“Role of human resource policies in ensuring women’s safety in the workplace”

This paper aims to assess how human resource (HR) management policies affect women’s workplace safety. In addition, this study analyzes the degree to which measures have been taken to ensure that working women have a safe environment. Responses from 208 women working in Saudi Arabia’s small and medium-sized private businesses were gathered. The paper employed a survey questionnaire using snowball sampling technique. Thus, critical HR practices that have an impact on workplace safety for women are highlighted. As women frequently face these difficulties, the findings suggested that HR policies should tailor working women’s needs in maternity, health, transportation, childcare, and a safe workplace. Moreover, support for divorced and widowed workers would significantly increase women’s safety at work. Compared to other HR policies, there is a stronger correlation between medical and maternity leave. This paper supports research on women’s safety and HR management in the Saudi context and has significant practical implications for practitioners.


INTRODUCTION
In the last ten years, Saudi Arabian private sector companies have hired much more women than in the past, and some even operate without separating male and female personnel.However, it has been noted that these organizations have generally not shown much interest in women's safety at work.This study vividly underlines the need to respect the code of conduct to prevent unfair acts and improve the working conditions for women.It also highlights the importance of HR policies in defining workplace safety.In the past, there have been cases of exploiting working women's rights and safety in the private sector in various parts of the world.For example, one company declined to file a complaint after a woman complained about a co-worker even though they fired her from her position (Deshpande, 2013).In addition, Sharma (2010) discovered that 88% of women in the information technology (IT), knowledge management offshore, and business processing sectors encounter harassment and that many other women in other industries lack essential logistical and HR support.recognized as one of the unwelcomed conducts of sexual nature producing various interferes with employees' job performance.Hostile behavior, like unwanted pressure for sexual favors, unwanted looks or gestures, pinching, telephone calls, or leaning over, results in an intimidating and offensive work environment (Sahgal & Dang, 2017).Women are recognized as the core victim of workplace harassment.In addition, they suffer from various physical assaults that mainly include molestation, intentional physical conduct, rape, sexual battery, sexual verbal communication, and much more.These issues adversely impact employees' mental, physical, and psychological well-being (Friborg et al., 2017).Moreover, the ill-treatment of women in the organization reveals that a firm does not have a sufficient organizational culture for women and they do not have good policies that could be used to address such issues.Therefore, HR is liable to address the harassment issues seriously and develop different priorities by which prompt action can be taken for such ill-treatment.In addition, sufficient means can be induced accordingly to develop a friendly environment (Sheppard et al., 2020).Furthermore, Brennan and Rajan (2020) highlighted that the HR department must develop open communication with their employees.Moreover, a robust monitoring system should be induced accordingly, resulting in a healthy workplace environment.
In Arabic culture, women working outside the home is a relatively new idea.In fact, as foreign labor became increasingly prevalent due to the oil discoveries in various Arab nations, women began to leave the labor force in large numbers.After getting married, many women who could afford it gave up their jobs.Furthermore, they rarely return to paid jobs after leaving them.However, during the past few years, Arab women have made a more noticeable impact on the job market.Their position has expanded significantly, and they are now taking on entrepreneurial projects.As a result, women have begun to return to labor in several Arab nations, primarily as business owners or government employees.Nevertheless, notwithstanding these developments, there are still some significant obstacles.Zhu et al. (2019) defined the HR department's role in addressing different workplace issues.HR plays a critical role where they are liable to develop different policies that could be used to develop a sufficient organizational culture by which the issues associated with the workplace environment can be mitigated in the desired manner.On the other hand, HR is required to develop different policies by which the issues associated with biasedness can be mitigated, and HR can easily focus on their employee behavior to analyze the issues of workplace harassment and mitigate them timely.Moreover, HR also plays a vital role where different provisions should be introduced by which gender discrimination resulting in workplace harassment can be mitigated accordingly.However, there are different factors like gender inequalities and conflicts among coworkers causing different issues in understanding the role of HR policies to mitigate the workplace environment issues for women.

LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES
Workplace safety is determined as one of the core aspects by which various risks, illnesses, or injuries can be mitigated among employees.
Workplace safety is considered one of the vital aspects by which their most valuable assets (i.e., employees) are protected (Obedgiu, 2017).However, workplace safety can be achieved through a variety of approaches that mainly include policies, procedures related to sexual harassment, internal complaints system, creating awareness among employees, the role of HR, and other organizational practices (Vaiagae, 2020).Several procedures and policies are developed based on the overall management of a firm where different administrative processes are designed, and different means of workplace safety are integrated within the organization.However, significant issues regarding women's safety have been highlighted in the past decade and different issues on women's safety are observed (Spalluto et al., 2018).In the current decade, women have progressively earned higher standards in the corporate world.A noticeable increase in women's independence is observed, and they become more independent and are hired for reputable positions in the global corporate sector.
It has been analyzed that women have suffered from workplace harassment that results in severe issues for them (Węziak-Białowolska et al., 2020).On the other hand, the issues are not limited to harassment among women.However, significant issues like gender discrimination have also been observed that harm women in organizations (Roscigno, 2019).2018) also evaluated various vulnerabilities of women in the workplace.This study was conducted using a secondary approach in which the case of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh was examined.The research findings determined significant issues that result in women's vulnerability; they also suffer from different issues and are not privileged with their rights.
Several studies have been reviewed, defining workplace harassment and working environment among women as the most common issue in all occupations and industries.It has been evaluated that women are found vulnerable and it has been the most unreported incident in the world (Sadruddin, 2013;Mellgren et al., 2018).The most common barriers in the reporting process are those women who fear getting fired from their job.Women do not have sufficient information regarding the processes by which actions can be taken accordingly.Furthermore, there are different issues when women face different threats from their harasser and thus resist reporting such incidents (Quick & McFadyen, 2017;Thurston et al., 2019).On the other hand, several studies also concluded that female workers hired in low-income jobs are more exposed to various occupational and safety hazards.This issue exists among women because organizations do not cater to their needs.Therefore, women have to suffer from various workplace safety issues to fulfill their financial needs.Besides, various occupational variables like physical differences, long working hours, occupational stereotypes, and social variables like race and ethnicity, gender pay gap, and sexual harassment are also present.Therefore, they result in different issues for women's safety in the workplace (Fitzgerald, 2005).It is rapidly becoming more common for them to have managerial positions, but they continue to face obstacles due to a perceived conflict between their new leadership roles and their roles as parents (Al-Lamky, 2007; Metcalfe, 2006).Additionally, prospects for international management become limited due to cultural expectations, a lack of organizational response, and occasionally women's own preferences (Hutchings et al., 2010).
As per Saudi Arabia's 2030 vision, the Saudi government's new HR policies and regulations for working women are amended and ensured, as demonstrated on the national platform of the Saudi government portal.These policies are extended to a wide range of women's safety issues at work.Concerning Islamic law and gender equality, both men and women are given complementary equality considering the characteristics of their gender.Therefore, many transformations were committed to promoting women's engagement in economic development.However, the HR policies emphasized on few policies pertained to women, viz., equality in the workplace, remuneration, learning, training, transportation, maternity and healthcare, support for the widow and divorced working women, etc.In addition, Saudi companies prohibit employing females in hazardous and detrimental industries like petrochemical production, construction, and heavy machinery manufacturing to safeguard the working women and maintain ergonomics.
Similarly, women are not employed in night shift jobs.Working women are provided with adequate medical care and allowed for maternity leave four weeks before and six weeks after childbirth.Women are free from any kind of threats that will dismiss them from their job.Moreover, they can take a one-hour break during the work to breastfeed their young ones.As per the Saudi law on segregation of gender at work, women have a different working environment, office entrances, and restrooms and are also facilitated with caregivers and daycare (Qurrah Program) for their children below six years old.However, such facilities are limited to companies that have more than fifty working women.In addition, a woman whose husband is deceased can avail of not less than fifteen days of paid leave.Such widowed and divorced women are supported by the government to fulfill their housing, socio-economic, and employment needs, as well as guaranteed pension services, association, and consultation services.
Furthermore, all the working women are given transportation (Wusool) facilities to commute to work.Tamheer program is a training program to advance the skills of women workers.This program also supports women in finding new jobs and obtaining training certificates (National Platform).Intending to improve employee well-being and a friendly work environment, the purpose of this study is to investigate the role of HR in ensuring the safety of women in the workplace in Saudi Arabia.Based on the above theoretical background, the study formulates these hypotheses: H1: Enabling a safe working environment will significantly positively affect women's workplace safety.
H2: Provision of maternity leave will significantly positively affect women's workplace safety.
H3: Provision of medical care will significantly positively affect women's workplace safety.
H4: Provision of caregivers and daycare will significantly positively affect women's workplace safety.
H5: Provision of transportation will significantly positively affect women's workplace safety.
H6: Securing safety for widows and divorced women will significantly positively affect women's workplace safety.

