Search Results (23)

Client-initiated workplace violence in educational settings is a global issue affecting both teaching and non-teaching employees, such as instructional assistants, counselors, and administrators, among other school workers. Although studies on violence in educational settings have primarily focused on students, there has been growing interest in examining violence against teachers and, more recently, against teaching assistants and other educational professionals. This systematic review aims to analyze studies from diverse educational settings to examine the characteristics, causes, effects, and coping strategies associated with violence perpetrated by students, parents, or guardians, with the goal of informing and advancing prevention strategies. Following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, a systematic literature review was conducted, analyzing studies across various educational environments to examine the characteristics, causes, effects, and coping strategies of violence perpetrated by students, parents, or guardians. This review revealed a significant prevalence of physical, psychological, and verbal assaults. However, most studies originated from Anglo-Saxon contexts, limiting their generalizability to diverse cultural and educational settings. The lack of research in other languages and in underrepresented regions highlights critical gaps in understanding this issue globally. The revision conclude that workplace violence in educational settings demands urgent and comprehensive responses involving all stakeholders. Implementing targeted prevention strategies and fostering a culture of respect are essential to ensure safe and healthy learning environments. Full article

Digitalization, driven by the widespread adoption of information and communication technology (ICT), reshapes occupational safety (OSH). This study examines emerging OSH risks linked to digitalization, assessing its benefits and challenges. Through a comprehensive literature review, key technologies influencing OSH are identified, their effects are categorized, and mitigation strategies are proposed. While ICT enhances workplace safety through improved monitoring and decision-making, it also introduces risks such as stress and information overload. The findings emphasize the need for further research on long-term impacts and effective risk management. This paper contributes to the field by highlighting ICT’s positive and negative implications on OSH and underscoring the importance of responsible technology adoption. The insights presented are valuable for policymakers, researchers, and industry practitioners committed to fostering a safe and healthy work environment. Full article

Background/Objectives: Nurses’ workplaces are critical to both the levels and types of care nurses can deliver as well as to employee retention. The quality of the workplace environment is a significant predictor of employment outcomes, such as improved care and a decrease in nurses’ desire to leave their work. Moreover, a favourable work environment can significantly improve organisational performance. A healthy nursing workplace is a safe, empowering, and fulfilling place of employment in which all healthcare personnel work tirelessly for patients’ optimal health and wellness. The aim of this study is to identify the association between workplace environment and work engagement among nurses in clinical settings. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional correlational design was used. Convenience sampling was used to recruit 349 nurses from various hospitals in the central northern region of Saudi Arabia. A four-part electronic questionnaire eliciting information on participants’ sociodemographic characteristics, job characteristics, work-related quality of life (WRQoL), and work engagement was collected. All ethical guidelines for scientific research on human beings were strictly followed. Results: The participants had average levels of WRQoL. However, they had generally moderate to high levels of work engagement, which reflects their moderate to low intention to leave work. The findings demonstrated a statistically significant positive link between the WRQoL and work engagement of the participants. Conclusions: When the nurses’ WRQoL improved, their work engagement increased significantly. Improving WRQoL will almost definitely enhance nurses’ work engagement, which will reduce nurses’ intentions to leave their employment. It is advised that nurses enhance their WRQoL in order to increase their engagement in the workplace, have fewer thoughts about leaving, and make fewer plans to leave. Full article

The electric power industry poses significant risks to workers with a wide range of hazards such as electrocution, electric shock, burns, and falls. Regardless of the types and characteristics of these hazards, electric power companies should protect their workers and provide a safe and healthy working environment, but it is difficult to identify the potential health and safety risks present in their workplace and take appropriate action to keep their workers free from harm. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel safety autonomous platform (SAP) for data-driven risk management in the electric power industry. It can automatically and precisely provide a safe and healthy working environment with the cooperation of safety mobility gateways (SMGs) according to the safety rule and risk index data created by the risk level of a current task, a worker profile, and the output of an on-site artificial intelligence (AI) engine in the SMGs. We practically implemented the proposed SAP architecture using the Hadoop ecosystem and verified its feasibility through a performance evaluation of the on-site AI engine and real-time operation of risk assessment and alarm notification for data-driven risk management. Full article

