Arbeitsmedizin und Gesundheitsangelegenheiten

Abstrakt

Impact of Workplace Environment on Health Workers

Edem MJ, Akpan EU and Pepple NM

Employee morale can be impacted in both positive and negative ways by the workplace environment. Workplace environment plays a major role in the performance and productivity of an employee. Most industries have an unsafe workplace environment and are most time unhealthy too. This study is focused on the workplace environment in a health facility and how it affects the health worker. An unsafe health facility environment such as unsuitable furniture, poorly designed workstations, lack of ventilation, excessive noise, inappropriate lighting, poor supervisor support, poor work space, poor communication, poor fire safety measures for emergencies, and lack of personal protective equipment, can adversely affect the productivity of the employee. Health workers in such environment are exposed to occupational diseases such as heat stress, deafness, ergonomic disorders and suffocation. Health worker’s productivity and performance can decrease due to poorly planned workplace environment as this adversely affects their morale and may give rise to poor motivation and no job satisfaction as a result, it becomes a challenge for the management to provide a safe work environment for the workers to ensure health, efficiency, productivity and good performance. The relationship between the health worker, work and the workplace environment is very crucial and hence it becomes an integral part of work itself. Management effort in ensuring an active workforce should be focused on employee personal motivation and the infrastructure of the work environment.