Sample and data collection
The data collection was done with the use of both This paper employed a quantitative research approach.Hence, primary data were collected from various Saudi Arabian organizations with women working groups.According to Clark and Vealé (2018), primary data collection is significant because it allows for the integration of rationalized and real-time information by which the identified phenomena can be addressed.In this paper, the provisions of primary data collection were significant because the real-time factors were examined accordingly, and the implications of HR policies to ensure women's workplace safety were investigated.Another benefit of using the primary research method is defined by Mazhar et al. (2021).The experiences of the employed respondents can be evaluated accordingly based on the identified phenomena, and the findings can be presented in a preferred manner.The primary data collection method was significant because it provided sufficient grounds to examine different perceptions of women regarding workplace safety and the implications of HR policies.
In this paper, the data were analyzed using two different techniques.It has been stated that two different sorts of questions (i.e., open-ended and close-ended) were used to collect the data.However, the statistical analysis for the close-endquestionnaire was performed using two different techniques (frequency analysis and correlations).The application of frequency analysis provides a sufficient measure to determine the extent to which the implications of HR policies are sufficient for ensuring women's workplace safety.
On the other hand, the correlation test has been applied to determine the relationship between HR policies and women's satisfaction level based on workplace safety.Moreover, thematic analysis techniques were used to examine the open-ended questionnaire.The questions were segregated into different themes based on the identified phenomena.The findings are presented accordingly to examine the perceptions of HR individuals regarding policies to ensure women's workplace safety.The survey questionnaire was developed in English on a five-point Likert scale (5 as strongly agree, 4 as agree, 3 as neutral, 2 as disagree, and 1 as strongly disagree).It was administered online and distributed only to working women.The demographic analysis shows that 71.63% are in the age group of 21 to 40 years, 18.26% are between 41-50, and 10.11% are between 51-60.Among them, 14.90% hold vocational and training courses, a majority (60.57%) hold Bachelor's degrees, 18.26% Master's degrees, and 6.25% hold Ph.D.In addition, 26.92% are single, 52.88% are married, 11.53% are divorced, and 8.65% are widows.

Table 1. Demographic profile of respondents
Source: Primary data analysis.

Development of measures
The measures were developed based on the identified constructs from the literature and the HR policies of the Saudi government.Safety working environment was measured with nine items; maternity leave was measured with four items; the medical facility was measured with three items; caregiver opportunity was measured with three items; transportation facility was measured with three items; safety for the widow and divorced was measured with three items.All the items were developed on a five-point Likert scale.

