Health and Safety in the Workplace Essay

* The wiring can be temperamental, the hot water system is often not working and the canteen is in a basement room with no external lighting or windows. There are only 3 toilets in the building and these are also situated on the lower ground floor, near to the canteen. The Workplace (Health, Safety & Welfare) Regulations 1992 state that in reference to lighting; â€Å"Every workplace shall have suitable and sufficient lighting. Where it is practicable, the lighting shall be by natural light. Suitable and sufficient emergency lighting shall be provided.† To mend the lighting issue in the canteen, sufficient lighting would need to be provided & maintained otherwise the company would be breaching these regulations. These regulations also state that in regards to temperature in the workplace; â€Å"should be reasonable for indoor workplaces. There should be a sufficient number of thermometers provided to allow checking of temperature.† With the hot water system failing to function at all times it is required; the temperature should be monitored carefully & should ideally be replaced with one that is reliable. The toilets in the canteen area will need to be well lit as well, but also very well ventilated with a high quantity of fresh air. The Workplace (Health, Safety & Welfare) Regulations 1992 state that three bathrooms are required for between 26– 50 employees, if there are more employees then additional WC facilities will be required. Also, There must be hot and cold water, soap, and either electric hand dryers or towels provided. The Electricity at Work Act 1989 states that within the work place, those responsible must; â€Å"Have their electrical systems constructed in a way that prevents danger. This includes testing all new equipment to ensure that it is safe. Maintain their electrical systems correctly to prevent danger. Have repaired or closed any electrical system that causes danger.† The electrical system is temperamental & will need to be repaired & in some areas perhaps replaced to keep up to the standards that The Electricity at Work Act 1989 requires. * The lift has been out of service for some considerable time and the computers are constantly breaking down. The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 states that any equipment provided must be â€Å"maintained and kept in good working order† therefore the computers & the lift are not meeting these regulations as they are continuously breaking down or in the case of the lift, not working at all. They must either be replaced or repaired so that they are available for use by all people within the building. The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 also say, with regards to the lift, that where manual handling is unavoidable, they should be mechanised with the use of trolleys, lifts and hoists. So if any lifting tasks were to occur, the lift should be available to use as it is already in place. * None of the air conditioning units are working and none of the windows open. All files that need to be kept are stored under the stairs on each of the different floors. The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 say that a minimum temperature of 16 °C should be maintained in an area of normal physical activity & there should be a good number of thermometers positioned at above 0.5m off the ground to display the room temperature. There is no maximum temperature for a workplace however these regulations state that the workplace should be comfortable and reasonable. The Workplace (Health, Safety & Welfare) Regulations 1992 also say that â€Å"the supply of fresh air should not normally be below 5-8 litres per second, per occupant† so the fact that the air conditioning units don’t function & the windows do not open breach these regulations entirely & should be repaired or replaced immediately. With the files of the company being stored under the stairs, the company could well be breaching the rules of The Data Protection Act 1998 which states that information stored about people cannot be accessed by a third party without their knowledge. The inadequate storage below each of the stairs is not secure & therefore anyone within the building could access them. The Statutory duties of employers and employees relating to health, safety and welfare as set out by the government says that the employer must explicitly provide arrangements for ensuring safe means of handling, use, storage and transport of articles and substances. All files being stored under the stairs does definitely not provide a safe means of storing documents so an alternative organisational system should be used for the company’s files. The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 also sets out to â€Å"protect people at work† & â€Å"to protect people not at work from those who are†, the files could pose a trip hazard to employees & people visiting the building, another reason for an alternative storage system to be implemented. * The offices are cleaned on a weekly basis, but all the cleaning products are kept in the canteen near the emergency exit. Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) is the law that requires employers to control substances that are hazardous to health[1] & not storing the cleaning products safely & securely if they contain any harmful ingredients (which many cleaning products do) breaches the regulations set out. You can prevent or reduce workers exposure to hazardous substances by: * finding out what the health hazards are; * deciding how to prevent harm to health (risk assessment[2]); * providing control measures to reduce harm to health; * making sure they are used ; * keeping all control measures in good working order; * providing information, instruction and training for employees and others; * providing monitoring and health surveillance in appropriate cases; * planning for emergencies. If the cleaning products have always been stored by the emergency exit, then the company are in breach of The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 as they have failed to identify that there is a risk to its employees & have obviously failed to conduct a thorough risk assessment. With the cleaning products obstructing the emergency exit, The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 states that â€Å"clear fire instructions should be displayed in all buildings; escape routes should be clearly signposted and free from obstruction†. The cleaning products being stored there are a direct violation of this & they should be removed then stored safely & securely. * The majority of photocopiers are out of action on each of the floors; this means that all staff have to go to the 5th floor to get good quality copies. The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 states that any equipment provided must be â€Å"maintained and kept in good working order†, the unusable photocopiers breach these regulations & must be repaired or replaced. The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 state â€Å"to avoid the need for employees to undertake any manual handling operations at work which involve a risk of their being injured†. Under the Regulations, a suitable and sufficient risk assessment of all manual handling operations should be carried out to quantify the risks and put suitable guidance and support in place to make sure risks are kept to a minimum. The employer is also expected to train staff where necessary in the correct way to manually lift and handle objects. The employer has done neither, so to prevent accidents occurring, the employer should implement these immediately. * On your first day at the new office, one of the receptionists, who is due to go on maternity leave in the next two weeks; falls down the stairs (after having done a large amount of photocopying) and breaks her leg, her arm and her collarbone. The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (MHOR)[3] requires an employer to carry out a risk assessment on all manual handling tasks that pose an injury risk. If the employer had assessed this properly, a system or alternative way of moving the photocopied documents could have been developed, or perhaps another member of staff could have taken on this responsibility. The employer’s duty is to avoid manual handling as far as reasonably practicable if there is a possibility of injury. If this cannot be done then they must take steps to reduce the risk of injury as far as reasonably practicable. With the lift being available but closed due to a fault, the employer is not utilizing the available mechanisms as the lift has not been repaired. This puts any employee carrying any large object(s) at risk of injury & the lift will need to be repaired with adequate alternative carrying methods for employees who are unable to do so. Also, The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 says that rest facilities must be provided for pregnant women and nursing mothers, this may not be relevant to the woman falling down the stairs, however if this has not been provided for her, it could have contributed if she was tired & unable to find a place to rest or not allowed to take time to rest.

