
higher standard of safety. The policy of organisation must include the responsibilities of
employees. All these aspects must be included in the policy of MultiTech associated
with health and safety of employees. By using different communication channels, these
policies must also be communicated appropriately to employees. Management required
to take appropriate actions for communicating these policies to employees. Apart from
this, at the time of hiring employees for overseas travel, it is required by company to be
transparent and provide employees with all the aspects of policy. Proper communication
of policies will help company in ensuring effective working of employees (Reese, 2018).
Steps that employer can take to reduce the problem faced by travellers
There are several steps that an organisation can take to alleviate the issues or
problems faced by travellers. When the employees working abroad, organisation
required to protect them from foreseeable hazards. This will enable workforce to claim
for or loss or injuries incurred while they work overseas. Apart from this, company
should conduct appropriate risk assessment pre travel of employees this helps them in
determining that whether the employee is fit to travel or not. In addition to this,
organisation is required to inform employees about the risks as well as the precautions
needed to counter them. At last, a risk management strategy must be included by
MultiTech in the steps to reduce the issue of stress faced by travellers while travelling
overseas. This strategy includes providing practical advice or tips regarding cultural
differences that they likely to encounter (Zacher, Jimmieson and Bordia, 2014).
CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report, it has been concluded that it is very necessary
for an employer to ensure health and safety of its employees. There are various risks
which are faced by employees who travel overseas for completing their job
responsibilities including getting health issues, climatic condition etc. In order to reduce

these, organisations are requiring to take effective measures to ensure health and
safety of employees.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Fortune, T. and Kennedy‐Jones, M., 2014. Occupation and its relationship with health
and wellbeing: The threshold concept for occupational therapy. Australian
Occupational Therapy Journal, 61(5), pp.293-298.
Kelloway, E.K., Nielsen, K. and Dimoff, J.K. eds., 2017. Leading to occupational health
and safety: How leadership behaviours impact organizational safety and well-
being. John Wiley & Sons.
Kuba, K. and Scheibe, S., 2017. Let it be and keep on going! Acceptance and daily
occupational well-being in relation to negative work events. Journal of
Occupational Health Psychology, 22(1), p.59.
Landsbergis, P.A., Grzywacz, J.G. and LaMontagne, A.D., 2014. Work organization, job
insecurity, and occupational health disparities. American journal of industrial
medicine, 57(5), pp.495-515.
Leka, S. ed., 2014. Contemporary occupational health psychology. Wiley-Blackwell.
Li, A., Shaffer, J. and Bagger, J., 2015. The psychological well-being of disability
caregivers: Examining the roles of family strain, family-to-work conflict, and
perceived supervisor support. Journal of occupational health psychology, 20(1),
p.40.
Nielsen, K. and Taris, T.W., 2019. Leading well: Challenges to researching leadership in
occupational health psychology–and some ways forward. Work & Stress, 33(2),
pp.107-118.
Prior, R., Maxwell, I., Szabó, M. and Seton, M., 2015. Responsible care in actor training:
effective support for occupational health training in drama schools. Theatre,
Dance and Performance Training, 6(1), pp.59-71.
Reese, C.D., 2018. Occupational health and safety management: a practical approach.
CRC press.
Zacher, H., Jimmieson, N.L. and Bordia, P., 2014. Time pressure and coworker support
mediate the curvilinear relationship between age and occupational well-
being. Journal of occupational health psychology, 19(4), p.462.