CSR & Ethical Practices: Ensuring Employee Safety at Redrow PLC

This report, acting as a consultant's analysis for Greenleaf Consultants, examines how Redrow PLC can enhance employee safety and well-being through responsible human resource management. It identifies key safety risks in the construction industry, such as accidents involving machinery, falls, and electrocution, and attributes these to factors like inadequate safety training, insufficient site inspections, and cost-cutting measures. The report emphasizes the application of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and ethical decision-making to address these issues. It suggests improving employee vetting processes, providing regular safety training, and adhering to ethical business practices to reduce safety-related incidents and enhance the company's reputation. By prioritizing employee well-being, Redrow PLC can minimize expenses related to accidents, increase productivity, and foster a safer working environment.

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HOW SHOULD REDROW PLC ENSURE SAFE WELL-BEING OF THE EMPLOYEES AT
WORK.
By (Students Name)
Course Name
Professors Name
University
City and State
Dates

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Introduction
In the construction industry, safety has been one of the top five problems faced the
industry. Over the past few years, the number of reported safety related cases have been on the
rise and this has significantly affected the industry. Safety of the workers has become a major
topic of concern, the causes of the safety issues within the construction industry have been
associated with most of the companies lack of a well laid out human resource management body
and lack of ethical practice to ensure the workers safety at their workplace is upheld. There have
been a number of possible reasons that have resulted to these incidences which include, poor
safety training for the employees, as the industry grows the companies fail to take all the
required safety measures so as to maximise on their profits which is completely unethical.
Several incidences have also shown the companies cutting down on the cost of ensuring safety
for the workers which in return leaves the worker in a risky position (Shi, Y., Xue, X. and Li, C.,
2015). These are some of the issues that will be addressed in the report as well as more on how
companies need to utilize ethical theories and a CSR model so as to establish a responsible
human resource. This will help control the safety issue of the company in the industry.
Greenleaf Consultant is a consultant company which addresses such issues and provides
recommendations to clients on how to handle such cases. Acting as an ethics/CSR consultant in
the company, the application of both ethical theories and CSR strategies will help clearly
luminate the issue and provide the best approach for Redrow Plc. Safety of the employees as
identified earlier will be closely examined and resolved by the end of the report. CSR is the
abbreviation for corporate social responsibility. This is a corporate’s initiative to assess and take
responsibility for the company’s effects on the environment and social wellbeing (Shi, Y., Xue,
X. and Li, C., 2015). In this case we are handing the social well being with the safety of the

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employees being the major concern. The employees play the major role in any company, it is the
responsibility of the company to ensure that their wellbeing is greatly taken care of. In the
construction industry, the employee’s safe has received much attention due to increasing safety
issues relating to the employees in the construction sites. Ethics on the other hand can be simply
defined as the moral principles that govern the behaviours of a person but in the corporate field
this ca be defined as the moral principles that govern the decisions made in a business or an
organization (Ball, M., 2014). It is the responsibility of the Human resource to apply ethical
decision-making theories so as to ensure a safety for the employees at their work stations.
Problem Analysis
It is important to first address safety problem in the Redrow Plc in the construction
industry. Just like any other company in the construction industry, the safety of the workers is of
major concern. Among many other risks in the construction industry workers are faced many
safety risks such as being struck by objects while working, accidents involving forklifts,
demolition and excavation machinery as well as equipment (Biswas, G., Bhattacharya, A. and
Bhattacharya, R., 2017). Other risks associated with working on the high building includes,
burns from fires, electrical mishaps, explosions, all these risk among others make the workers
occupation quite risky (Finkel, G., 2015). Research carried out by the company also shows that
cases of death for the workers in the construction industry are also on the rise with the four main
causes of death being falls from high points of construction on the site, struck by objects, caught
In between these objects and electrocution. These fatal four have been termed as the 58% cause
of deaths for the construction workers in the construction industry (Ball, M., 2014). As observed
in the construction industries, the well being of the workers keeps being prone to more risks,

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there has been a rise on the risks on the lives of the workers which led to the need of conducting
a study to help one understand the reason behind the worrying pattern (Finkel, G., 2015).
For Redrow Plc stakeholders, it’s important for them to understand the main reason that
have led to the increase in dangers faced by their employees. One of the leading causes is the
boom in the construction project. This has significantly led to the rise of the workers safety
challenge. Over the past few years the number of construction projects have greatly increased
hence the workers tend to be overwhelmed with work, other main causes of the pattern include
the few inspections that are carried out on the construction sites. Most researches have identified
this as one of the primary causes of these accidents (Ball, M., 2014). With few inspections the
workers end up not meeting the required safety regulations and the companies also fail to
observe all these requirements hence exposing the workers to more risks. Over the past few
years, there has been a drop in the number of construction site inspections which can be seen to
have such a huge impact on the safety of the workers. The other leading cause of safety risk for
the employees in the construction industry is that some of the companies in the industry are
taking shortcuts so as to reduce on the expenses they are to incur if they were to adhere to the set
construction policies (Finkel, G., 2015).
This has made construction work one of the most hazardous occupations currently. Redrow Plc
being one of the main leading companies in the construction industry, it is important to address
the social well being of its workers. Addressing the safety of its employees should receive the
highest priority level so as to help reduce and the safety challenges in the industry. Application
of CSR is one of the best approaches the company’s human resource can apply. As defined in the
introduction, CSR (corporate social responsibility) is an initiative that is extremely beneficial to
the social well being of the employees. The term generally implies that the company is willing to

