Occupational Health & Safety

Occupational Health & Safety

Reasons for choosing the article:

What is OH&S:

Occupational health and safety is a concerned with protecting the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work or employment. The goal of all occupational health and safety programs is to foster a safe work environment. OHS may also protect co-workers, family members, employers, customers, suppliers, nearby communities, and other members of the public who are impacted by the workplace environment.

First part of this article has focused on the issue of individual’s health issues on the US economy and US organizations. According to a 2010 report of US Department of Health and Human Services 70% to 75% of 2.5 trillion spent annually the US on healthcare is invested in the treatment of preventable condition.

OHS has a direct impact of organizations costs. For almost 50 years, healthcare spending has grown by 2 percent points in excess of GDP growth across all organization for OECD countries. A recent report shows Starbucks spends $200 million per year on insurance for its employees. A safe workplace and healthy employees not only reduce healthcare costs but also increases productivity.

The later part has focused on workplace wellness program in order to reduce healthcare cost to the organizations and US economy as a whole. Some of the issues are how employers and government can help individuals change their behavior to stop smoking, stop overeating, exercise more, change their diet etc. As a part of these workplace wellness program organizations introduced the use of incentives, rewards and recognition in the encouragement of healthy lifestyles and choices. US government is introducing new workplace healthcare legislation to raise the cap on attainment incentives to at least 30 percent and up to 50 percent.

So, the main reason of choosing this article is to show the impact of OHS in the organizations and to show different initiatives taken by the organizations to reduce...