Background: Health professionals are at high risk of poor mental health and well-being. Faced with this challenge, healthcare organizations must be healthy and safe work environments. Objectives: This study aims to take an in-depth, systemic look at whether healthcare organizations are healthy workplaces. Methods: The study involved 2190 participants aged between 19 and 71 (M = 44.73, SD = 10.29) and data were collected in 12 public hospitals between November 2021 and December 2023. The study used the Ecosystems of Healthy Workplaces instrument, which consists of a total of 62 items organized into nine dimensions based on the Healthy Workplaces model proposed by the World Health Organization. Results: Most dimensions revealed a moderate risk in terms of whether they were healthy work environments, while the dimension that revealed a high risk was related to psychosocial risks at work in relation to well-being and mental health. A total of 87% of the professionals reported at least one symptom of burnout and 61.4% reported having all three symptoms of burnout. Additionally, 25.4% reported having been victims of harassment at work. When comparing the groups, we identified that the higher risk groups were namely women, generation Z and X professionals, doctors (compared to the different professional groups under analysis such as nurses, operational assistants, psychologists, administrators, senior technicians, and managers), professionals with chronic illnesses, and those who reported harassment at work. Conclusions: We conclude that the work environment must be understood ecologically, by analyzing the different systems and their relationships. This makes it possible to identify priority factors and groups for intervention. Full article

When analyzing occupational safety factors, a human factor is associated with 80–90% of incidents and accidents that occur. Controlling this factor is essential when it comes to creating healthy and safe organizations. Personality traits have shown great relevance when understanding the behavior of safety or self-protection in the workplace, affecting the motivation of subjects and, therefore, their behavior. The objective of this study is to analyze the influence of the extraversion trait on compliance with safety rules and behaviors, while evaluating the mediating effect of motivation for safety in health professionals. The sample is composed of 183 nurses and wardens of a hospital in Spain. The obtained results confirm the hypotheses raised, validating the negative influences of extraversion on motivation for security and compliance with norms, behaviors, and security, while verifying the effect of the total mediation of motivation for security in the influence of extraversion on security compliance. This confirms the effect of this personality trait on employees’ safety behaviors, and the possibility of reducing this influence by controlling personal motivations with interventions from the organization. Full article

Leaders that focus on preventing risks and promoting safe and healthy behaviors are essential to reducing workplace accidents and illnesses, particularly in a changing environment where technology and the complex interconnection of systems create emerging risks with unpredictable consequences for employee wellbeing and organizational productivity. In that sense, this multiple focus group study with 32 experts in occupational safety and health (OSH) aims at providing valuable insight into the most effective strategies for promoting health and productivity in a changing context. Results indicate that a safety and prevention culture is crucial for successful risk prevention and management, with commitment required from both top management and workers. Moreover, transformational leadership is identified as a key to achieving a safety and prevention culture. In addition, training is considered a pivotal mechanism to introduce appropriate safety practices into daily work routines. This requires an interdisciplinary, integrated, and collaborative perspective. Finally, integrating risk prevention into higher education prepares professionals to face current labor market challenges. These results can guide decision making for both training OSH professionals and introducing effective OSH practices in organizations. Full article

Lately, chairs have been widely used as a cheap, easily accessible, safe, and effective training means in different settings (e.g., in gyms, the house, workplaces, and in rehabilitation). This study investigated the effectiveness of a 10-week chair-based music–kinetic integrated combined exercise program on health, functional capacity, and physical fitness indicators of middle-aged pre-menopausal women. A total of 40 healthy women (40–53 years) were assigned to two groups: exercise (EG) and control (CG). The EG followed a 10-week (3 times/weekly; 30 training sessions) chair-based exercise program including aerobic dance, flexibility, coordination, and strength exercises with body weight or auxiliary means. Selected indicators of health, functional capacity, and physical fitness were evaluated before and after the 10 weeks. Following the program, the EG significantly reduced their body fat (−2.5%), blood pressure (by −4.5 to −5.5%), the time during the timed up-and-go (TUG) test (by −10.27%), heart rate (by −6.35 to −13.78%), and the rate of perceived exertion (by −24.45 to −25.88%), while increasing respiratory function (3.5–4%), flexibility (12.17%), balance (50.38–51.07%), maximal handgrip strength (10–12.17%), and endurance strength (43.87–55.91%). The chair-based combined music–kinetic exercise program was effective and could be safely used in different settings to improve health, functional capacity, and physical fitness in middle-aged women. Full article

