Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Employers and H&S Services in Relation to the COVID-19 System in Polish Manufacturing Companies.

Abstract

With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, companies had to adapt quickly to survive in the market. During this time, employers played a key role, along with employees involved in Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) activities, as they were responsible for implementing the recommendations of the European Commission. There is no unambiguous definition of OHS in Polish legislation. It is assumed that it is a set of rules defining the manner of performing work, and above all, a method of providing employees with working conditions so that their performance is safe and hygienic. Responsibility for the health and safety in the workplace is imposed on the employer by the legislature. Thus, effective health and safety training is an essential element of the success of any properly operating company. In the literature, no studies have been identified that evaluate the effectiveness of actions during the COVID-19 outbreak. The aim of the article is to present the actions of Polish employers along with their effectiveness assessment related to the protection of employees during the COVID-19 outbreak. The article presents a proposal for conducting remote OHS (Occupational Health and Safety) training using the platform Moodle. The created course was implemented during OHS training conducted in a selected manufacturing company. At its end, an evaluation of the course was carried out, and the collected opinions of training participants allowed the formulation of interesting conclusions, which became the contribution of this paper. The authors pay special attention to three main points of the work. The first is the form of training, which gives the possibility to conduct training at a distance while maintaining its effectiveness. The second important point is the mandatory feedback of the trainees, ensuring the possibility of continuous improvement and quality enhancement of both the program and the form of training. The evaluation was developed on the basis of the extended Kirkpatrick model, which is a completely new approach to OHS training evaluation. The third point emphasized by the authors is the possibility of precise adaptation of the training to other plants and even industries. Therefore, it can be concluded that the course developed by the authors is a very interesting and practical didactic tool with great implementation potential.