Prevalence and prevention of non-communicable diseases among technical personnel in the Sri Lankan Navy

Abstract

The number of social sustainability audits on health and safety within Sri Lanka's export garment industry have increased significantly in recent times. Today, many customers are concerned not only about the quality of garments but also about the extent of compliance with standards and the reduction of incidents and accidents in factories. Although most export- oriented garment factories have established strong systems, non-conformities with standards and workplace incidents still occur. Building strong human capacities among internal operational staff is essential for creating a positive safety climate within organizations, including export garment factories. A positive safety climate naturally establishes to fewer non-conformities and a reduction in incidents and accidents. Therefore, it is crucial for organizations to invest in developing their human resources and to continuously plan and implement human capacity building initiatives to achieve better organizational outcomes. Human capacities can be categorized into six key areas: Cognitive Capacities, Technical and Professional Capacities, Physical, Social and Emotional Capacities, Moral and Ethical Capacities, and Adaptive and Resilience Capacities. Various drivers within an organization influence the development of these capacities. At the same time, there are barriers that challenge them. Many organizations adopt strategies to overcome these challenges, and it is vital that such strategies are both practical and relevant to their operational contexts. Thus, to achieve positive safety climate, it is necessary to develop human capacities of the internal staff in the export oriented garment factories. The methods that should adopt, current barriers and methods to overcome barriers will be discussed in research. Hence, the aim of this study was to propose a framework for human capacity development of internal staff in order to establish positive safety climate in export garment industry in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the importance of the Human capacity development, Positive safety climate, currant drivers, barriers and strategies to overcome barriers will be discussed specifically for export garment industry. Qualitative research approach was adopted through Delphi method in order to achieve the research objectives by executing semi-structured interviews with 8 industry experts in the health , safety and compliance field in export garment industry. Finally developed a framework for human capacity building of internal staff. Consequently, a list of strategies were suggested to overcome the current barriers in the industry. Finally, a proposed version on human capacity building have developed based on expert suggestions and literature outcome in order to establish the positive safety climate of internal staff within the export oriented garment industry – Sri Lanka