Question

1. Construction Management, Inc. (CMI) has a safety awareness program, but it does not seem to be working. CMI’s president and his two vice presidents developed the program themselves and implemented it company wide six months ago. Unfortunately, they have seen no decrease in the number of accidents and incidents. What possible problems do you see with CMI’s safety awareness program? What changes or improvements would you recommend?

2. Employees of Bearden Construction Company have begun to complain regularly about Josh Randall. They say that his behavior has become unpredictable and that he blows up at the slightest provocation. One employee even said, “This guy is going to hurt somebody.” To each complaint, the supervisor’s response is the same: “Be patient. Josh is a good man. He’s just dealing with some personal problems right now. He’ll get over it.” What do you think of the supervisor’s response to employee concerns? How do you think this situation should be handled?

Answer 1

1. Construction Management, Inc. should implement the program on the ground. The management level staff has very minor knowledge of the overall activities going on the actual site. As the program has been developed by the president and vice presidents, the extent of its reach is limited to the management level staff only. To address the real issues, the ground level staff like supervisors, labours, contractors and site engineers should be taken into confidence and their involvement will yield the best possible outcomes.

The awareness programs must be in a format that the local person is able to understand the entire process. The formulation of the program in the complex manner will not be able to penetrate into the minds of the skilled labour who are really undergoing the severity of the work culture.

Practical execution of the safety parameters should be the objective of the awareness program, as theoretical guidance will not help the people associated with the work to understand the company's guidelines. Mere discussion on the safety parameters in the interior part of the office cannot influence the motive of workers. The workman should be trained as per the safety guidelines and the equipments associated with the construction should be analysed on the qualitative basis at regular intervals of time.

This will help the company in actual implementation of the safety parameters at the construction site and the company will be able to acknowledge the objectives being fulfilled in avery short duration of time.

2. Supervisor is representing the characteristic of a heedless person which may lead to ugly results for the workers. Supervisor should act more responsible as the grievances associated with Josh Randall are very critical in nature and may lead to unforeseen results of harming the person. Supervisor is acting unprofessional in nature as his primary responsibility is to safeguard the workers under his control.but in this case he is acting recklessly and disowning the fact of Josh being mentally unstable for the work he is assigned.

This situation can be handled in a better way by the supervisor. The supervisor can acknowledge the events taking place in the site and counsel Mr Josh Randall about the company culture, if he finds him medically and mentally fit for the job then he should be allowed to continue with the work else Mr Josh should be assisted with the medical help to improve his mental ability and get back to normalcy.

In this case supervisor will benefit both the workers as well as Mr Josh by helping him to overcome the mental weakness he is undergoing and a constructive environment can be provided which will lead to successful completion of the projects undertaken by the company.

If the supervisor continues to defend the actions of Mr Josh he will not only harm the employees of Bearden Construction Company but also Josh will start deteriorating mentally leading to destruction of his own.

Proper conselling of supervisor will help Josh to overcome his depression and this is the only way to help Josh and to keep up his position in the company, else if the matter is forwarded to the superior management staff both supervisor and Mr Josh are at the risk of losing their jobs.

The duty on the part of the employees is that if supervisor is not ready to acknowledge Josh's behavior then the matter should be taken to the superior officials and it has to be seen that Josh is assisted with medical help till he returns to normalcy.