Impact of Behavioral Safety on Employee Safety at ASL Ltd. Analysis

This report investigates the impact of behavioral safety on employee safety at ASL Ltd., a multinational corporation facing issues of high employee turnover, absenteeism, and low performance. The study employs a qualitative research process, specifically covert observation, to assess the extent of workplace harassment and adherence to safety policies. The methodology involved observing 100 employees across various departments for a week, focusing on behavioral attributes such as harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. Findings reveal an unsafe work environment, particularly for female employees, with instances of sexual misconduct and a lack of action from the company. The research identifies issues such as inequality, bias in promotions, and retaliation against employees who report harassment. The report concludes with recommendations, including implementing strict employee training policies on sexual harassment, financial penalties for non-compliance, and fostering a culture of safe behavior to improve working conditions, reduce employee turnover, and boost productivity. Charts and data analysis visually support the research findings, providing a comprehensive overview of the situation.

Running head: IMPACT OF BEHAVIORAL SAFETY ON EMPLOYEE SAFETY
IMPACT OF BEHAVIORAL SAFETY ON EMPLOYEE SAFETY
Name of the Student
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1IMPACT OF BEHAVIORAL SAFETY ON EMPLOYEE SAFETY
Table of Contents
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................2
Company Overview...............................................................................................................2
Concept of employee and workplace safety...........................................................................2
Concept of performance management...................................................................................2
Employee and workplace harassment....................................................................................3
Research gap..........................................................................................................................3
Research Methodology...............................................................................................................4
Participants and settings.........................................................................................................4
Depended variables................................................................................................................4
Independent variables.............................................................................................................5
Experimental design...............................................................................................................5
Procedure................................................................................................................................6
Interobserver agreement.........................................................................................................6
Findings......................................................................................................................................7
Recommendation......................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................12

2IMPACT OF BEHAVIORAL SAFETY ON EMPLOYEE SAFETY
Literature Review
Company Overview
ASL Ltd. is an MNC company, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The company
was originated in September, 2001 based on providing software and hardware services in the
European continent. The company is mainly known for providing internet services in the
entire Europe. ASL Ltd. also provides products such as search engine, technologies for online
advertising, cloud computing and hardware. However, the company is facing with high rates
of employee turnover, absenteeism and low performance therefore it has hired an observer to
investigate the workplace and provide recommendation at the end of the observation process.
Concept of employee and workplace safety
The main purpose of implementing safety guidelines in workplace is to prevent
injuries, deaths and other serious consequences. Research shows that an unsafe workplace
will have negative impacts on the employees. It emphasizes the factors such as workplace
culture, inequality in gender ratios, which have an influence on the workplace safety and it
has been found out through this research that theorist have failed to provide ideologies about
workplace safety (Beus, McCord & Zohar, 2016). According to the research of Hofmann,
Burke and Zohar (2017) all the safety approaches, which have been used over the past 100
years, have been considered. The research shows that earlier the approaches were mainly
based on the worker, their working style and ensuring security during training. However over
time this approaches shifted to a broader view focusing the organization, the leadership style
and the prevailing working culture. Thus safety guidelines were developed on a multilevel
basis.

3IMPACT OF BEHAVIORAL SAFETY ON EMPLOYEE SAFETY
Concept of performance management
Performance management is the measurement for ensuring that the outputs and
performance of an individual employee or a team or a department or the organization meets
the goals of the organization effectively. Performance management is generally standardized
and is divided into short-term objectives by the senior management (Shields, et al. 2015). The
principles of performance management are mentioning the job specifications and
expectations, providing feedback and mentorship.
Employee and workplace harassment
Nowadays employee harassment in workplace have become very much common in
most of the organization. The victim of harassment are either afraid of their superiors or
confused about what they should do and whom they should report. Higher rates of employee
harassment leads to low productivity or winding up of the organization. Harassment can be
based on the employee’s gender, culture, race, religion, age, knowledge and disabilities. A
research has been conducted to understand the causes and effects of harassment at workplace.
This research acknowledges the gaps in previous researches and develops advanced theories
for identifying the threats causing harassment (Neall & Tuckey, 2014). Sexual inclination
discrimination is the prevailing form of harassment in every organization however,
researchers have not mentioned much about it hence this research aims to analyze this
discrimination and provide valuable recommendations to prevent it. Forming GLBT inclusion
policies will help reducing this discrimination towards sexual inclination (Ozeren, 2014).
Research gap
From the above literature review, it is observed that most researches have been
conducted in construction industries and also the behavior based safety approaches adopted
by those companies. No research have been conducted in ASL Ltd. or in any other IT
industry regarding their safety guidelines and applied methods. Hence, this research identifies

