An Evaluation of Occupational Health and Safety Management System Compliance in and Challenges SMEs (Dissertation Sample)

An Evaluation of Occupational Health and Safety Management System Compliance in and Challenges SMEs in Small Towns of UK: A Case Study of SMEs in Hawes (North Yorkshire)
A dissertation presented By
[Your Name]
To
[Your Supervisors]
In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the masters
[Name of the master program you Pursue]
At
[Name of your University]
2014
© Your Name (2014)
Declaration
I……………………………………………………..hereby declare that this piece of work is my original work and has never been presented in any institution of learning institution.
Acknowledgement
This paper was completed in June, 2014. I owe a great deal of thanks to many people. I would like to dedicate my most sincere gratitude to Marion Jackaman, my supervisor, whose careful and insightful guidance in the formwork shaping and paper writing. So to Phil Ingamells, who helped arrange field programmes and finally I would extend my thanks to beloved family members who have given me their constant encouragement and positive support with this work.
Table of Contents
TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Chapter 1: Introduction PAGEREF _Toc401786138 \h 1
1.1 The aims and objectives of the Study PAGEREF _Toc401786139 \h 2
1.2 Research Questions PAGEREF _Toc401786140 \h 2
1.3 Justification of the Study PAGEREF _Toc401786141 \h 3
1.4 Overview of Methodology PAGEREF _Toc401786142 \h 4
1.5 Chapter Overview PAGEREF _Toc401786143 \h 4
2.0 Chapter 2: Literature Review PAGEREF _Toc401786144 \h 5
2.1 Introduction PAGEREF _Toc401786145 \h 5
2.2 Conceptual Framework PAGEREF _Toc401786146 \h 5
2.2.1 SMEs PAGEREF _Toc401786147 \h 5
2.2.3 Occupational Health and Safety PAGEREF _Toc401786148 \h 6
2.2.4 Occupational Health and Safety Management System Compliance PAGEREF _Toc401786149 \h 7
2.3 Theoretical Framework PAGEREF _Toc401786150 \h 8
2.4  Review of Pertinent Literatures PAGEREF _Toc401786151 \h 9
2.4.1 Occupational Health and Safety Management System Compliance in SMEs- PAGEREF _Toc401786152 \h 9
2.4.1 .1Why Occupational Safety and Health is a Key Issue to Organizations PAGEREF _Toc401786153 \h 9
2.4.1 .2 The Situation of Occupational Safety and Health among the SMEs PAGEREF _Toc401786154 \h 10
2.4.1.3 Occupational Health and Safety Management System Compliance Challenges PAGEREF _Toc401786155 \h 12
2.4.1 .4 Managing the Compliance Challenges PAGEREF _Toc401786156 \h 13
2.5 Summary, Conclusions and Research Gap PAGEREF _Toc401786157 \h 15
3.0 Chapter 3: Methodology PAGEREF _Toc401786158 \h 16
3.1 Research Questions PAGEREF _Toc401786159 \h 16
3.2 Research Philosophy and Design PAGEREF _Toc401786160 \h 16
3.3 Research Strategy PAGEREF _Toc401786161 \h 16
3.4 Data Collection PAGEREF _Toc401786162 \h 17
3.5 Data Analysis PAGEREF _Toc401786163 \h 18
3.6 Ethical Considerations PAGEREF _Toc401786164 \h 18
Chapter 4: Findings, Analysis and Discussions PAGEREF _Toc401786165 \h 19
4.1 The State of Compliance PAGEREF _Toc401786166 \h 19
4.1.1 Evaluation of Specific Occupational Health and Safety Activities PAGEREF _Toc401786167 \h 19
4.2 Activities Related to Implementation PAGEREF _Toc401786168 \h 21
4.2.1 Carrying out risk assessments PAGEREF _Toc401786169 \h 21
4.2.3 Checking on the health and safety standards PAGEREF _Toc401786170 \h 22
4.2.4 Meeting health and safety legislation, regulations and rules PAGEREF _Toc401786171 \h 24
4.2.5 Activities Related to Policy and Planning PAGEREF _Toc401786172 \h 25
4.2.6 Activities related to measuring performance PAGEREF _Toc401786173 \h 27
4.2.7 Activities related to reviewing performance PAGEREF _Toc401786174 \h 28
4.3 What is the health and safety implications of Occupational Safety and Health non-compliance among do SMEs in Hawes PAGEREF _Toc401786175 \h 30
4.4 What Occupational Safety and Health compliance challenges do SMEs in Hawes face? PAGEREF _Toc401786176 \h 34
Chapter 5: Discussions PAGEREF _Toc401786177 \h 36
5.1 Compliance Situation of the SMEs in Hawes PAGEREF _Toc401786178 \h 36
5.2 Challenges and Implications PAGEREF _Toc401786179 \h 39
Chapter 6:  Conclusion and Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc401786180 \h 43
6.1 Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc401786181 \h 43
6.2 Recommendations PAGEREF _Toc401786182 \h 45
6.3 Study Limitations, and Suggestions for Further Research PAGEREF _Toc401786183 \h 45
References PAGEREF _Toc401786184 \h 46
APPENDIX A: Interview Led Questionnaire PAGEREF _Toc401786185 \h 49
Student Assignment - Self-Assessment PAGEREF _Toc401786186 \h 51
List of Tables
TOC \h \z \c "Table" Table 1: Statistics on compliance in respect to specific activities PAGEREF _Toc401786001 \h 19