Occupational safety and health is among the most challenging issues in many industrial workplaces, in that various factors can cause occupational illness and injury. Robotics, automation, and other state-of-the-art technologies represent risks that can cause further injuries and accidents. However, the tools currently used to assess risks in workplaces require manual work and are highly subjective. These tools include checklists and work assessments conducted by experts. Modern Industry 4.0 technologies such as a digital twin, a computerized representation in the digital world of a physical asset in the real world, can be used to provide a safe and healthy work environment to human workers and can reduce occupational injuries and accidents. These digital twins should be designed to collect, process, and analyze data about human workers. The problem is that building a human-focused digital twin is quite challenging and requires the integration of various modern hardware and software components. This paper aims to provide a brief survey of recent research papers on digital twins, focusing on occupational safety and health applications, which is considered an emerging research area. The authors focus on enabling technologies for human data acquisition and human representation in a virtual environment, on data processing procedures, and on the objectives of such applications. Additionally, this paper discusses the limitations of existing studies and proposes future research directions. Full article

This paper aims to explore conflict as a process that includes antecedents, management strategy, and outcomes while examining the role of affective states in an elementary school working environment. After a theoretical overview and systematization of the conflict elements, a questionnaire was developed that satisfies internal reliability and construct validity. Conflicts at the workplace were modeled with Bayesian SEM, and the results point out the prominent role of affective states in conflicts. Findings confirmed that (1) affective states affect the conflict management strategy choice; (2) different conflict management strategies lead to different conflict consequences; and (3) different affective states lead to differently perceived conflict consequences/outcomes. In addition, we conclude that conflicts with dominantly positive and negative affective states behave structurally differently. The revealed role of affective states facilitates future intervention possibilities in education about conflict management strategies and control of emotions and affective states. Raising awareness about affective states’ role in the conflict might increase mutual un-understanding and contribute to a healthy school social environment as a safe space for learning, sharing ideas, and joint actions toward a common goal. Full article

This paper examines the role of sustainability as a major driver of innovation, and assesses its affect on firms’ performance. This study was based on companies listed in the Forbes list of 100 most innovative companies and BCG’s 50 most innovative companies. The innovative sample firms had higher ESG and component scores than the matched control firms, with statistical significance. In terms of distinctiveness of governance, the innovative firms had larger boards, independent board members, higher diversity, and longer board tenure. Innovative firms had superior financial performance in comparison with the matched control firms. A logit regression model was employed to predict whether firms that adopt sustainability initiatives tend also to be innovative companies. Firms with high intensity of investment in social and governance initiatives tended to be innovative. Innovative firms had greater focus on social initiatives related to employee satisfaction, promotion of a healthy and safe workplace, and diversity. However, innovative firms tended to score lower in terms of human rights initiatives. Innovative firms provided superior governance practices for shareholders and effective usage of antitakeover defense mechanisms. Debt-intensive firms tended to be innovative. Full article

“To earn a living”. The definition of work and our understanding of the workplace have changed in recent years due to the emergence of occupational health and is now a field of study under continuous improvement. Despite the fact that there is a huge amount of information, studies, and guidance about how to improve occupational security, the factors that must be considered in a workplace as real hazards to avoid in order to achieve a truly healthy workplace are always subject to debate. This research contributes to efforts in two important ways. The first goal assesses the information about security risk factors established and mentioned by official international institutions aimed at safety and security science by using the relationship and categorization between the identified risks during work activities performance. The second goal is to establish the necessary requirements to be fulfilled to ensure that a workplace will be considered “healthy and safe”. As a result, it is defined that the lack of ergonomics represents the most critical risk factor in order to reduce the incidence of work-related illness during the design and continuous improvement of a tailored workplace. Full article

