The Importance of an Occupational Safety and Health Management System (OSHMS)

An evaluation of the impact and effectiveness of health and safety policies by OSHAD in private and public organizations: Evidence from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

The introduction gives an overview of the research project that proposes to carry out. It elaborates the aim and objectives of the project that focus on the major concerns of its knowledge domain and instructive why these concerns are worthy of attention. An Occupational Safety and Health Management System (OSHMS) are considered as the management tool that involves entire Occupational Safety and Health Management System (OSHMS) aspects of the business into one coherent system. The integration of these aspects permits the organization to attain its aims effectively by reducing the risk of occupational Safety and Health. In the context of the significance of the proposed study, it has been found that the integrated approach needs amalgamation of entire OSH internal business management practices by considering the one system (Sajwani, 2017). These can be executed by individual entities and which is reflected by linked needs at the emirate level. The dissimilar management aspects of the Abu Dhabi Occupational Safety and Health System Framework need effectual connection between them to make sure an entire system  operates in an effective manner or not.

The aim of the research is to focus on the critical evaluation of the practical compliance of the public and private organizations to OSHAD regulations and OSHAD contributes to the employee safety and welfare in Public and private organizations in Abu Dhabi 

The research questions of this research proposal are defined below:

• To explore how constant development in the management of OSH concerns to attain the effective results at the time of having consider to the social development of Abu Dhabi Emirates.
• To evaluate the practical compliance of the public and private organizations to OSHAD.
• To analyze the contribution of the OSHAD to the safety and welfare in Public and private organizations in Abu Dhabi.

According to Bahr, (2014), the government of Abu Dhabi acknowledges the amplifying and affirmative role being played through government and private entities in developing enhanced occupational safety and health practices. It has been analyzed that the awareness of Abu Dhabi government has given a tool that make sure a great achievement in recognizing, meeting and increasing the safety and health aims and objectives of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi (Rayes, Hassali and Abduelkarem, 2015). The OSHAD-SF elaborates the minimum needs to be completed by entities looking to develop a compliant OSHMS. That is why it is needed for private and public entities to meet and exceed the needs of real UAE legislations. There are number of advantages of OSHAD which will lead to public and private organization in improving occupational safety and health standards, reducing corporate risks and liabilities, developing the business efficiency, increasing staff well being and robust occupational health programs. OSHAD includes number of features such as regulatory integration of OSH,0020Promotes and rewards self regulations, partnership between government and private entities, communication and consultation, risk management, performance management, capacity building and emiratization, incorporates international standards but stand alone. It has been found that the implementation of this project is considered to increase the relation between the private and public sector entities.

Research Questions

In the context of the compliance, it has been found that the OSHAD is the major regulation of OSH in the Abu Dhabi. Compliance of any business to its dissimilar aspects is matter to the classification of the business under the system. It has been recognized by the OSHAD-SF that all businesses are not dealt risks (Leape, et. al., 2009). Each Sector Regulatory Regulations (SRA) need to focus on the risk assessment for the purpose of determines the underlying risks and hazards on factual sector businesses for the purpose of distinguish the businesses in the relation of their entire risks. It has been found that as per OSHAD, there are three levels of classification. These are Nomination as a high risk entity, notification as a medium risk entity and notification as a low risk entity (Al Hashmi and Cooling, 2018). In the context of the nomination as a high risk entity, it has been found that the business officially nominates in the form of the high risk through concerned SRA will comply with all regulations of the OSHAD, entailing improving an entire compliant OSHMS and attaining approval from the issued SRA. The compliance in the context of the medium risk entity is different as they need to comply with the requirements of OSHAD mechanism 5.0 and codes of practices (Daoud,  2008). Low risk entities need to comply with the OSHAD within decided action plan which is specified by the SRA at the time of the official notification. It shows that all entities that deal under risk need to comply with the needed technical regulations within the OSHAD that are pertinent to the tasks business activities (Qekwana, McCrindle, Oguttu & Grace, 2017).

It has been evaluated that there is an administrative hierarchy which is applied by the OSHAD in Abu Dhabi.

With respect to OSHAD contributes to the employee safety and welfare in Public and private organizations in Abu Dhabi, it has been found that there are proper key requirements of OSHAD that entails Risk management, Legal Compliance, OHS performance monitoring and reporting, management of contractors, emergency management and response, audit and inspection, corrective and preventive action and training awareness and competence.

Risk Management

One of the major aspects in handling OSH Hazards and risks is to make sure businesses have a better risk management program execution. It has been found that risk management gives a structured strategy to recognizing OSH risks (Rowland-Jones, 2012). The main focus of OSHAD for the public and private organizations is to protect employees as well as other person from harms and protecting the reputation of the company from disrespectful situation and preventing legal liability (Albejaidi, 2010).

