Bikram R Pandey B.R.Pandey@massey.ac.nz (P15, Wednesday 26, Civic Room 2, 1.30)

1. Bikram Pandey, Ph D Student
Supervisors
Ian Laird, Associate Professor,
Stephen Legg, Professor,
Kirsten Olsen, Senior Lecturer,
Peter Hasle1, Senior Researcher
Centre for Ergonomics, Occupational Health and Safety, Massey University, Palmerston North
1The National Research Centre for Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark

2. Plan of Presentation
 Introduction
 Study Objectives
 Approach
 Methods
 Results
 Conclusion
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3. Introduction
 Small Businesses
 Characteristics
 Simple organizational structure
 Less formalised OHS systems
 Close social relation
(Legg et.al., 2009)
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4. Introduction
 Small Businesses
 Having hazardous work environment
 Limited coverage by regulatory policies (Lamm, 2002; Legg, et al., 2009)
 Difficulty for external intervention (Hasle, 2009)
 Limited availability of resources (Champoux & Brun, 2003; Hasle & Jensen,
2006; Hasle & Limborg, 2006)
 Differences in understanding of OHS risks – causes and control
(Holmes & Gifford, 1997)
 Negative employment relation translated into difference in narrating health
problems (Eakin)
 Little is known about how social relation influences
understanding and control of OHS risks
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5. Study Objectives
 Exploratory study to relate social relations
between employers and employees with
understanding of OHS risks
 What the social relations are based on
 Influences of social relations on understanding of
OHS risks by owner/manager and employees
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6. Approach
 Case studies - three small restaurant and cafe business
cases
 Employing 6-19 employees count (EC),
 Independently owned (Owner-managed),
 In operation for more than a year
 Local Theory of Work Environment (LTWE) used as the
theoretical framework (Jensen, 2002)
 Four elements of LTWE
 Element of Experience
 Element of Casual relation
 Element of Legitimisation
 Element of Action
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7. Approach
 The four elements of LTWE
 Element of Experience
 Work environment (OHS) problems
 Element of Casual relation
 The causal relation behind these problems
 Element of Legitimisation
 Legitimate (arguments) to bring up these problems
 Element of Action
 Course of action needed to remedy these problems
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8. Methods
 Qualitative method of data collection and analysis
 Semi structured face to face interviews
 Owner/ managers
 Employees
 Ethnographic observation
 Observer participant – working in the café & recording
observations & notes when possible
 Hermeneutical Circle and canons of interpretation (Kvale, 1996)
 Interpretation of whole data; interpretation of parts of data;
comparing the two interpretations with reference to existing
knowledge
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9. Results
Case descriptions
 3 café/ restaurants in PN city area (#1, 2, 3)
 #1 café service – #2 café/restaurant - #3 restaurant service
 No employees/ management structure
 1. 8 EC - single owner
 2. 13 EC – single owner
 3.19 EC – three owners
 Layout (1,2,3)
 Front of house/ kitchen area/ dining area/
 Coffee making/ order till
 Dish wash/ food preparation/ cooking area/ chiller
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10. Results
 Health and safety management
 Informal
 Little formalised systems (hazard management)
 Knowledge of H & S legislation varied (owners and
employees)
 Not unionised
 Owner exercised direct control over H & S issues.
 More concern with food hygiene regulations than H & S.
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11. Results
3 factors (foundations) of the social relations of
work were found to be important;
 Sense of ownership
 Norms of social exchange
 (Lack of) Work protocol
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12. Results
 Sense of ownership
 Having a say or no say
 Employer dealing with problems as his own
 Employer gets involved, when required, to
support staff
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13. Results
 Norms of social exchange
 Looking after each other
 Making sure everyone's safe in the work
environment
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14. Results
 (Lack of) Work protocol
 Perceived equality/ inequality dealing with issues
 See the boss as one of you
 It’s like a family
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15. Results
 Influence of social relation on understanding of risks
 Acceptance of OHS risks
 Acceptance of problems and their causes,
 Legitimisation of the problems and acceptance of the reasons
for bringing up
 Acceptance of the course of action to control the OHS
problems
 The influences
 Sense of ownership on acceptance of problems and the
causes
 Norms of social exchange on course of action
 Work protocol on legitimisation of problems
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16. Results
 The influences - examples
 Sense of ownership
 they are not necessarily the ones who have to work here all the time ..
whereas it’s our work environment we want to set it up to suit how we
work (E)
 he was just always there …. your problems were his problems ...
whenever we get busy he will do tables and serve and wash dishes ....
understands what we go through (E)
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17. Results
 The influences - examples
 Norms of social exchange
 .. say if I’ve spilt oil on the floor … I want everyone know in the kitchen ….
‘hey, I have spilt some oil...please watch out’..... (E)
 Just looking after your fellow worker as much as yourself (E)
 If the floor is over slippery, if the electrical are damaged or something like
that they say ‘why should we work in this environment?’ (ER)
 you have to make sure that everybody is safe in their work environment…
because if they are not there is no reason why they would want to work for
you. (ER)
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18. Results
 The influences - exemplar
 (Lack of) Work protocol/sphere of control
 they (employer) walk in and when there are empty cups on the table they
will clear them... almost like one big happy family.... it tends to take a lot of
pressure off the people.
 Our oil box that we have down on the corner. That drips so badly (the oil is
kept near the door) no one’s bothered to move it really.
 it all gets dealt with according to the protocol ... the oil is next to the door
and we have issues with it spilling over.. But I don’t think that has really
ever been brought to anybody’s attention as a very important thing.
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19. Conclusions
 Given the smallness of SBs, sense of ownership, norms of social
exchange and (lack of) work protocol/ sphere of control are
three foundations of social relation between employer and
employees.
 They are concurrent and synergistic
 Different social relations have more or less different influence on
the four elements of LTWE
 Therefore, the social relations at work, are important for
communication and control of OHS risks in SBs
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20. THANK YOU!!
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