QHO420 - Contemporary Management: Health and Safety at Work Act Essay

This essay provides a detailed analysis of the Health and Safety at Work Act, emphasizing its critical role in ensuring employee welfare and safety within organizations. It explores the Act's key provisions, including the responsibilities of employers and employees, and the legal framework governing workplace health and safety. The essay delves into the impact of this legislation on various organizations, highlighting the importance of risk assessment, preventive measures, and the establishment of comprehensive health and safety policies. Furthermore, it examines the crucial roles of leadership and management in implementing and maintaining effective health and safety programs. The essay discusses different leadership styles and their influence on promoting a safe work environment, emphasizing the need for strong commitment, worker involvement, and continuous assessment. The essay also includes real-world examples, demonstrating how companies have been affected by the Act and the consequences of non-compliance. The essay concludes by underscoring the significance of the Health and Safety at Work Act as a cornerstone of responsible management practices and its contribution to creating a safe and productive work environment for all employees. The essay references various academic sources to support its arguments and provide a well-rounded understanding of the topic.

The Health and Safety
at Work Act

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
Health and Safety at Work Act...................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Employees are the asset of the company who have a great contribution in the success of
the company. The workers are entitled to the legal rights which are aimed to protect the
workforce from exploitation. The employment law is a vast field which covers many legislations
under this. Some of which includes Health and Safety at Work Act, Equality Act, Employment
Relations Act, Employment Rights Act and many other (Alkaissy, and et. al., 2020). Health and
safety of the employees is at priority of the employers and organisation as it is their legal right to
work in a safe and secure environment. This report shall cover health and Safety at work Act
together with its impact on companies. Further a glimpse of role of leadership and management
with context to health and safety legislation.
MAIN BODY
Health and Safety at Work Act
Employment law regulates the relation between the employees and employers and
governs basically what is expected by the employees and the employers. It is an umbrella which
covers many legislations under it. Health and safety of the workers are at utmost priority where
the law relating to it places the duty on the employer to protect the employees from any risk. It is
also a vast field which covers many legislations under one roof, of which some are Health and
Safety at Work Act, Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations, the Licensing Act,
Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations and many other.
The health and safety at Work Act is designed in the year 1974 in response to dangerous
employment conditions which existed in factories and the mines. Prior to this law, there was no
piece of legislation which could deal with the health and safety of the employees, rather there
was many unsystematic and disconnected laws with separate legislations on offices, factories,
mines, constructions, etc. (Iden, 2017).
This legislation covers the occupational safety and health in Great Britain. The legislation
sets out the general duties which the employers have towards its employees and public,
employees have for each other and themselves and the self employed people have towards others
and themselves. The main objective of this law is firstly to ensure the health, safety and the
welfare of the employees at the work, secondly, to protect the non employees against risk of

health and safety which may arise from the work activities and thirdly to control the use and
keeping of the explosive or high inflammable substance.
Every organisation is legally bound to follow the principle and rules of the Health and
Safety at Work Act. In context to employers, the general duties include firstly to ensure the
health, welfare and well being of the employees at the workplace, secondly to ensure health and
safety of the non employees (visitors, contractors or public) which may get affected through the
activity of undertaking, thirdly to ensure reasonable care of itself and other workers and fourthly
it places duty on director to ensure health and safety of all and in case they fail to do so, they
may be prosecuted for the offence if it is committed with their consent or connivance (Oliveira,
and et. al., 2018).
For instance, in 2016, Tesco Plc was fined with £1160000 for breaching the regulations
of health and safety. The incident took place in 2016 when one of the employee was cleaning the
oven and the hazardous good came in contact with its skin and the worker was not wearing the
PPE which resulted in chemical burns. Tesco was pleaded guilty was three of the offence which
included failure to ensure welfare, health and safety of employees, failure to comply with the
control of substances hazardous to health.
Effective performance relating to health and safety always come from top, that is the top
management who have both collective and individual responsibility. The management gives
leadership, resources and vision which are required to implement the effective program of health
and safety. The main role of management includes firstly to communicate the commitment
towards the health and safety program . It must have the written and clear policy which defines
the commitment of the company towards the health and safety of employees. Secondly it must
define the goals of the program which must relate to the expectation of the management which it
has with the managers for the overall program. The goals must focus on the actions which can
improve the safety and health at workplace. Third role is to allocate the resources which are
required to implement the health and safety programs and pursue the program goals. Fourth role
is to expect the performance from the program by establishment of the roles and responsibilities
and provide the open and positive environment which encourages the communication regarding
the safety and health of employees (Stimpfel, Fatehi, and Kovner, 2020).
Leaders also play an important role in ensuring the health and safety of the employees at
the workplace. It depends upon the leadership style which an organisation follows as to how