OSHAD regulation and its advantages

Legal compliance

For the purpose of complying with laws and legislations that consider, businesses need to have better understanding regarding the needs and the how they influence. It has been found that compliance with needs is one of the major factor upon which each OSHMS shall be dependent. An effective OSHMS include processes to make sure that these changes are made into the management of the business efforts (Sadek, et. al., 2016). There is “other requirements” which entail the international standards, industry codes of practices and other legal compliance.

Training, Awareness and Competence

According to OSHAD, it is the liability of the public and private organizations to recognize, plan and record needs of training by considering all employees and other stakeholders. It is necessary for the public and private sector of Abu Dhabi to develop the procedure to make sure the training of the employees regarding the health and safety rules of the employees (Edrees, et. al., 2017). Along with that it includes various requirements such as to maintain the records of public and private sector regarding the training and competence.

There is need to select the right research philosophy in the research as it guides the researcher to recognize the various ways of information collection, evaluating and utilization of the research approach. Interpretivism and positivism research philosophy are two research philosophies which can be used by the researcher. For this research, the use of interpretivism research philosophy is considered as it helps in developing subject knowledge of the researcher towards research concern. Positivism and realism research philosophy have not used in this research because there is no requirement of highly developed methodology like hypothesis building and proving (Smith, 2015) .

Research Approach

Research approach has great role in this research proposal as it helps in defining the rationale behind opting of specific approach and methods. Inductive approach is taken into consideration because of its relevance with the relation of the interpretivism research philosophy. Moreover, this approach is taken by the researcher as it helps in assessing the observation in depth. It elaborates the ideas regarding the reality of t eh subject. On contrary, positivism philosophy is not taken into consideration by the researcher as there is no need to make a hypothesis.

Research designs

The role of the research design keeps huge importance in an entire research and for this research; mix research design is taken into consideration as it entails the features of both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The researcher is used qualitative research method because it provides the quality information to the researcher from several authentic resources. Along with that the use of quantitative research method is used in order to reflect the data in a numerical term. As consequences, it is defined that mix research method is enabled to reduce the ineffective information from the single method which amplify the reliability of the research study (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault, 2015).

Risk Classification of Businesses under OSHAD

Research data collection method

Data collection is a practice to gather and measure the data on targeted participants in a methodical mode which allow the researcher to get huge way of responses and analyze the results. Primary as well as secondary information are taken for this research which is helpful to accomplish the research within time frame (Tarone, Gass and Cohen, 2013). In such process, primary data is accumulated by the researcher with the help of survey through questionnaire and for the perspective of secondary research; literature review is used by the researcher to get the information regarding secondary data.

Sampling

Sampling is a practice to choose the sub-category from the population to include the research study as it helps the researcher to get huge amount of data regarding the importance and role of OSHAD in improving the system of the health care in Abu Dhabi. For this research, the convenience sampling is taken into consideration by the researcher in order to get the respondents for the survey through questionnaire. This sampling strategy has the nature of the non-sampling strategy in which the participants are chosen by considering the various kinds of experiences, gender and age. Moreover, this sampling strategy is used by the researcher to gather the information in short span of time. For which 40 employees are being selected from private and public organizations of Abu Dhabi respectively.

Limitation

The researcher can face number of issues to complete the research study which can affect the research study in adverse manner which can affect the research study. In the ongoing scenario, there are some challenges that can set the limit for the research study to develop the valid as well as reliable outcomes (Stanwick and Stanwick, 2015). These challenges are money, data access and time. It has been analyzed that the due to lack of time, the researcher is unable to gather the information in depth way. Due to lack of money, the research is unable to get accesses the extensive range of information and data from different geographical areas.

The ethical consideration is the major aspect of the entire research. The researcher has taken prior permission from the participants and do not force them to get participated. The personal information of the participants is spoiled by the researcher so that misuse of their information could not be done.

The research has given enough information related to the OSHAD in which the discussion has been made on the practical compliance of the public and private organizations to OSHAD regulations and how OSHAD contributes to the employee safety and welfare in Public and private organizations in Abu Dhabi. It has been found that the private and public sector of the Abu Dhabi needs to focus on the entire policies of OSHAD so that employees of the public and private sector can remain in the organization for the long period. Along with that, it has been found that the awareness of Abu Dhabi government has given a tool that make sure a great achievement in recognizing, meeting and increasing the safety and health aims and objectives of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. It is required for the organizations of Abu Dhabi to focus on these policies in an effective manner so that the workplace can be saved for the working employees (Tabish, Mnaouer, Touati and Ghaleb, 2013).

Administrative Hierarchy of OSHAD in Abu Dhabi

It can be suggested to the public and private organization to focus on the implication of OSHAD as it is prepared for the purpose of increasing the health care system of the employees. In the context of this system, it has been suggested to the system of OSHAD to involve stakeholders’ involvement, accountability, transparency, continuous improvement and acknowledgment and responsiveness. It is required for OSHAD to focus on the training needs assessment, training and awareness and competency of trainer.

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