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go the extra mile so as to ensure the wellbeing of the employees as well as the environment
(Biswas, G., Bhattacharya, A. and Bhattacharya, R., 2017). As specified earlier, he report will
specifically cover the social wellbeing sector of the CSR.
Responsible Management and Corporate Social Responsibility.
Exploring the Issue
This is a term that is used to describe a company’s effort to improve the society. The
efforts can be categories in different ways and in return they help both the company, and the
employees of the company. In the construction industry this is one of the most important sectors
of the company that should be integrate. As identified earlier, in relation to the challenges and
the dangers the employees undergo while working it is the responsibility if the company to go
the extra mile so as to positively impact the lives of its employees. With the right application of a
CSR in the company there are multiple advantages that the company is entitled to once the CSR
is implemented accurately.
It is the role of the HR to ensure the safety of its employees. As dictated by the CSR
decisions made by the managements needs to be in favour of its employees. The human resource
has this responsibility all tasked to them. With the fast-growing construction industry, it is the
responsibility of the HR to ensure that the company keeps hiring more employees but this has
proven to be one of the main dangers to the workers safety. With the increase in demand of the
workers, the companies end up hiring more works and tend to loosen the vetting process of who
are the qualified people to hire. With this being the case, the unqualified employed workers end
up risking the safety of the qualified employees already hire (Randy Evans, W. and Davis, W.D.,
2011). This increases the number of safety related Case in the company. The human resource
needs to approach this matter in a both ethical related approach as well as a CSR effective

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strategy. With the rapid growth in the industry, it is ethically right for the HR to carry out an
effective vetting of the employees. This means that the HR should up hold the company polices
and the standard requirement of who is qualified to be employed.
The industry fails to adapt to these policies so as to reduce on the wages paid to the
construction workers. Ethically this is wrong, the cost of hiring cheap labour has led to the rise in
the number safety associated cases in the industry. As seen with the application of CSR it is the
responsibility of the company to provide a better social well-being of its workers. This means the
company main responsibility should be ensuring that its employees wellbeing is safe guarded.
With this being mention, the human resource and the management should take serious action in
formulating a way to vet its employees and ensure that these procedures are met before any
employee is hired. This ends up helping secure the well-being of the other employees. This is
because the safety risks that may be as a result of incompetence will be eliminated by the start of
the working process. This falls under the category of ethical business practice which is a branch
under CSR. The category implies the ethical application of business practices, the following of
the laid-out procedures for hiring employees is one of the most important part of the business.
Redrow falls under the construction company which clearly puts it at the centre of the whole
employee qualification program. This has multiple advantage to the company not only the
employees. With the application of such a CSR approach the company ends up reducing the
employee safety related cases, this means the company manages to cut down on expenses that
may incur in case of accidents. Also due to the qualified employees the company will end up
increase its productivity. For the construction industry, this means the company will end up
coming up with standard structural building as well as improving its work relations. This will
also improve the company image significantly. Most of the construction companies have tainted

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their brand due to the increases safety incidences, this has resulted to the reduced number of
employees since most of the employees end up quitting due to the fear of their life. Looking at
this in a larger perspective, the company ends up being branded as a company with little concern
to the wellbeing of its employees. Such incidences get the company into extra expenses trying to
settle legal charges among other expenses which could have been avoided.
CSR in connection with the management can also significantly impact the well being of
its workers by conducting safety training from time to time or in case there are new technologies
set in place for the workers to utilize. It is the responsibility of the human resource to address
these matters and always priorities the workers wellbeing. In the construction industry,
hazardous nature of the work the employees are subjected to needs constant education. The
company needs to come up with educative programs which help the employees learn more on
how to remain safe. In most cases, employees receive close too no training where the employers
assume the employees are conversant with their duties. The CSR stipulates that going the extra
mile to safe guide the well-being of the employees (Rangan, K., Chase, L.A. and Karim, S.,
(2012). With this being said the business needs to be ready to higher professional safety
companies to come and educate the workers on different safety measures. This gives the workers
a greater exposure on how to ensure their well-being is observed a secure. The management
needs to keep its workers up today with the current safety measures in the industry. With the
advancement in construction architectures, the workers are exposed to more safety threats. Most
of the companies do not address these matters. Ethically, it is the responsibility of the
management to updates its employees on the changes in the industry and in case these changes
have an impact on their wellbeing, then the management needs to address the issues and provide
risk prevention measures. This is a major challenge in the construction industry. Over the past