The implementation of an international management system (IMS) in any organization (or part thereof) creates an efficient framework regarding the sustainable development and the review of processes required to manage occupational safety and health (OSH) efficaciously. Moreover, Occupational Safety and Health Management System (OSHMS) standards identify requirements regarding OSH management systems, with the aim of enabling an organization to adopt dynamic policy and objectives that take into consideration lawful requirements relating to OSH risks (e.g., safe and healthy workplaces, prevention of work-related injuries, etc.). This article extends the research and the results of a previous study of ours and comparatively presents (a) the main IMS standards concerning OSHMS and (b) the statistical results and new findings of an updated literature survey for additional time intervals (i.e., the years 1995–2005 and 2018–2020), ultimately covering the entire period of the years 1995–2020. Thus, the main targets of the study were (i) the implementation and comparative presentation of OSHMS standards, (ii) the reinforcement of their application at the worksites of any organization, and (iii) the development of a new ameliorated OSH management system model based on the knowledge from the literature review. On the other hand, some dominant results and findings are the following: (a) The industrial sector and construction sector demonstrate the highest percentage of OSHMS utilization. (b) The OHSAS 18001 standard remains the most frequent OSHMS standard even though, despite the fact that the ISO 45001:2018 is a recently developed OSHMS, it presents a considerable percentage distribution with reference to the total OSHMS articles despite its brief lifespan. (c) An effectual IMS OSHMS must merge various management systems, such as OSH (safety and health), QMS (quality), and EMS (environmental). (d) Organizations and businesses of any kind and any size can certainly develop and implement OSHMS standards. (e) Some substantial barriers to the implementation of an OSHMS standard are the high cost vis à vis implementation and management, the difficulty for the employees to realize its significance in OSH, and the complicatedness of combining different standards. (f) Occupational epidemiology must be one of the main features of an OSHMS standard. (g) Governments, employers, and employees admit day after day that the effectiveness of applying OSHMS standards at the organization level is considerable for decreasing the occupational hazards and risks and also for raising productivity. Full article

Remote work has escalated as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and citizens have been doing their part to mitigate the spread of viral infection. The downside of quickly switching from a workplace office to remote work is that neither employees nor employers have had time to consciously process the new work environment and formally evaluate health and safety concerns. The aim of this commentary was to make suggestions on how to make remote work more satisfying, safe, and healthy for employees. First, I explored existing research on disease outbreaks and mental stress as the backdrop for discussing health-related strategies. To determine which types of strategies or measures would help, next I examined existing organizational research, including a qualitative study by my colleagues on workers’ perceptions about what makes a healthy workplace. Themes that emerged from the qualitative study align with three broad recommendations discussed in this commentary: cultivating personal space, building in ergonomics, and boosting self-regulation (self-learning) skills. Finally, I suggested that future research should explore the joint roles of the worker and his/her management team in recognition of organizational commitment to occupational health and safety alongside each worker’s need for autonomy in their personal workspace. Full article

This study investigates the effect of ethical leadership, commitment and healthy/safe workplace practices toward employee COVID-19 vaccination. In addition, this study examines the perception of employees from technological intrusive vaccination of chips or quantum dot. In our research, we adopted the social exchange theory as its theoretical framework. Moreover, an online questionnaire was distributed to employees working in the banking sector in Lebanon during the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, 244 bankers completed the survey. Data was analyzed by SPSS statistical software version 26 and SmartPLS to test the relationship between the variables. The results generated showed a positive relationship between ethical leadership, commitment, and safety influencing employees to accept vaccination but not necessarily technological intrusive vaccination (chip or quantum dot). We suggest that organizations should influence leaders to enhance proper behaviors and attitudes to create a healthy, safe, and ethical culture that consequently increases employees’ commitment. Finally, this study recommends future researchers to investigate the topic of COVID-19 vaccination and test other employees’ perception from different industries and countries. Full article