Background of Valnet

Occupational health and safety has become one of the concerned issues for both the employees as well as for the organizations (ILO, 2018). This report is presenting the working conditions or the environment of Valnet organization. Health and safety conditions at the Valnet organization were identified and analysed during the internship program of one of the group members from the team. Although, Valnet organization is one of the biggest names in the media agency but there are some minor issues regarding health and safety of employees that we want to highlight and make Human Resource department of Valnet aware about issues in order to mitigate those issues (NewSciences, 2018).

Valnet Overview and History: Valnet is a Canada based online media publishing company. It creates and distributes contents to the different organizations through its websites. Mr Hassan Youssef is the co-founder and the chief executive officer of Valnet and founded this company in 2012 (Bloomberg, 2018). The company is located in St. Laurent, Canada. There are around 400 employees in the Valnet and total revenue of Valnet is around $20 million (Valnet, 2018).

Culture at Valnet: Valnet provides peerless opportunities to the seekers who want excitable career and are performance oriented.

Business Strategy of Valnet: Valnet will form a committee that will develop strategy plans for the employees of the Valnet and human resource staff will be responsible for ensuring the effectively delivering of all programs (Bloomberg, 2018).

During the internship program, the need for wellness program was observed. Wellness program not only required for individual but it is the requirement for the jobs as well as for the organization too (Cartercenter, 2006). Below is the analysis of why a wellness training program is required for Valnet, for the task, and for the employees.

Organizational Analysis: Valnet is a media agency that provides content to the other organizations. Here employees work around eight hours in front of their computers. Since it requires concentration and creativity to create fresh and creative ideas to develop content, therefore employees need stress free environment to work effectively (Dutta, 2018). Growth and success of an organization depends on the work delivered by the employees. Hence, to meet the goals of Valnet, employees’ effectively working is important.

• Requires training for employees to enhance their skills.
• Requires training to distress the working environment.
• More staff is required to reduce the work load and work pressure.

Task Analysis: At Valnet main work that is done by the employees is creating fresh content for other organization. This job requires some specific skills, dedication of employees, concentration, creative ideas, and healthy brains. Although, all employees at Valnet push their limits to achieve the target and deliver best services to the clients (Sanchez et al., 2017). But, there are some employees who are not able to do all task effectively.

• Training for performing the certain task that needs specific skills.
• Carry out test to determine the skills of the employees.

Individual Analysis: Human resource department should conduct an analysis program to determine the training needs of the employees. For this HRM at Valnet should gather information from the performance reviews. There are many problems that Valnet employees are facing on their daily basis.

• Ask for feedback from employees.
• Conduct interviews with employees to know their recommendations for improving workplace environment and their individual performance.

Health Issues that is quite common in every office and so in Valnet are stress and fitness of the employees. As per the observations, there is much need of stress management program for the employees and make them aware about their health issues to make them to live a healthy and fit life.

Need Analysis

Managing stress: Working continuously on the laptops under so much work load and pressure causes stress to the employees. Stress has both physical and emotional effects on employees’ health. Stress also leads to the decrease in the performance of the employees and so the performance of the Valnet. An employee can deliver his best performance when he works under stress free environment (Sanchez et al., 2017). Therefore, Valnet needs to provide stress management training to the employees to work efficiently and gives best productivity for the Valnet.

Fitness Program: Physical activities are the keys to a healthy lifestyle. It not only has physical benefits but also has psychological importance too. Employees at Valnet spend lot of hours in the office while working on their laptops and rarely involve in physical activities. Therefore, Valnet should provide training to the employees to motivate them to participate in physical activities (Torre & Goetzel, 2016). This can be done by conducing health programs on regular basis and providing strength training equipment in the office.

A healthy and safe working environment is the right of every employee or the person who works in the vicinity of the organization. To guide the employees and the employers about the necessary working conditions, Canada’s Occupational Health and safety Act has described several training programs to make them aware (Torre & Goetzel, 2016).

1. Positive Work Climate:Stress management and fitness program will help in improving the working capacity of the employees. A healthy employee gives the best productivity to the organization. Stress free employees have positive thinking and happy personality that leads to provide positive work environment.
2. Healthy Lifestyle Behaviour:By providing fitness program to the employees, Valnet is focusing on health of their employees. Healthy employees work with full enthusiasm and hence benefit to the Valnet.

On-the-Job Training: Is a way of explaining the new employees about the company strategies and goals. It provides new employees necessary skills and practical knowledge about the job and thus reduces the work pressure. It is a simple method of learning. As employees work for hours on laptops, it creates vision related issues to the employees. Hence, Valnet can offer onsite eye exams to the employees where they can get their eyes examined and choose the best lenses and glasses for their eyes (2020Onsite, 2018).