Bullying: The Worst Social Problem in the U.S.

A social problem is when the public or some segment of the public perceives a condition or a bad situation as a problem to the whole society. I think that one of the worst social problems in the United States of America is bullying. Bullying can affect everyone that is involved including the person being bullied, the bully, and the bystander. It can only have a negative effect on people's lives, and usually bullying comes from an outside source which is making the bully act in such a disgusting manner.In America's youth, bullying has progressively become a bigger problem over the past years. There are many different types of bullying that can be done like physical bullying, mental bullying, or something lie cyber bullying. Kids who are bullied usually end up with negative problems down the road in their lives. Kids who are bullied are very likely to experience things like depression or anxiety, feeling sad and lonesome in the world, negatively changed sleeping and eating habits, and just lack of generally caring about anything.Being bullied instantly results in the student being picked on dropping their grades in their classes. This would happen because the kid will start to skip school or class just so that they could avoid any chance of seeing that bully, so they will not be abused for another time. Many of the kids being bullied could resort to something like violence and that is never the answer. An example is, most of every school shooting in history was motivated by one person picking on the person doing the terrible act off school shooting.If a kid bullies in the young art of their life, the aggression will most likely carry on into the latter stages of their life as well. Kids who bully a lot in school are more likely to abuse alcohol or other drugs when they get older and more mature. They also tend to get in to doing bad things like get into fights, vandalize property, and even drop out of school completely. When bullies get older as adults, they gene rally tend to be the ones that are getting pulled over by the policemen and getting tickets and citations, and many of them also turn out to commit stupid crimes and get locked away for them.Because bullies are always filled with rage for their entire lives, they sometimes take their rage out on their significant other and perform an act of domestic violence on them. Domestic violence is a major problem in our country. Kids who witness bullying and then do nothing about it can also be greatly traumatized by what they have seen with their eyes. It messes with them to the point where they have to rely on something like cigarettes or drugs and alcohol to keep the calm and not worried about it.They usually have problems with anxiety and sometimes oppression later on in their life because of the events they watched and did nothing about. Bystanders will also drop out of school or start to skip class because watching another person get treated so poorly by another person has become too mu ch of a burden for them to bear. When people are bullied their suicide risk automatically goes up. Being bullied makes a person feel normalized and separated from society completely. I believe that every person needs a support group because without one, it is hard to retain a positive outlook on life.This can lead to loneliness, and a person will start to contemplate if their life is really worth living. If somebody is not of the norm then they will usually be made fun of or bullied because of their difference. That will also contribute to feeling alone, and being alone makes a person think about everything very thoroughly, then they come to the conclusion in their head that they are not good enough for this world. Physical bullying is a terrible form of bullying. It involves a person hitting another person, hurting another person, or destroying or stealing someone's possessions.In physical bullying, the same victim is targeted many different times, the bully IS attempting to hurt, embarrass, or intimidate another person, and the bully usually picks a target that is smaller than him so that he has a definite chance of winning. Accessibility is when a child or teenager is harassed, humiliated, embarrassed, threatened or tormented using digital technology. It can happen on the internet and also over the phone through text messages or phone calls. When a person gets bullied over the internet or through text it is different from getting physically bullied.The accessibility messes with their mind and they are often damaged psychologically from it. Cyber bullying can lead to terrible things like self-harm, severe depression, and even suicide. Bullying is a major problem in the United States of America's schools. It needs to be stopped because everyone involved is seriously hindered by the psychological effects of bullying, and then it is hard for them to grow and mature as normal human beings. Children react easily to physical and mental harassment and their need to be harsher consequences for people that get caught bullying.

