Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) 1994

OSHA 1994 refers to the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994 which was intended to ensure safety, health and welfare of all persons at all places of work.

The 4 benefits of OSHA 1994 are:
1.Reduces risks and causes of accidents.  The inspecting body would identify any hazards, dangerous occurrence, occupational poisoning and disease present in the work place and so to improve the health and safety management practices of an organization. As safety and health programs are both represented by the workers and the employer, consultation programs may also be provided to teach both the knowledge of how to identify hazards and risk and how to eliminates those risks and hazards. This would help them both (workers and employer) to prevent work related injuries, poisoning or death.

2.Monetary benefits. By complying the guidelines of OSHA, one organization (especially business based) would benefits the business. For example, Malaysia, with OSHA, foreign investor would see the seriousness of how the government  make sure the commercial buildings are well examined and inspected before letting for business, and would be please to invest. By following regulations in OSHA, one organization also saving money from reduced employees' injury, paying expensive medical bills, product loss, equipment damage, compensation costs due to death or disable, and even paying high price in renovating damaged building from fires.

3.Easing managerial task. Since OSHA 1994's philosophy is 'responsibility for safety and health in the workplace lies with those who create the risk (employers) and those who work with the risks(employees), both the workers and employers are responsible for own safety and health in the workplace as they were both educated on how to identify hazards and how to eliminate the hazards. The employees should cooperate with the employers to ensure safety and health in the workplace. Since the employees are aware of the safety and health in the workplace, the workplace become safe for them to work in, they can perform better and increase productivity over time, thus, easing managerial task.

4.Workers' health, security and welfare are protected, and employers are aware of safety and health of workers in the organization. With OSHA 1994, inspection would be done not only by officers of Department of occupational safety and health, few independence inspecting body would also assist. The employers are aware of the hazards, they would be required to eliminate the hazards, and if the hazards are unavoidable in daily production (organization which may need to work with dangerous substances), hazards sign should put on to make everyone aware of the existing hazards. If anyone in the organization ignoring the signs and causes accidents or fatal to himself, the employers would not be at fault. On the other hand, OSHA makes the employer comply with the safety and health guideline in the workplace, the employer must comply so to provide safe and healthy place for the workers to work within. If there are accidents happened, the workers would get some amount of medical assistance, or compensation. Thus, with OSHA, the safety of the workers are well guarded, and the health and welfare of the workers are well protected.

The Hot Stove Rule - Douglas Mc Gregor

Hot Stove approach by Douglas Mc Gregor shows that if the rules and penalty are clear and acknowledged clearly to all staff, a violation of rules prescribed would create some consequences as stated in the penalty, just as if someone touching the hot stove, the consequence is to burns his own hands.

Four principles of the hot stove rule in employee discipline is immediacy, warning, consistency and impersonal / impartiality.

i. Immediacy. In discipline employee, a manager should take immediate action to investigate the case and if the employee found guilty of violating the rules and standards of the organization, immediate action should be taken to punish / or penalty should be impose according to rules of the organization. And the employee should be informed of his violation and penalty soon after the manager or the authority of the organization has decided. This would prevent the case from fading away and misjudged. This as if someone touches the 'hot stove', the effect and burning sensation is immediate.

ii. Warning. Each and every employee, higher level or lower level ones should be given notice or acknowledgement of the organization's latest rules, standards and regulations. What penalty and punishment would be set to each violator should also brief to the employees as a warning. As pictured by the 'hot stove', the hot red burning stove is the warning so people would not touch it, if anyone touches it (ignored the warning), his hands would burn as the result (punishment) of touching hot stove.

iii. Consistency. The punishment / penalty for violating rules of the organization should be consistent. This would ensure that all employees are satisfied with the fair treatment and recognize that if anyone violating the rules, he/ she would get the same punishment. This would not only ensure that the employees be loyal to the organization, feel safe when working in the organization and also satisfied when being punished. The 'hot stove' would always burn one's hand if touched, the consequence is consistent, so is discipline.

iv. Impersonal /impartiality. Discipline applied to every member in the organization, regardless of what position ones in, gender, race or family background. A manager should impose the penalty or punishment of violator without bias or favorites. The punishment should be on the subject (the violation), not on the person. This is as if the hot stove, whoever touched it, burn their own hands, the hot stove does not chose to burn certain people or because of who they are, but whoever touched it, get the burn.