Off-the-Job Training: To promote the fitness program, Valnet can promote weight loss challenge program for the employees. One month weight loss program that includes cash prizes and gifts will motivate the employees to participate in physical activities at home too (NewSciences, 2018).

Technology Based: Today’s world is mobile dominated and technology can help employees to achieve positive health outcomes. Technology can make the wellness program “gamifying”. Employees can track the minutes of meditation, can track steps of their walk, and days without the junk food (Thorgeirsson, 2018).

Adult Learners are Self-Directed: Adults want to be in control of their own destiny and their own actions. This helps in trainers to guide the employees about the wellness program and let them learn through the learning process. Through which, Valnet can let the employees the training or the wellness program they needed for themselves.

Adult Learners have Life Experiences: Valnet can ask for suggestions before implementing any wellness program for them. Employees can better explain their problems they are facing and the health issues they have (Dalto, 2012). This help the Valnet to know about the experiences of the employees and a better wellness program can be developed.

Effectiveness of the training program should be evaluated periodically. Evaluation helps in determining the accomplishments and the outcomes of the program. It will help the Valnet in effectively managing the time and the resources of the organization. It also provides evidences that Valnet can share with its employees, stakeholders, and clients (Harlin, 2013). Below are the two tools for evaluating the wellness programs:

Process Evaluation: Process evaluation helps in determine how the program was implemented. This tells about the quality of the program and can be conducted after 18 months post-program. For making the program success, Valnet should first promote the content of the program and then delivery of the program is evaluated by asking questions to the employees like was the week, day, time, and topic relevant and convenient? .

Impact Evaluation: It helps in to see the immediate effects of the program on the employees. This can be observed by checking the performance of the employees and their behaviour in the workplace (Sanchez et al., 2017). This evaluation can be done by asking like who started to have fruits and vegetables for being fit, how many started exercise, and time management skills.

Conclusion

Therefore, case study of Valnet gives the information regarding the safety and health issues that are present in the vicinity of Valnet organization. These, issues not seem big for now but can lead to serious safety and health issues in the coming days. It is important for the human resource department to rectify the problems that are mentioned above and provide a healthy and safe environment to the employees which is their right also. Maintaining a healthy environment also beneficial for the organization as this develops a sense of security in employees that they are being valued and healthy workplace also increases the efficiency of the employees. OSHO of Canada has given laws for marinating a healthy and safe workplace. Valnet should work according to those guidelines and provide proper training program to the employees, supervisors, and the mangers.

References

2020Onsite, 2018. Employee Wellness Programs: What Are They? Do You Need Them? [Online] Available at: https://www.2020onsite.com/blog/employee-wellness-programs-do-you-need-them.

Ahmad, I., Sattar, A. & Nawaz, A., 2016. Occupational Health and Safety in Industries in Developing World. Gomal Journal of Medical Sciences, 14(4).

Bloomberg, 2018. Company Overview of Valnet Inc. [Online] Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapid=241346392.

Cartercenter, 2006. Occupational Health and Safety. [Online] Available at: https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/health/ephti/library/lecture_notes/env_occupational_health_students/ln_occ_health_safety_final.pdf.

Dalto, J., 2012. PUTTING ADULT LEARNING PRINCIPLES TO WORK. [Online] Available at: https://www.convergencetraining.com/blog/putting-adult-learning-principles-to-work.

Dutta, D., 2018. Creating an Effective Corporate Wellness Program. [Online] Available at: https://www.vantagecircle.com/en/blog/creating-corporate-wellness-program/.

Harlin, Z., 2013. Employer Perspectives of Employee Wellness. Thesis. University of Washington.

ILO, 2018. Introduction to Occupational Health and Safety. [Online] Available at: https://training.itcilo.it/actrav_cdrom2/en/osh/intro/inmain.htm.

NewSciences, 2018. Workplace Health and Safety. [Online] Available at: https://newscience.ul.com/wp-content/themes/newscience/library/documents/workplace-health-and-safety/New_Science_WHS_Journal_Issue_1.pdf.

Sanchez, F.A.S., Pelaez, G.I.C. & Alis, J.C., 2017. Occupational safety and health in construction: a review of applications and trends. Industrial Health, 55(3), pp.210-18.

Thorgeirsson, T., 2018. How to implement technology into your employee wellness plan. [Online] Available at: https://www.corporatewellnessmagazine.com/article/implement-technology-employee-wellness-plan.

Torre, H.D.L. & Goetzel, R., 2016. How to Design a Corporate Wellness Plan That Actually Works. [Online] Available at: https://hbr.org/2016/03/how-to-design-a-corporate-wellness-plan-that-actually-works.

Valnet, 2018. Create Captivate Innovate. [Online] Available at: https://www.valnetinc.com/.