Decent work and Safe Work: A Case study of IT Industry

Workers are the backbone of an industry as well as an economy. Accelerating growth requires ensuring, understanding and managing life of workers when they are at work. This paper analyses the meaning and importance of safe work in Information Technology industry where work is rendered in apparently safe environment. IT industry has been chosen as it apparently offers highly remunerative packages but compromises on some of the essentials of decent work. One of the dimensions of decent work is safe work. In this paper, work safety has been measured on the basis of rudimentary statistical tools and non-parametric tests. Primary data collected from 272 IT employees by using snowball sampling technique and a well-designed questionnaire have been used for developing Safe work Index (SWI) on the lines of decent work agenda of the International Labour Office. Findings reveal deficit of safe work in IT companies and deteriorating health status of IT employees which has implications for the social health of the nation. The nature of work in IT industry which requires longer hours at work, constant sitting posture and working on computer screens has started playing havoc among the employees of younger age group and calls for attention for provision of decent ergonomic furniture and timely breaks from a sitting posture. The paper concludes with suggestive measures for the same.