Occupational Health and Safety Management and Employee Resilience in Private Universities

Abstract

Some organizations especially those in the private sectors and in developing countries like Nigeria aim at maintaining or increasing their productivity and profitability at the expense of their employee’s occupational health and safety. When the occupational health and safety of the employees are maligned by an organization, the organization runs a high risk of low employee resilience and poor success. The paper adopted the survey research design through quantitative research approach. Primary data was elicited through the administration of questionnaires in randomly selected Private Universities in Lagos State. 473 copies of questionnaires were administered to employees in selected private universities. The study revealed that majority of the employees of the selected private universities suffered from poor health and safety management practices in their organizations resulting from psychological stress, work overload and hostile work environment hazards which have a negative effect on their resilience. The revealed that the predictor variable of occupational health and safety management adopted by the employees is a predictor of employee resilience with (β =.149; t=3.267; p<0.05). The study concludes that employee resilience is an important element that forward looking organizations cannot afford to ignore. The study recommends that occupational health and safety management should be given prompt attention by organizations as once it is eroded as a culture in their employees, their resilience will be negatively impacted and this is not good for the organizations success.

Keywords: Occupational Health and Safety, Employee Resilience, Organizational Success, Work Overload, Hostile Work Environment

DOI: 10.7176/JESD/10-12-12

Publication date:June 30^th 2019