PUB4860
Assignment 4
Exceptional Answers
DUE 30 July 2025
,PUB4860
Assignment 4
DUE 30 July 2025
Integrating Employee Wellness and Occupational Health and Safety: A Critical
Analysis of Public Sector Performance and Workplace Safety in South Africa
1. Meaning and Scope of Employee Wellness and Occupational Health and Safety
(OHS)
1.1 Defining Employee Wellness
Employee wellness encompasses holistic organisational interventions promoting
physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being. It extends beyond health
programmes, representing an institutional philosophy valuing employees as human
assets rather than mere labour resources (Mendis, 2017). The South African public
sector’s focus on wellness integrates HIV/AIDS management, Employee Assistance
Programmes (EAPs), and stress counselling (Public Service Commission, 2006).
This conceptualisation assumes that well-being can be managed through structured
programmes; however, it overlooks broader societal factors such as poverty, crime
exposure, and political stressors affecting public servants. Such limitations imply that
wellness programmes, though necessary, require alignment with external realities to be
fully effective.
1.2 Defining Occupational Health and Safety (OHS)
OHS entails structured systems protecting employees from work-related injuries,
illnesses, and hazards (Goetsch, 2019).
, The South African Occupational Health and Safety Act No. 85 of 1993 mandates public
institutions to create and maintain safe work environments.
Philosophically, OHS frameworks reflect utilitarian and rights-based assumptions:
employees’ health is safeguarded both to uphold moral duties and to optimise
productivity.
However, OHS implementation often reveals contradictions between policy ideals and
operational realities. For instance, resource shortages or bureaucratic delays undermine
compliance, creating ethical tensions between legal mandates and institutional capacity
(Nkosi & Pretorius, 2019).
1.3 Scope and Relationship to Institutional Performance
The scope of employee wellness and OHS is interconnected, each enhancing the
effectiveness of the other (Ramlall & Alhassan, 2014). While wellness programmes
improve employee morale, OHS ensures physical safety. Their combined impact
enhances performance by reducing absenteeism, boosting morale, improving job
satisfaction, and increasing productivity (Van der Walt & Venter, 2016).
This synergy, however, rests on assumptions of linear causality. In reality, institutional
performance is mediated by other variables such as leadership quality, organisational
culture, and political stability. For instance, although the Department of Health
integrated OHS and wellness to improve nurse morale (South African Department of
Health, 2017), high workloads and systemic inequality persist, limiting full realisation of
these benefits.
A long-term implication is that wellness and OHS initiatives, if implemented in isolation
from systemic reform, risk becoming tokenistic rather than transformative. Their
philosophical foundation should therefore shift from narrow managerialism to a holistic
human-centred paradigm.
Assignment 4
Exceptional Answers
DUE 30 July 2025
,PUB4860
Assignment 4
DUE 30 July 2025
Integrating Employee Wellness and Occupational Health and Safety: A Critical
Analysis of Public Sector Performance and Workplace Safety in South Africa
1. Meaning and Scope of Employee Wellness and Occupational Health and Safety
(OHS)
1.1 Defining Employee Wellness
Employee wellness encompasses holistic organisational interventions promoting
physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being. It extends beyond health
programmes, representing an institutional philosophy valuing employees as human
assets rather than mere labour resources (Mendis, 2017). The South African public
sector’s focus on wellness integrates HIV/AIDS management, Employee Assistance
Programmes (EAPs), and stress counselling (Public Service Commission, 2006).
This conceptualisation assumes that well-being can be managed through structured
programmes; however, it overlooks broader societal factors such as poverty, crime
exposure, and political stressors affecting public servants. Such limitations imply that
wellness programmes, though necessary, require alignment with external realities to be
fully effective.
1.2 Defining Occupational Health and Safety (OHS)
OHS entails structured systems protecting employees from work-related injuries,
illnesses, and hazards (Goetsch, 2019).
, The South African Occupational Health and Safety Act No. 85 of 1993 mandates public
institutions to create and maintain safe work environments.
Philosophically, OHS frameworks reflect utilitarian and rights-based assumptions:
employees’ health is safeguarded both to uphold moral duties and to optimise
productivity.
However, OHS implementation often reveals contradictions between policy ideals and
operational realities. For instance, resource shortages or bureaucratic delays undermine
compliance, creating ethical tensions between legal mandates and institutional capacity
(Nkosi & Pretorius, 2019).
1.3 Scope and Relationship to Institutional Performance
The scope of employee wellness and OHS is interconnected, each enhancing the
effectiveness of the other (Ramlall & Alhassan, 2014). While wellness programmes
improve employee morale, OHS ensures physical safety. Their combined impact
enhances performance by reducing absenteeism, boosting morale, improving job
satisfaction, and increasing productivity (Van der Walt & Venter, 2016).
This synergy, however, rests on assumptions of linear causality. In reality, institutional
performance is mediated by other variables such as leadership quality, organisational
culture, and political stability. For instance, although the Department of Health
integrated OHS and wellness to improve nurse morale (South African Department of
Health, 2017), high workloads and systemic inequality persist, limiting full realisation of
these benefits.
A long-term implication is that wellness and OHS initiatives, if implemented in isolation
from systemic reform, risk becoming tokenistic rather than transformative. Their
philosophical foundation should therefore shift from narrow managerialism to a holistic
human-centred paradigm.
