Impact of Occupational Health and Safety Standards on Productivity of Employees

Abstract

In organisations today, human resources have become the major asset for productivity in its maximum since machines do not have the capacity to operate it selves. In Nigeria, industrial workers lacked the right information to work safely which has exposed many employees to potential risk and workplace hazard that may have a partial or permanent disability and sometime may result to fatality at work site, this could be as a result of ignorance to the correct practice or people still trying to gain earns meet for survival due to the low job opportunity in the country. This paper will highlight the standards operational procedure at workplace to enlighten organisational workers the duty of care of the employers to them while they carry out an assigned job, the paper will also cover the identification of health risk and safety risk and the required preventive controls to reduce risk to as low as reasonably practicable in the workplace, safe work environment and practices are major factors to be considered before accepting job offers. The research was carried out at Olam rice factory at Nasarawa state and Lake rice factory at Kebi state in Nigeria. The research reveals the selected organisations has a working occupational health and safety practices but has an average management commitment to the safe work practices of employees. The data was collected via questionnaire using a four Likert scale procedures for analysis and descriptive survey method. This study is majorly concerned with the impact of occupational health and safety on the productivity of employees.