Performance evaluation of occupational health and safety in relation to the COVID-19 fighting practices established by WHO: Survey in multinational industries

Safety Management and Wellbeing during COVID-19: A Pilot Study in the Manufactory Sector

Background: The rapid spread of COVID-19 has generated anxiety and concerns among the whole population, by also affecting people’s working life quality. Although several studies underlined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the healthcare sector, very few studies investigated the consequences in the occupational sectors with low risk of contagion. Method: 220 full-time in-presence workers of the manufacturing sector agreed to participate in a study of cross-sectional design during September and October 2020. Data were collected by means of a self-reported questionnaire conceived to investigate the constructs of the COVID-19 concerns, both the personal contribution and the supervisor support to workplace safety, the organizational commitment to safety, and finally, the level of workers’ exhaustion. Results: This study highlights that COVID-19 concerns represent a significant source of stress since it is significantly associated to higher levels of exhaustion among workers. Furthermore, the findings show the relevance of resources related to employee’s personal contribution to safety management as well as the role of climate variables. Conclusions: These results promote knowledge on the role of COVID-19 concerns in affecting psychological wellbeing at work, as well as the impact of both individual and job-related resources that may prevent exhaustion at work. Finally, the present findings also have implications for organizations and the maintenance of their commitment to safety.

Moderating effect of OHS actions based on WHO recommendations to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 in multinational companies

The objective of this study was to evaluate the moderating effect of Occupational Health and Safety actions based on the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations to mitigate the negative effect of COVID-19 on the operational, logistical, marketing (OLMP), and health and safety performance (OHSP) of workers in multinational industries. The development of surveys in companies was the method adopted, which had confirmatory evaluations through Structural Equations Modelling (SEM). As a result, it was confirmed that this is one of the few scientific studies that expectedly validates that the COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted operational, logistical, market, and Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) performance. This is also one of the few research projects to assess the moderating effect of OHS practices based on WHO to mitigate the effects of COVID-19. According to our findings, those practices were able to reduce by at least 50% the effect of the COVID-19 crisis on operational, logistical, and marketing performance. However, they minimize by only 1.8% the negative effects of health and safety performance for the worker, generating absenteeism increasingly due to physical and mental problems. This number could be higher if the social distance could be provided in public transportation and if employees were more aware of the risks of COVID-19 contamination during their social activities.

Implementing Industry 4.0 through Cleaner Production and Social Stakeholders: Holistic and Sustainable Model

Although Industry 4.0 has received much attention in recent years due to the possibility of increasing companies’ productivity, the implementation process is complex. The aim of this study is to present a holistic model for implementing Industry 4.0 based on cleaner production as a fundamental tool for the development of production systems that meet the Sustainable Development 04026-002Goals (SDGs), and social stakeholders that cooperate with this implementation process, helping to develop sustainable infrastructure, processes and technologies to increase the sustainable transformation of these companies towards Industry 4.0. The method used was literature research, and the Delphi technique was used to ask specialists to contribute with their experience to evaluate and propose improvements to the model, in the form of a consensus. The model contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals 9, 12 and 15. This holistic and sustainable model is a contribution to theory and practice, helping executives, technicians, entrepreneurs and those involved with Industry 4.0 to base the implementation process in the needs and specificities of each company, avoiding the “one fits all” models, considering the peculiarities of each company and the complexity of the implementation process in a more efficient and collaborative digital production ecosystems base, seeking to reduce inequalities, through the joint effort of social stakeholders to find ways to restore and/or improve social harmony, impacted by Industry 4.0.

Development of a Pandemic Residual Risk Assessment Tool for Building Organizational Resilience within Polish Enterprises

The purpose of the research paper was to develop a universal residual risk assessment tool based on the use of risk control measures related to Covid-19 in order to determine the state of organizational resilience of individual industries or organizations. The article proposes and analyzes a pandemic residual risk assessment tool, which is a simple and universal source for residual risk estimation based on a five-step consequence/probability matrix, a five-step hierarchy of risk controls, and a general formula for calculating residual risk. The methodology of the survey is based on a questionnaire with 16 questions used for the initial validation of the residual risk scale, of which six related to the potential of organizational resilience. The pilot survey was conducted in 66 enterprises in Poland. On the basis of the survey, four measures related to the use of control measures against threats after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic have been proposed. These are personal protective equipment (PPE) controls, administrative controls, engineering controls, and substitution controls. Using the survey results, we estimated averages of the response results, and, on their basis, we estimated the residual risks for individual types of enterprises according to the type of business and its size. Based on the calculations, a strong correlation was found between the potential of organizational resilience and the individual use of control measures. Therefore, the main finding of the survey proves that effective risk management builds organizational resilience in enterprises. The practical implications of the study allow the management staff to find out what aspects related to the use of control measures need to be paid attention to in order to minimize residual risk.