The impact of occupational health and safety hazards on employee performance at Uganda Meat Industries ltd.

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Date
2006-10
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Abstract
The study was initiated to investigate the impact of occupational health and safety hazards on employee performance in the production sector in Uganda. This inspired the researcher to select Uganda Meat Industries (UMI) as an illustrative example. The researcher is driven by the quest to find out the main objective of the study, the impact of occupational health and safety standards on employee performance. The study employed cross-sectional research design that used both qualitative and quantitative methods in data collection. The study involved systematic collection of information, identifying occupational hazards, analyzing their impact on employees ‘health and performance, making conclusions and citing areas for further research. Additionally, purposive sampling was used to select the respondents from different staff categories in UMI. This method enabled the researcher to select the right cases to answer the research questions and meet the objectives of the study (Hair et. al, 2003). Primary data was collected using structured questionnaires that were both open and closed ended, Questionnaires were both personally and self-administered and this helped the researcher to collect primary data quickly. In addition Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) was used as a tool in data analysis. Analysis and interpretation of the findings revealed that employees in UMI are exposed to physical, ergonomic, social and stress hazards, Social hazards emerged as the predominant since they affected almost all sections in the plant followed by the rest. In addition, management has some measures against occupational hazards that are not enough to prevent and control their impact. However, the study failed to get information on biological and chemical hazards. Conclusively, the findings revealed that there is high correlation between independent and dependent variables with significance ~F) change of 0.0000. Additionally, the researcher came out with the following recommendations; the plant should train employees in ergonomic issues, employ a company doctor on full time basis, recognize overtime of employees with reasonable payment, allow employees to sign job contracts, solve employees problems quickly, put in place hearing conservation programs and should put in place a safety and health policy. In conclusion therefore, from the major findings, occupational hazards affect performance greatly by 56.5% and management should address this problem by using the fore mentioned recommendations, this study cited potential areas for further research like on chemical and biological hazards where the researcher had no enough skills to diagnosis their impact on performance. On other factors that affect performance other than occupational hazards, the researcher recommends similar research be conducted in up country areas in the same field
Description
School of post graduate studies a research paper presented to the school of postgraduate studies Kampala International university in partial fulfillment of the requirements for masters of business administration (human resource management)
Keywords
Occupational health, Safety hazards, Employee performance
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