It is essential for Bleak House to find the correct type of employee for the job. While the current or previous staff where capable of doing the job effectively it has been noticeable that the standard of work has fallen. This has inevitably resulted in redundancies. Bleak House need to find new staff who have the willingness to get the job done, this could either pump new life into the remaining employees or show how in effective they have become. Health and Safety in the Workplace
“Each year approximately two million people suffer ill health caused or aggravated by work activities. This affects their quality of life, impairs work performance and gives rise to the loss of millions of working days. Effective employment Resourcing demands that managerial attention be given to health and safety at work. ” (Quotation: Employment Resourcing, M. Corbridge & S. Pilbeam, Prentice Hall) Common sense should tell us that a healthy and safe workplace would help to produce a pleasant atmosphere, and more productive and profitable organisation.
How to change Health and Safety at work starts at policy level. All organisations must prepare and keep up to date a written statement of policy relating to health and safety. The policy should include a general statement, along with specific arrangements that are fitted to Bleak House for its implementation. Although assuming that Bleak House has a H&S policy it is vital that the owners make sure that everything is met (“Health and Safety rules were short-circuited wherever possible” Quotation: Case Study).
I know that all businesses have policy and try to short cut some aspects so financial or time reasons, I feel that to create the good working atmosphere that is missing now at Bleak House it is important that short cuts are avoided. Creating an active health and safety culture Health and safety legislation can only provide a framework and it is the approach and actions of employers and employees that determines whether a safe and healthy work environment is a reality. It is therefore necessary to encourage an active and positive health and safety culture.
At Bleak House is important to have the commitment of the owners, as without this health and safety efforts will be undermined as has been in the past. A framework for organisational health and safety needs to be drawn up. The policy needs to be a statement of intent that clearly give responsibility to supervisors at Bleak House to ensure that regulations are met in specific work areas. The will not be affective unless time and resources for health and safety are not made available. Benefits to change
If health and safety regulations are consistently met this gives the employees peace of mind in there workplace. As mentioned previously this can only mean that there can be no excuses for low productivity. If these new regulations are met to a high standard and are introduced it must be a new motivation factor for employees. The continuation of health and safety analysis by supervisors gives them the responsibiliy, which is not only a motivator for the employee but takes some responsibility off the owners. Training
“Training is the systematic development of the knowledge, skills and attitudes required by an individual to perform adequately a given task or job” (Quotation: Personnel in Practise, D. Currie, Blackwell Business) The main purpose of training would be to improve Bleak House by improving the performance of its employees. The effectiveness of training may be measured by the degree to which it has caused a change of job behaviour on the part of the trainee. Training is essential to improve work productivity. This should be the goal of the owners at all times.
The fact that there has been no training since the nineteen eighties (“Training has been non-existent” Quotation: Case Study) means productivity levels have been restricted to that of the decade. Training is needed for personal development and development of new working methods which equals maximum productivity. How to Change Although I cant state the exact training needed for the Bleak House employees it is obvious that current and new works receive regular training or re-training to ensure they are the best person for the job.
The responsibilities for training lies normally with a personnel department as Bleak House does not have this at the moment, training is the responsibility of the owners or for the owners to recruit a personnel specialist. Although it is the owners or personnel who organizes training it is up to the supervisors to decide who is to be trained. Development of a training programme involves the organiser (owners or specialist) to analyse the following: 1. Devise the training policy and have it accepted 2. Identify training needs 3. Plan the training
4. Carry out the training 5. And, Evaluate the training Benefits of Change The obvious advantage of having a training program is to increase to productivity of the employees. Although hiring new employees that are newly trained externally is the best recruitment method it is important that they are always trained to ensure they are the best employees available for the job. The problem at Bleak House has been that the employees have had no training since the company began this would explain a natural decline in productivity over time. Conclusion
From studying the problems at Bleak House the obvious problems just jump out. The fact that “Recruitment was by word of mouth, training was non-existent and health and safety rules where short-circuited wherever possible” meant that these issues needed to be changed immediately. These three problems on top of a continuing communications problem between owners and the employees means that the business has done well to survive this long. The serious issue is that if these new ideas are not recognised it is unlikely that Bleak House will survive much longer.