RESULTS
The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) method with principal component analysis (PCA) under varimax rotation was used to determine the underlying dimensions.The analysis revealed the acceptable condition of all the factor loadings, above the required cutoff values of 0.60, illustrating acceptable reliability (Table 2).In addition, the internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) is in a tolerable range of above 0.7 verifying the reliability condition (Nunnally, 1978).The factorability conditions were also confirmed by the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value of 0.837 and a significant Bartlett's test of sphericity (p < 0.001).The factor loadings of EFA are from 0.779 to 0.925, with an alpha value of 0.861 for SWE.ML factor has loadings from 0.749 to 0.892, with an alpha value of 0.823.MF factor has loadings from 0.764 to 0.886, with an alpha value of 0.803.CGDC factor has loadings from 0.785 to 0.869, with an alpha value of 0.766.TF factor has loadings from 0.768 to 0.888, with an alpha value of 0.834.Finally, SWD factor has loadings from 0.721 to 0.811, with an alpha value of 0.742.
The correlational matrix (Table 3) also showed a significant positive correlation among all the constructs.The MF and ML were observed to have a robust and positive association with WWS, with values of 0.681 and 0.664, respectively.On the other hand, the CGDC was found to have the least positive significant effect on WWS among all the variables, with a value of 0.168.Moreover, the correlation between HR policies and workplace safety has also been examined to determine the relationships between various HR policies and workplace safety.Table 3 defines the correlation results based on the obtained data.It has been determined that all the HR policy variables are positively correlated with women's workplace safety.This confirms that HR policies play a positive role in addressing workplace safety issues among women in various organizations.Correlation coefficients using the Pearson approach were conducted to test the research hy- Note: N = 208; *** correlation is highly significant at 0.01; ** correlation is moderately significant at 0.01; * correlation is significant at 0.01.
potheses of the study.Table 4 demonstrates that the data supports all the hypotheses (H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6).The survey findings showed that most respondents agreed that anti-harassment policies should be implemented accordingly.Thus, there should be no such practice of workplace harassment.According to Hemel and Lund (2018), legal frameworks are also significant, and the provisions should be implemented accordingly by which all the factors can be addressed in the HR policies.The results also found a positive attitude toward legal frameworks; proper policies should be developed using these legal frameworks.Furthermore, the HR respondents have also defined that HR should have all the information regarding the legal provisions by which all the policies can be developed accordingly.Moreover, employees should have all the information regarding the legal actions that could be taken against them.
Therefore, the findings of this study are consistent with other research studies associated with women's workplace safety and the respective HR policies.Furthermore, a positive correlation has been determined, which defines that HR policies play a vital role in which the issues associated with childcare and transportation facility for women can mitigate and secure workplace culture within the organizations.

CONCLUSION
With the new HR rules and regulations in Saudi Arabia regarding the working environment, women's safety at the workplace has been determined as one of the vital issues.However, this highlights the role of HR department and its policies in addressing the issues associated with women's safety in the workplace.After analyzing all these aspects, it has been concluded that the HR department should develop different policies based on the legal frameworks by which employees will have all the information regarding the consequences of workplace safety or harassment observed.On the other hand, the HR department is also required to have different training and awareness programs within the organization by which a secure organizational culture and a protected work environment can be provided for women within their workplace.It is recommended that every organization strictly practice these HR policies, which are very specific to women, as they can ensure women's safety in the workplace.It would also en- The study findings further highlight that the women hired temporarily are more affected because of sexual harassment and a noticeable lack of organizational policies by which the issues associated with sexual harassment among women are not addressed to an expected level.Kabir et  al. ( workplace harassment and vulnerabilities among Hispanic women.This study was based on the primary research data; one-on-one structured interviews were conducted.The findings define that the most common issue is workplace sexual harassment.

Table 4 .
Ferris et al. (2018)s testing night shifts, providing them separate rest areas and flexible working hours, and actively following anti-harassment policies to enhance women's mental health and well-being.These findings were also concurrent withFerris et al. (2018), who described that HR plays a significant role in mitigating workplace harassment.