Safe at work? Employee experiences of workplace health and safety

Abstract

Health and safety is an important issue for New Zealand workers. It is accepted that some types of work have more inherent health and safety risks than others; however it is important that employees experiences of different types of health and safety issues, as well as their perceptions of how well their employers manage risks, are looked at in greater depth.

The Survey of Working Life (2012) asked employed people how often, in the previous 12 months, they had experienced:
· physical problems or pain because of work
· stress from being at work, or the work itself stressful
· tiredness from work that affected life outside of work
· discrimination, harassment or bullying at work.

This paper aims to look what role – if any - age, sex, industry, occupation, and employment relationship played in the results. Using the same breakdowns, employee’s perceptions of health and safety risk management, and whether they felt they had reasonable opportunities to contribute to improving health and safety in their workplace will also be explored in further detail.