Study the challenges on outsourcing health and safety responsibility in logistics industry

Abstract

This study mainly based on the Occupational Health and Safety related issues that are faced by the contractor workers. Based on the several business factors, most of the companies are now moving towards deploying workers from Manpower providing companies to carry out tasks on behalf of the company. Therefore, Contractor companies are recruiting wider range of people for different roles under contractor company carder. Since most of the contractor companies are not properly established with considering all minimum qualities of be an employer, they are striving for making maximum profit out of each contract they get. Therefore, contractor workers and their rights are the most neglected element in this business model. Due to the nature of the employment, they do not have right access for close supervision and guidance by the competent personnel when they are conducting the high-risk activities. Hence contractor workers are the most prominent group of workers who get exposed to severe injuries at work. The study was conducted to identify the root causes and contributory factors that can lead to accidents in the logistics sector. Since Logistics sector have many verticals, this study was mainly focused on the logistics fulfillment centers, distribution center and logistics hubs. The information in this report are taken from the 3 main logistics companies, under 15 different sites in with the range of about 50 contractor companies and with the participation of 2435 employees. This study reveals that, there are several behavioral and organizational factors that contributes to various number of occupational accidents. Lack of competency, poor supervision, unclear work instructions, lack of worker motivations, less empowerment, poor risk perception capabilities and ignoring the contract worker rights were among the visible gaps throughout the study. Since contractor workers are deployed in many high-risk activities, fall prevention, high probability of people and moving machinery entanglement and ergonomics issues related to manual lifting are the most common issue in logistics industry.