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few years, the construction industry has received great revolution. The construction work is
booming and as seen earlier the complexity of the constructions keeps rising. From the risks
analysis in the introduction, it is evident that, most of these risks are directly associated with the
above changes in the industry. The risks seem to be affecting the workers since most of the
companies have not embraced the changes in he industry and the impact this has on the workers
wellbeing. The management has the responsibility to factor in all these changes and provide
educative knowledge to the worker on how to cope with the changes. As seen in the corporate
social responsibility pyramid there are there important sections which are: economic
responsibilities, legal responsibilities, the ethical responsibilities and finally the philanthropic
responsibilities.

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Most of the companies are more concerned of the economic responsibilities which entails
making profits then followed by the legal responsibilities lastly the other two come in
respectively which should not be the case. The company should factor in under what expense
does it cost the company to make these profits. With this being factored in the wellbeing of the
employees then becomes a priority. Educating the employees for instance on the use of new
technologies among other new advancements in the industry can extremely save the lives of the
workers. Safety and the well being of the employees has been greatly challenged by this
advancement in use of machines among other new equipment in the industry. The death counts
of workers on the hands of these machines keeps rising. Research shows that most of these
deaths is as a result of lack of knowledge by the workers (Khan, M.T., Khan, N.A., Ahmed, S.
and Ali, M., 2012). The company should take this as a challenge and educate the workers for
there own safety while using the new equipment.
With the decrease in the site inspections it implies that the workers are less supervised.
This means that some of the construction safety rules end up being neglected. This ends up
affecting the workers well-being. The human resource of the company should also thing of an
effective way of ensuring the works adhere to all these rules for their own wellbeing. CSR
advocates for legal responsibility of the company. It is the legal responsibility of the company to
ensure that the employees adhere to the construction laws in the industry (Rahman, S., 2011).
These rules are set in place t ensure the well-being of the employees. The company is ethically
responsible to meet these duties and reequipment just as it is specified in the deontologism
theory where one performs the act that is appropriate for everyone. It is responsibility of the
management to ensure the employees follow the construction safety rules hence the application
of the theory implies that the management should not neglect this responsibility.

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Benefits of applying CSR for Redrow Plc
In the construction industry, there are multiple advantages in applying CSR. As seen
from the covered sections CSR is very connected with the well being of the employees, this has a
magnitude impact on the company. It is important to go through most of these benefits so as to
help solidify the integration of CSR and Redrow Plc. One of the main reasons for CRS is
improving on the company’s brand recognition. With the constant care the management offers to
its workers, it reflects on the brand of the business (Carroll, A.B., 1999). This makes it possible
for the company to acquire more business opportunities since most of the other businesses
always want to associate with such a brand. This directly impacts the economic responsibility
under CSR of the company. This will also improve the business reputation of the company. The
less the safety cases related to the workers the better the business reputation. This means that the
business will improve on its employee retaining ability (Sherekar, V., Tatikonda, M. and
Student, M., 2016). These the wellbeing of the employees will be safe guarded there will be no
need for the employees to quite the company since the company will give them no reason to quit.
This in returns improves the productivity of the employees (Xie, S., 2015). With improved
productivity, the company will be able to build customer loyalty since the customers will be
assure that the company will always deliver. The implementation of the CSR also has a financial
impact to the company. Due the efforts and measure taken to ensure the well being of the

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employees, the company will reduce on the expenses that could have been utilized handling law
suits and other medical charges that may be incurred in case the safety of the workers was not
observed. This will also impact the growth rate of the company (Moratis, L., 2016). With the
company making more profits and its retaining ability of its workers, it becomes easy for the
company to grow since it’s a team made up of competent and certified employees.
Advising Redrow Plc
From the conducted research in the construction industry in relation to the safety of the
employees it is evident the impact associated with the implementation of a CSR approach by the
management to see the well-being of the workers covered by the company. There has been
different measure covered within the report on some of the measure the company needs to take
up. These measures are listed below since they were explained into details before:
The HR and management need to adapt a well organised hiring system so as to avoid the
employment of unqualified workers. The dangers associated with the employment of unqualified
workers has also been highlighted in the previous sections. Redrow also needs to offer safety
training to its workers as the technology advances in the industry. With the construction industry
growing and becoming more complex as a company, Redrow Plc needs to invest in its
employees so as to ensure the employees are conversant with the new changes in the industry.
This directly secures their well-being. Application of ethics and CSR in the company
management is the core conclusion of the report as the best approach to secure Redrow Plc
workers well-being.

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References
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Carroll, A.B., 1999. Corporate social responsibility: Evolution of a definitional
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Finkel, G., (2015). The economics of the construction industry. Routledge.
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