Teaching and presentation skills FOR NURSING AND SOCIAL WORK SKILLS Assignment

Teaching and presentation skills FOR NURSING AND SOCIAL WORK SKILLS - Assignment Example I will evaluate and analyse my teaching practice using SWOT analysis in order to understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of my teaching practice. The first stage of Gibbs Model is description which requires me to describe the situation or event I dealt with. I was required to deliver a lesson using teaching and presentation skills. The lesson I selected for this purpose was on Direct Payments. The aim of my lesson was to enable the students to explore the idea of Direct Payments and to provide them a guideline about how payments are arranged and supported within councils. The experience of teaching was quite new to me yet I decided to work hard. To build up confidence for the task I studied extensively and prepared attractive teaching aids. I studied all the important aspects of Direct Payments and prepared my notes for the lesson. Using these notes I made some colourful slides containing all the important points of the lesson and some diagrams showing the direct payment procedures. In order to make my teaching effective I also prepared the case study notes and handouts. I presented well to my peers, but I was very nervous due to stage fright. The first two minutes of the presentation were really hard since I was feeling anxiety. I was conscious about the facial expressions of my students who were in reality my peers. However, to hide my nervousness I kept my voice a bit loud and held my hands on the dais in order to appear calm and confident. In the beginning I was not quite sure about how the students and my evaluators felt about my lesson but with the passage of time I became more confident and delivered the whole lesson within the prescribed time. The response of my peers or students was quite encouraging which was evident from their high level of interest and good class participation. Their positive response made me feel more confident and self-assured. The third stage in Gibbs (1988) model of reflection is evaluation in which I am

Personality in Human Beings Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Personality in Human Beings - Essay Example In this essay I shall shortly describe my own views on personality and then discuss some theories that are popular in their descriptions of the human personality. The theories of three theorists namely, Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939), Carl Gustav Jung (1875 - 1961), Albert Bandura (1925- ), and their work on human personality shall be discussed here. In the process I shall envisage to understand the differences and similarities in the theories of psychoanalysis. In my perspective human personality is complex, and is constituted of many factors such as 1) physical attributes and genetic make-up, 2) cultural and ethnical background, 3) personal aptitudes and beliefs. The first two factors are largely inherited with little scope for alteration; like for example, skin color, height, propensity towards some inherited diseases, are inherited and do have a bearing on one's personality. The second two factors are socially constructed, partially inherited and partially changeable, but, nevertheless have great influence on the human personality. For example, the work-culture and perception of opportunities by a Chinese is more likely to be typically inherited from his/her parents and very specific to that ethnic and cultural background. I call it partially changeable because, the same Chinese immigrated to the U.S. ... The third set of factor is important and is mostly responsible for making a qualitative difference in one's personality. For example, physicist Stephen Hawking suffered from the degenerative Lou Gherig's Disease (www.hawking.org), but never allowed it to come in the way of his scientific quest. Battling with pneumonia, he lost his voice; but his sheer love for science and integrity made him to overcome all his set-backs. He is a good example of the power of personal beliefs and aptitudes, and what it can achieve, despite handicaps. Theories of Psychoanalysis Consciously or unconsciously, my concept of personality is derived from three theorists: Freud, Jung and Bandura. Importantly, the 'structure of personality' (Ewen 6) as per each construct shall be delineated here, with a further discussion of how they have helped in my understanding of the human personality. 'Construct' refers to "a set of terms and principles constructed or applied by the theorist" that constitutes a theory and they are useful in explaining the particular theory of personality and comparisons between them (Ewen 4); like for example Jung's theory of psyche and the human personality is marked by the terms and descriptions like the 'collective unconscious' and archetypes (Ewen 6). First in the discussion shall be Sigmund Freud. Von Schubert, Carus, and Schopenhauer, had already done some research in the field of 'unconscious' (Ewen 7-8). Freud's concept consists of the constructs - id, ego, and superego (Freud 1923 p.8). He holds that the human being is driven by powerful instincts which get activated when the body is mature. Human beings are born with an Id which may be understood as basic instincts like hunger, sleep and so on.