health and safety at work act is implemented and followed within the company. The importance
of leadership becomes visible. The success of the occupational safety and health is based on the
behaviour of leader. For instance, the company which follows the participative leadership style
encourages the participation of the employees and ask to consult the workers which ensures good
communication of the occupational safety and the health within the workplace. This will help in
making such policies which can be made by consulting both employers and employees.
Participation of the workers is very important which assures the good acceptance of the measure
of safety. This will increase the involvement and the acceptance through leading the examples.
Like participating in various health measures, encouraging the employees to make participation
in the health programs and also provides requisite resources in order to enable participation. For
instance, Cadbury follows participative leadership style where it allows the employees to
participate and involve in deciding the health measures. According to the company, the
employees are the main contributors to the success and development of the company so it is
important that the health measures must be put in priority and should be independent of
organisational productivity (Tsalis, Stylianou, and Nikolaou, 2018).
Another leadership style is situational which states that the behaviour of leader depends
upon the situation. It is important that the leader uses its leadership style according to the
situation and the importance of situational leaderships becomes visible when the occupational
health and safety comes in to picture. But it is important that the occupational safety and healthy
is being structured and placed so that it is accepted by whole workplace. For instance, when the
situation arises where the risk is assessed and the leader must take action according to prevent or
reduce the risk. This leadership is important when there is sudden accident or mis happening at
the workplace and the leaders and managers have to take sudden action to prevent or reduce the
risk and safeguard the employees and non employees (Umar, and et. al., 2018).
There are many principles which are intended to underpin actions and leads to good
health and the safety performance. First is the strong and the active leadership from top level
makes the active and visible commitment from board and establishes the downward
communication system which will integrate good safety and health management. Second is the
involvement of worker by involving the employees in the achievement and promotion of the
healthy and safe conditions which can be done through effective upward communication and

high quality training. Third is the assessment and review which involves identifying the risk
relating to health and safety and then reporting, monitoring and reviewing the performance.
Health and safety is very integral to the success of the company as it is the moral duty of
top level management to come up with such policies which ensure safety of the employees. It is
important to involve the directors in the health and safety management as without their
involvement it us not possible to achieve higher standards in management of health and safety
(Young, and Brawn, 2017).
The law relating to health and safety involves the companies, firstly to assess the risk to
the workers, partners, customers and other people who may get affected by the activities of
company. Second is to arrange thee effective planning organising, controlling, monitoring and
reviewing the protective and preventive measures. Thirdly to have the written health and safety
policies and fourthly to ensure that there is access to the competent health and safety advice for
all workers.
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above essay that employment law is a broad field which covers
various laws under it. The most important is the health and safety at Work which is applied to all
organisations irrespective of its size or scale. This legislation is aimed to impose the duty on both
employer and employee to ensure the welfare, health and safety of the employees and non
employees. The main role of the leader and manager is to make such policies or programs which
are aimed to ensure the safety and health of the staff at the workplace. There are many leadership
styles which are adopted by the companies, like the participative leadership style allows the
leader to encourage involvement of employees when framing or organising the programs relating
to health and safety and on other side situation leadership style is preferred by the leader when
the sudden accident requires the leader to take immediate action to prevent or reduce the risk.
The management also plays important role like communicate and make such policies relating to
risk assessment, etc. So it is important for the companies to have effective policies and
regulations which helps in taking requisite safety measures.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Alkaissy, and et. al., 2020. Safety management in construction: 20 years of risk modeling. Safety
science, 129, p.104805.
Iden, E., 2017. XXI World Congress on Safety and Health at Work 2017–through the eyes of a
delegate. Occupational Health Southern Africa, 23(6), pp.6-6.
Oliveira, and et. al., 2018. Improving occupational health and safety risk evaluation through
decision analysis. International Transactions in Operational Research, 25(1), pp.375-
403.
Stimpfel, A.W., Fatehi, F. and Kovner, C., 2020. Nurses' sleep, work hours, and patient care
quality, and safety. Sleep health, 6(3), pp.314-320.
Tsalis, T.A., Stylianou, M.S. and Nikolaou, I.E., 2018. Evaluating the quality of corporate social
responsibility reports: The case of occupational health and safety disclosures. Safety
science, 109, pp.313-323.
Umar, and et. al., 2018. Briefing: Occupational safety and health regulations in
Oman. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-Management, Procurement and
Law, 171(3), pp.93-99.
Young, R. and Brawn, E., 2017. Employment law: Work health and safety duties and dealing
with bullying in the workplace by non-workers. Governance Directions, 69(7), pp.435-
437.