Table 2: Likert scale PAGEREF _Toc401786002 \h 20
Table 3: Carrying out risk assessments PAGEREF _Toc401786003 \h 21
Table 4: Checking on the health and safety standards PAGEREF _Toc401786004 \h 23
Table 5: Developing your own health and safety policy PAGEREF _Toc401786005 \h 26
Table 6: Carrying out health and safety training PAGEREF _Toc401786006 \h 26
Table 7: Updating health and safety information PAGEREF _Toc401786007 \h 26
Table 8: Keeping record of serious injuries, dangerous accidents and diseases that occurs in organizations in accident books PAGEREF _Toc401786008 \h 27
Table 9: Reviewing performance in occupational health and safety performance PAGEREF _Toc401786009 \h 28
Table 10: Whether incidences of accidents an serious illnesses had been reported PAGEREF _Toc401786010 \h 30
Table 11:Model Summary PAGEREF _Toc401786011 \h 33
Table 12:ANOVAb PAGEREF _Toc401786012 \h 33
Table of Figures TOC \h \z \c "Figure"
Figure 1: Carrying out the risk assessment PAGEREF _Toc401786013 \h 22
Figure 2: Checking on the health and safety standards PAGEREF _Toc401786014 \h 23
Figure 3: Meeting health and safety laws, regulations and standards PAGEREF _Toc401786015 \h 24
Figure 4: Keeping records PAGEREF _Toc401786016 \h 28
Figure 5: Reviewing performance in occupational health and safety performance PAGEREF _Toc401786017 \h 29
Abstract
Occupational Health and Safety compliance is crucial to ensuring a safe and healthy work place in all organizations. Interviewer led questionnaire was used to collect the data for the study. This study sought investigate the extent to which the SMEs in rural towns of UK comply with the Occupational Health and Safety requirements and the challenges they face in their compliance efforts, with focus on SMEs at Hawes, York City. The study finds generally unsatisfactory level of compliance, consistent with the past studies. Among eight different measures of compliance in Occupational Health and Safety that the study assessed, only one- keeping record of serious injuries, dangerous accidents and diseases that occurs in organizations in accident books, is satisfactory , scoring 4 out of 5. The rest are dismally performed, namely: carrying out risk assessments; meeting health and safety legislation, regulations and rules, developing your own health and safety policy; carrying out health and safety training; updating health and safety information; checking on the health and safety standards and reviewing performance in occupational health and safety performance. The study also finds a negative correlation between most aspects of compliance and incidences of work place accidents and illness. Key challenges faced include financial and systemic constrains. Various measures need to be put in place to ensure occupational compliance among organizations. At organizational levels, organization’s management need to adopt occupational health and safety measures and policies that integrates the six performance indicators (1) the training and competency in projects; (2) minimal impact on stakeholders particularly the local communities and neighbours; (3) presence of sensible and risk management systems on all safety and health risks; (4) absence or reduction of accidents;’ (5) respect for others (people) (6) maintenance of statutory compliance. Stakeholder inclusiveness needs to tighten their inspection among the SMEs. Cultivating management’s willingness; good planning and setting up Occupational Health and Safety Policy are also. Future studies could use larger sample size and focus on specific sectors in exploring similar issues.
Key Words: SMEs, Occupational Health and Safety, Compliance
Chapter 1: Introduction
 Occupational safety and health (Occupational Health and Safety )  as an areas is an integral concern to UK Health and Social Care practitioners considering that majority of the UK population are employed or work in some enterprise (Sargeant & Tucker, 2009). Occupational Health and Safety seeks to provide a rigorous framework for protection of workers’ health, safe and welfare while at work (Niu, 2010). Other than being a focal point of preventive health and safety measures, Occupational Health and Safety standards and practices are provided for by the law and as such all employing agencies are expected to comply with them (Bakri et al., 2006). Presently, SMEs survey indicates that UK hosts about 4.9 million SMES, accounting for 24.3 million workers (Federation of Small Businesses, 2013). Thus, there is a substantial proportion of UK population work in SMEs. The people working in these SMEs need to be assured of their safety and health while at work though ensuring stringent set up of Occupational Health and Safety system. The term occupational health and safety system re...