The article discusses the death of a 21-year-old investment bank intern, whose death is expected to be an outcome of work exhaustion. The intern named Moritz Erhardt, suffered from epilepsy, but had not told about his illness in his workplace. Despite of taking his medicine, the young intern’s exposure to stress and exhaustion due to long working hours probably decreased the effect of his medicine.
According to Erhardt’s former employer, the young intern never complained about his long working-hours. For the very reason, managers should always encourage people to talk about their health issues and ask to be treated of the illness is job-related. To do this, the employee should announce the employee rights clearly to employees, so they would know about their rights to get treatment (Goméz, 2016:538). Making employees understand the cost of neglecting the safety standards and recommendations is important, and managers can do this by making the employees aware of the costs of resistance to safety programs and rules (Goméz, 2016:538).
Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, OSHA, is a federal law targeted to secure employee rights. According to the law, employers should provide their employees a safe and healthy work environment and keep records of injuries and illnesses that occur in the work place (Goméz, 2016:532). However, employees also have some responsibilities under OSHA. For instance, they should report all injuries or work-related illnesses to their employee. In addition, employees should report about work conditions, that might lead to the aforementioned (Goméz, 2016:534). In the light of OSHA, the case of Erhardt becomes problematic. The fact that the intern had not reported of his illness made it hard for the employee to secure him with work conditions, that would not burden the intern. However, the employee should have intervened to the situation, where both the interns and regular employees know that there is an atmosphere of high competition among organisations actors.
References
Goméz-Mejía, L. R., Balkin, D. B. and Cardy, R. L. (2016) Managing Human Resources. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
Other Articles
- Tutkimus: työuupumus tarttuu työntekijältä toiselle (HS)
According to the article the “Tutkimus: työuupumus tarttuu työntekijältä toiselle” (Helsingin Sanomat, 14.7.2014) positive interaction between employees decreases the number of job-related exhaustion is organisations. Also, the more employees get to talk to another, share their job experiences and act as each other’s supporters, the less there is opportunity that they become exhausted at work.
Reference: http://www.hs.fi/ura/art-2000002745974.html
2. Neutralizing Negativity Is Key to Career Success
The article stresses, that at work, as well as in general in life, our mind goes into a negative mode automatically, when we face challenges – it is our survival mechanism towards threats. In order to overcome the negative mindset, the article guides employees for instance, to be grateful, think before they act and slow down and breath, before releasing negative emotions.
Reference: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6912-develop-positive-mindset.html
Basics of Human Resource Management HRM1LF101-1 