4IMPACT OF BEHAVIORAL SAFETY ON EMPLOYEE SAFETY
the gap and performs a research on the employees of ASL Ltd. by observing them for a whole
week and identifying if any behavior safety approaches have been adopted by ASL Ltd. to
prevent employee harassment. The purpose of this research is to (a) identify if the employees
of ASL Ltd. are facing any form of harassment in their workplace, (b) identify whether ASL
Ltd. adheres to the safety policies and (c) recommend suggestions for enhancing the working
conditions and employee performance by using principles of organizational behavior
management.
Research Methodology
This research follows a qualitative research process to analyze the participants of this
research. Unlike other research works using survey, interview and secondary data for
collecting and analyzing data obtained, this research work uses covert observation method for
measuring the extent to which employee faces harassments in their workplace and observes
how they practice safety behavior. A research conducted by applying observation technique
is much more reliable and valid as it follows a systematic and scientific approach rather than
a research performed using surveys, interviews and secondary data (Anfara Jr & Mertz,
2014).
Participants and settings
Participants comprised of 100 employees within an age group of 23 to 55 years from
different departments and serving for a minimum of 6 months in ASL Ltd.. The behavior of
the selected participants will be observed for a week. The observation will be done after
receiving a prior consent from the senior management team and the observation will adhere
to the ethical code of conduct. The data will be collected by applying the behavior safety
approach. The data will be obtained through this process will be recorded in observation
sheet and then the measurements will follow.

5IMPACT OF BEHAVIORAL SAFETY ON EMPLOYEE SAFETY
Depended variables
Employee and workplace safety is based on the work culture of an organization and it
can include conditions like unsafe working environment, drug usage, abuses and violence,
which can negatively the employee as well as the organization (Pidd & Roche, 2014). ASL
Ltd. ensures safety policies for their employees and states that their work culture is free from
any kind of harassment, abuses, discrimination, retaliation and misconduct. However, there
are several reports stating that the employees in ASL Ltd. are still facing harassments in their
workplace and majority of the women are facing sexual harassment from their seniors or
colleagues. This research work makes a covert observation on the employees to identify the
employees are working in a safe environment or unsafe environment.
Independent variables
Performance management ensures higher productivity, higher employee morale and
higher customer service. The factors, which ensure proper functioning of performance
management, are training the employee to make them understand the type of behavior
expected from them in the organization, listening to their problems, which states their
disruptive behavior, providing honest feedbacks to the employees on how to improve
behavior and record all the activities of the employees for future reference (Rowland & Hall,
2014). All these factors are implemented in ASL Ltd to intervene in their work culture and
accomplish organizational objectives by enhancing employee productivity and team
efficiency. Performance intervention is done by observing the employees, detecting any work
performance problem and determining the related cause.
Experimental design
The research will be following independent measures type of design. The observer will use
100 employees from the organization as samples for conducting the research. The
participants will be observed through disguised or covert observation method. The

6IMPACT OF BEHAVIORAL SAFETY ON EMPLOYEE SAFETY
participants will be behaving naturally under a covert observation method as they will not be
knowing that they are being observed. Therefore, the data recorded through covert
observation method will be more realistic and effective (Myers, 2019).
Procedure
The process starts as the observer makes an analysis of the prevailing working
conditions in ASL Ltd. such as detecting any dangerous accidents or problems occurring in
the organization. The observer will observe individual employees of the organization to
figure out whether any employee is facing any problem related to their work performance and
determine the causes of that problem. The observation will be recorded in the observation
sheet. Hundred employees are randomly selected from different departments for carrying out
the independent measures observation technique. The participants will be observed under
different behavior attribute such as harling abuses to other employees, discriminating
colleagues or juniors based on their race, gender, age, education and culture, retaliation and
employees facing sexual harassment from their peer groups. Each individual will be observed
for a week during their working hours in case any employee is not behaving safely the
observer will talk with that individual and identify the causes for their behavior. Employees
with positive behavior will be given both summative and formative feedbacks from the
observer to motivate them and boost their safety approach. Reports will be developed based
on the observation made on the selected 100 employees and corrective actions will be taken
accordingly to increase the employee and workplace safety in ASL Ltd..
Interobserver agreement
An interobserver agreement is the number of times two or more observers have shown
the same results for every behavior (Gage, Prykanowski & Hirn, 2014). The agreement is
calculated as the frequency of agreements divided by the frequency of agreements plus

