Performance evaluation of occupational health and safety in relation to the COVID-19 fighting practices established by WHO: Survey in multinational industries

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic meant that companies had to adapt quickly to survive the challenging scenario and avoid losing market share or even going bankrupt. In this sense, employees dedicated to Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) activities within organizations played a key role in ensuring that the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) were properly implemented. Even so, no studies were identified in the literature that investigated how the practices to combat COVID-19 improved the performance related to employee safety and occupational health. This is what motivates the accomplishment of this work; evaluate how these practices improve safety and health-related performance. For this, a survey of multinational companies was carried out and, together with this research, a model for structural equations was developed. In the end, a correlation test was performed. The main results showed that practices to combat COVID-19, such as the provision of sanitizers, the adoption of social distance, the creation of new work shifts, and the disinfection of workplaces were related to improvements in safety and health performance through the implementation of a risk management and biological risk mitigation program. Meanwhile, the provision of emergency assistance has found stronger relationships with managerial and strategic actions.