Free Paper Example on Managing Employee Health

Introduction

Some of the costs incurred while managing employee health as well as safety programs is a big challenge across the world. For example, managing the health and safety of employees is expensive due to the increased expenses of insurance premiums. The high costs make it difficult for organizations to manage the health and safety programs of the employees. These companies cannot withstand the rising costs of managing these programs around the world. Also, shifting the work environment is another issue that poses a challenge when it comes to the managing of these programs.

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Varying the working environment leaves safety planners with challenges because it is difficult to plan for the safety of the employees. Besides, some of the employees opt to undertake risks that expose them to health and safety concerns hence, endangering their lives. Moreover, several organizations have failed to employ supervisors who can guarantee the safety and health of the employees. Most of the organizations cannot hire qualified supervisors who can enhance the safety and health of the employees because it is very expensive to do so. Moreover, companies are unable to implement the majority of the safety laws because they lack sufficient funds to manage the health and safety programs of the employees.

Importance

Family-friendly and work-life balance programs have currently become so important because they make the work of the employees more attractive and friendly. These programs have been necessitated by the high number of single parents as well as aging populations that require an attractive work environment. These programs introduce procedures, policies, actions as well as expectations that ensure employees have balanced lives. For example, organizations can have flexible work plans, paid-time-off policies. Also, companies can introduce family events to ensure workers can interact with their family members. Another importance of family-friendly and work-life balance is that they help to relieve stress on part of the employees because they have time to attend to family matters.

Also, these programs improve the productivity and output of the employees since employees who have time for self-care and to interact with their family members tend to be less stressed hence, their productivity is high. In this regard, family-friendly and work-life balance programs act as a form of motivation for the employees because they make the employees happy and their work is made more attractive. The flexible work options provided by these programs ensure employees have the opportunity to design their work schedules and this enables them to enjoy family life and to meet their personal needs. For example, an organization can come up with a program that ensures that ensure parents have time to get their children to school and also to have fun with their families during weekends. Also, paid family leave is important. They motivate the employees to continue working in the organization because they feel to be part of the organization. Child care assistance is also part of the family-friendly program that ensures parents do not incur extra costs and it allows employees to work without stress since their children are in the hands of qualified caretakers (Yuile et al. 2012). As such, these programs are anti-workaholics that ensure employees have time to spend with their families and to meet various personal needs.

International Employees

International employees experience various health, safety, and security problems that can be dealt with by designing a crisis management program. These employees face security and safety challenges because they have a lack of knowledge concerning their security and safety threats that they may encounter as they migrate to new locations. For example, some parts of the world experience terrorism and political stability that might endanger the safety and security of the employee. Also, they lack understanding of the prevailing work environment of the workplace and residential setting. Also, in most cases, they face security and safety issues because there are no security and safety protocols put in place to enhance their security and safety. Besides, most of the countries cannot develop as well as manage security and safety programs.

One of the health issues that face these employees is the changing pattern of various diseases together with drug resistance that may put their health at risk. Also, the lack of proper infrastructure in most of the destination countries because of economic and political instability is another challenge since these employees will be unable to get quality healthcare. In most cases, these employees are not subjected to pre-departure training and this means that they are less prepared to work in the new environment. For example, they need to be taught about the safety, health, and security issues associated with the environment. Also, these employees are in most cases not provided with security training that can help them while working in foreign countries (Mishori et al. 2016). Moreover, a large number of employees are in danger of being exposed to new global diseases that are found in various parts of the world.

Conclusion

To enhance crisis management various steps should be undertaken by the IHRM to ensure the safety and health of the employees. The first step is the assessment of the size of the potential risk. For example, IAs and BTs should be able to understand the possibility of encountering a certain risk. Also, they need to be taught the potential problems that are prone to a certain locality because different locales have different safety and health issues. IHRM needs to identify the possible health and safety risks in a particular area. Besides, they should compare the risk for each situation. For example, some executives in highly demanding jobs face a great level of risks when compared to normal BT and IA. The second step is to come up with a crisis management plan that will be used to deal with the identified problems. The third step is to ensure orientation and training are done to the BTs and IAs to enable them to be prepared before traveling to the new location (Tarique et al. 2016).

References

Jahan, S. S. (2014). Human resources information system (HRIS): a theoretical perspective. Journal of Human Resource and Sustainability Studies, 2014.

MacIntyre, H., & Lammam, C. (2014). Labour Relations Laws in Canada and the United States. The Fraser Institute.

Mellor, N., & Webster, J. (2013). Enablers and challenges in implementing a comprehensive workplace health and wellbeing approach. International Journal of Workplace Health Management.

Mishori, R., Eastman, A., & Evert, J. (2016). Improving the safety and security of those engaged in global health traveling abroad. Global Health: Science and Practice, 4(4), 522-528.

Tarique, I., Briscoe, D., Schuler, R. (2016). International Human Resource Management: Policies and Practices for Multinational Enterprises (5th ed). London, England: Routledge.

Yuile, C., Chang, A., Gudmundsson, A., & Sawang, S. (2012). The role of life friendly policies on employees' work-life balance. Journal of management & organization, 18(1), 53-63.