7IMPACT OF BEHAVIORAL SAFETY ON EMPLOYEE SAFETY
disagreements multiplied by 100. In this research the agreements of observers was an average
of 94% of the total participants facing retaliation from the human resource department.
Findings
44%
32%
4%
12%
8%
Workplace abuse
Strongly Agree Agree Neutral
Disagree Strongly Disagree
Chart: 1.1
Source: created by author
60%20%
8%
8% 4%
Workplace biasness
Strongly Agree Agree Neutral
Disagree Strongly Disagree
Chart: 1.2
Source: created by author

8IMPACT OF BEHAVIORAL SAFETY ON EMPLOYEE SAFETY
80%
8%
4% 4% 4%
Workplace retaliation
Strongly Agree Agree Neutral
Disagree Strongly Disagree
Chart: 1.3
Source: created by author
40%
28%
12%
16%
4%
Sexual harassment
Strongly Agree Agree Neutral
Disagree Strongly Disagree
Chart: 1.4
Source: created by author

9IMPACT OF BEHAVIORAL SAFETY ON EMPLOYEE SAFETY
28%
28%
12%
20%
12%
Racial discrimination
Strongly Agree Agree Neutral
Disagree Strongly Disagree
Chart: 1.5
Source: created by author
An empirical research has been conducted in ASL Ltd using observation method on
25 participants and negative results are obtained indicating that the workplace culture of ASL
Ltd. is unsafe for the employees especially for the female employees as they are the constant
preys of sexual misconduct. Although the senior officials are reportedly accused of sexual
harassment in the workplace, ASL Ltd. does not retrench them. It will also be observed that a
system of inequality, biasness in promoting employees, lower pay and forced arbitration that
restricts employees from taking any legal actions, exists within the company. The senior
employees does not practice any safe behavior on their junior and colleagues as their
activities are covered by the company. The employees who are facing the harassment are
confused on what has to be done and whom they should report to. Racial discrimination,
sexual harassment and abuses and inequality are the three forms of harassment which have
been found in the behavior of most of the employees. It will be observed that more than 80%
from the selected employees are facing retaliation in ASL Ltd. The employees being a victim

10IMPACT OF BEHAVIORAL SAFETY ON EMPLOYEE SAFETY
of harassment reports to the human resource department. The officials in the human resource
department practices retaliation on the victims by taking much longer time to investigate the
complaints or reducing the salary of the employee who has complained or demoting the
employee or taking away big projects from the employee. It will be observed that retaliation
occurs mostly in scenarios where senior officials are being accused of harassment or when
the victim is involved in a high-stake project. In these two cases, the company tries to conceal
the complaints made by the employees rather than taking any action to solve the problem.
Recommendation
Due to an unsafe working condition prevailing in ASL Ltd., the employee turnover
and absenteeism rates are higher whereas the productivity rates of the employee is much
lower. Therefore, after observing the employee performance for a week, the observer has
provided some results for the intervention of performance management along with their cause
and effects. ASL Ltd should adopt strict employee training policy for sexual harassment
along with adding some penalties. For instance, ASL Ltd. can indulge its employee in sexual
harassment training and if any employee fails to complete this training that individual should
be financially penalized as well as words will be spread in the office regarding the
misconduct of that particular employee. This policy will cause every employee working in
ASL Ltd. to consider their behavior and focus on the behavior of their colleagues as well and
thereby it can help in preventing sexual harassment. ASL Ltd. should formulate new code of
business conduct to prevent any sort of discrimination and inequality in the office and any
employee failing to abide by these standard code of conduct will have disciplinary actions
taken against them and in severe cases the employees should get terminated from the office.
A strict code of conduct will cause the employees to abide by its guidelines hence they will
not indulge in any unethical activities in the workplace and thus the rates of harassment will
decrease and the production rates will grow. All the employees should be informed about

11IMPACT OF BEHAVIORAL SAFETY ON EMPLOYEE SAFETY
grievance policy of the organization such as whom they should report to and what they
should do in case of harassment or discrimination made towards them. Helpline numbers
should be circulated and investigation should be conducted within a single day. This will
create a perception within the employees that ASL Ltd. is taking preventive actions against
employee harassment and it will help to create a better working culture.