Business modelling Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Business modelling - Essay Example It also helps in reducing clustered and excessive data in a given setting to a manageable amount. It helps one to select on the precise variables that can be used in the study of managing a business. Therefore, it will help in making decisions of the business (Yao and Li 2013). The variables in this technique helps in correcting certain mistakes that would otherwise been made in a normal business setting. For example, a business owner who thinks that extending business hours would certainly increase profits may re-think on this when they use the technique. This will go a long way in improving the business. Linear regression is normally used with variables that are represented linearly. This will limit this technique to only data that are linear and cannot work with non-linear problems. The variables that are dependent are normally in a continuous form or they are close to being continuous, that is, they are able to be represented by any value. This linearity between dependent and independent variables will not always be true since some relationships have a curved kind of representation. For example, the relationship between age and income is not linear, but curved. Income increases during early years of a person and slows down as the age of the person proceeds (Fearn 2011). Linear regression analyses the average in the relationship between independent and dependent variables. For example, when representing the relationship between the eating behavior of people and increase in their weight, this technique will represent the average weight of the food eaten with the change in their weight over time. This will not give a complete and clear description of the exact data that there is in a given situation hence there may be a misrepresentation of the data (Huang 2013). Linear regression is normally affected with variables that are on the extreme. These variables are known as outliers. They are

Quiz Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Quiz - Coursework Example In simple terms bourgeois refers to the rich, the ruling class and those who owns the means of production. On the other hand, proletariat is the working class in the society. The two classes are created by the forces of capitalism and the working class are left being exploited by the rich people (Vattimo & Zabala, 2011). In simple terms, it refers to the â€Å"ethics of care vis-à  -vis the ethics of rights† (Mappes, 1994). Expounded, this refers to a situation whereby women are praised and are at the same time confronted for what they do. It also refers to situations where women are tangled in two opposing ethics, which involves care on one end and rights on the other end.   A woman, according to Mappes, is mostly confronted by a situation that she cannot handle or she is faced with two irreconcilable demands or a choice between two undesirable courses of action. Eventually, such demands usually lead to serious problems (Mappes, 1994). According to Mappes, care acts as the basis of the other ethics related to rights. When women are subjected to such situations Mappes argues that they are led to moral madness. The traditional role of women, according to Mappes is.to utilize the ethics of care. in this case, women are required to take care of the needs of others. The are also endowed with the duty of maintaining relationships. This simply means that the traditional role that women should play is that of care-giving. Mappes argues that this traditional role is not good as it associates women with low status and assumes that they are not supposed to use the public space (Mappes, 1994). Communism refers to the principles of economic fairness through the elimination of private property. Communism’s main role is to come up with social order since social classes and other things such as the state and money are not present. In communism, the community is entrusted with the ownership of resources and not individuals as it is the case with capitalism

Managing People in Organisations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Managing People in Organisations - Essay Example Manpower management can be a very stressing facet of businesses. The demands differ greatly from those of the other functional areas. Hence, in order to be able to properly manage a company’s workforce, managers must be aware of the behavior being exhibited by the people in their organization. Usually, these behaviors become entrenched in the company and are greatly held by the company’s culture. However, challenging as this may be, it is an important element of a company’s strategy. Basically, these are the force behind the innovations or policies that will be implemented from the strategy that a company hopes to pursue. Hence, building the culture of the company has increasingly been gaining traction among today’s companies since it is a strong platform from which to launch the tactical plans of companies pursuant to their strategic plan. Hence, the capability of companies to utilize their manpower and to be able to harness their capabilities has been cr ucial for the success of these companies (Wang Wei 2006). The need for such awareness and understanding of the human behavior in the organization has been increasingly more pressing with the advent of globalization. The different culture from which employees all over the world has been the norm for companies with global operations has made companies even more aware of the need for understanding the behavior of the people and the organization as a whole. Thus, the management of people necessitates the need for a personal touch. Hence, there have been varying ways in which the different managers handle the diverse workforce they have under them. This has called for a greater degree of flexibility to enable the managers to understand the people that they work with (HIckson and Pugh 2002). This has been a necessary skill in order to enable the company to achieve their various goals and objectives. The multicultural nature of organisations that operate internationally has called for varying styles of management in order to properly handle the differences that they will be encountering with their global workforce. Globalisation has opened up various opportunities for businesses over the past two decades. One is that they are able to source out new markets from different countries. In effect, companies are not anymore limited by the size of the domestic market from which they come from. Through globalisation, they have