Essay Sample on Safety & Health in the Workplace: Ensuring Compliance With OSHA Regulations

Introduction

For a business to be a success, the safety and health of all employees and everyone involved in the industry are highly crucial to the whole enterprise. Ensuring and maintaining safety in a workplace is expensive, and people might not put some safety measures into place. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been created to ensure that safety and health regulations at the workplace are followed (Eidson, 2006). Once OSHA inspects a workplace and finds that it is not up to standard, a penalty may be issued. In this essay, I will stipulate how I will convince OSHA and discuss my intercession styles and how I shall present my case to the area administrator.

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First of all, emotional intelligence is the ability of reasoning about emotions and using them to enhance thoughts. Emotional intelligence can be used to predict the performance of workers in a place of work. However, emotional intelligence cannot be used to predict the performance of the workers but should be used together with other factors such as the type of job and cognitive knowledge of the workers. Knowing the emotions of the OSHA area director is paramount to my negotiations. It will assist in my arguments over the penalties since I will be able to deduce the director's emotions towards the case correctly and handle any possible situation created.

As a small electrical company owner, I am hopeful to be convincing enough to OSHA and the judges to reduce or wholly remove the $14,000 fine to my company. The penalty is too high and would affect my business in a significant negative scale. I am highly confident that the area director will reduce the penalties that they cited in my electric company. Learning from my foreman that the superintendent at the site was impolite to the OSHA's compliance officer during the review, I decided to ask for a pardon on behalf of him formally and confirm to her that necessary action will concerning the matter be taken. The boldness will bring an environment of trust between each other, which is highly essential for the negotiations to take place.

Emotional intelligence is one's capacity to make out their own emotions and those of others, be able to comprehend and differentiate between dissimilar feelings and the use of sensitive data to guide thinking and conduct, and manage or correct emotions to acclimate to surroundings or achieve one's objective (Brown, 2004). Learning that the OSHA's area director has a habit of focusing on the facts of the case, but inclines to be less co-operative when she or her compliance officers is disrespected. I will use this as a vantage point to address the issues at hand in a very polite manner. Avoiding an argument with the area director is highly paramount to get my points across to her and make her understand the state my company is in.

In an electric company, the ethics of the employees are highly paramount. The employees are supposed to be polite to customers and anyone who is coming into the premises. On learning that some of the employees were impolite to the OSHA compliance officer during the review, necessary disciplinary courses will be taken. I will use this during the debates with the OSHA's area director since I identify that she is impressed by respectful and polite hard working companies. Since she is intrigued by companies who are dedicated to safety, I will talk a lot about the safety rules and regulations that are in place in my company and explain how the company is a haven and a great working environment. There would be the creation of scenery of safety in my company and will make the director obliged in the reduction of the penalty.

Before the hearing, I have to schedule an informal conference with my OSHA area director to know the harms cited the precise standards that apply and the methods used to correct said violations. I must file a written notification of the contest, which will include a statement of what is disputed and which violations are being disputed, if any. I shall also prepare for the hearing by sending a notice of contest where I will deny all allegations of the complaint and raise any specific defense that I will have. If I do not dismiss all charges, the ones left out would seem as intentional, and that would make me lose my case.

During the hearing of the case, I plan to bring out evidence that the company is a safe place for people to work and is safe for everyone on the premises. I also plan to bring out witnesses who will concur with me that the company is a safe place with friendly people working there. The witnesses and evidence will show OSHA that the company is stable and in good hands and does not require the penalty and citations issues. The considerable penalty issued by OSHA could tragically affect my company on a large scale, and negotiations on the sanctions are vital to the survival of my company. Proper talks on the matter could result in withdrawal or reduction of the penalties put up. During the negotiations, I shall use skills such as emotional intelligence and self-awareness to woe the OSHA's area director to reduce the citations and the penalties issued.

After the judges go through all evidence regarding the matter, they should grant me my request for a reduction or complete withdrawal of the penalties issued. After a thorough analysis of the evidence, and the case closed in my favor. If the situation does not go in my favor, then I will have to appeal to the US court of appeals, where they will have to listen to my situation and eventually get to the correct verdict of the case. The latter will not be an issue since I am confident in the negotiation skills I picked up on and will most probably win the case in the first round.

References

Reese, C. D., & Eidson, J. V. (2006). Handbook of OSHA construction safety and health. CRC Press.

Stys, Y., & Brown, S. L. (2004). A review of the emotional intelligence literature and implications for corrections. Research Branch, Correctional Service of Canada.