Effects of Occupational Safety and Health on Labour Productivity: A Case Study of Some Selected Firms in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana

Abstract

The countless incidences of injury, death, frequent absenteeism and huge compensation costs that characterized most Ghanaian industry are worries to the country’s economic development. This draws from the fact that these negative implications of unhealthy and unsafe working environment continue to plague labour productivity in the country and have the tendency of retarding economic growth. At least 7 per cent of Ghana’s GDP is spent on solving problems related to the improper management of health and safety. To effectively address this menace, the effects of the health and safety of an organisation on one’s productivity need to be well known and understood. Using primary data from firm survey in the Greater Accra region of Ghana, the univariate estimation technique was employed to access the impact of employees’ health and the safety of an organisation on employees’ productivity. The study further accessed the impact of health and safety on performance indicators like attendance, quality, quantity, concentration and efforts of employees. In order to avoid the use of several univariate estimations the multivariate estimation techniques was employed under this case. Findings from the study indicate that health and safety are vital to one’s productivity. The marginal impacts of health and safety on employees’ productivity were 21 and 27 percent respectively. It was also evident that health and safety positively affect one’s attendance, quality, quantity, effort and concentration levels at work. However, the health of the individual and safety of the organisation greatly affect one’s quality of work and attendance respectively among the performance indicators. The results further indicated that the impacts of health and safety on labour productivity were not organisation specific. The study recommends that firms should iiiUniversity of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh establish occupational safety and health offices that will ensure the wellbeing of their employees. Secondly health care incentives should cover all categories of workers; this is to offset constraints to health care demand. Finally there should be a system that evaluates, monitors and controls risk at work places in order to reduce the decline in productivity associated with any kind of risk.