Making Workplaces Safer: Effects of Job and Organizational Practices on Safety Climate

Details

• Personal Author:
  DeJoy DM ; Griffin-Blake CS ; Schaffer BS ; Vandenberg RV ; Wilson MG
• Description:
  PROBLEM UNDER STUDY: There is growing evidence that management practices and other aspects of broader organizational systems are important determinants of workplace safety performance. Much of this work has focused on attempting to describe and measure the safety climate of the organization. Safety climate measures typically emphasize the overall perceptions held by employees about the importance assigned to safety in their workplace or organization. However, important questions remain about the job and organizational factors that shape how employees perceive this aspect of their workplace or organizational climate. OBJECTIVES: This research sought to examine the job and organizational determinants of safety climate through a cross-sectional survey of employees working for a large home improvement retailer in the USA. The working hypothesis was that many of the same factors that influence other aspects of business or organizational performance also impact workplace safety and health. METHOD OR APPROACH: As part of a larger study of work organization in retail operations, this research used a well-established measure of safety climate a dependent measure and sought to explore the determinants of safety climate. Three categories of determinants were examined: job design, general organizational practices, and job future. Job design included the following variables: workload, autonomy, job content, role clarity, work schedule, physical demands, and environmental conditions. General organizational practices included: organizational support, co-worker support, participation with others, participation with supervisors, and communication. Job future included: job security, learning opportunities, procedural equity, distributive equity, and flexible work arrangements. Surveys were administered to 4,166 employees in 21 retail units of a large home improvement and building supplies company. The overall response rate was 53%, and these analyses were based on 2,208 completed surveys. Self-administered surveys were completed at work and on company time. Responses were confidential and anonymous. RESULTS: Descriptive statistics and correlations were computed for all measures. Scale internal consistencies for all measures were acceptable (Chronbach alpha >.70). Separate regression analyses were computed for each category of predictors, and each category contributed significantly to safety climate (ps<.001). The model R squared for job design was .34 and all variables except autonomy were significant at .10 or better. The R squared for organizational practices was .45 and all but involvement with others met the .10 criterion. For job future, the R squared was .38 and only distributive equity fell short of the inclusion criterion. A full model was then tested using all variables. The R squared for this model was .49 and the strongest predictors were communication, learning opportunities, environmental conditions, organizational support, and co-worker support, respectively. CONCLUSION: The results of this study pinpoint some of the broad organizational practices that impact safety climate. These results are discussed in terms of prevailing views about the management of workplace safety and health, particularly whether this function is responsive to the same factors that shape other core business functions. LIMITS: The principal limitations are that these results are drawn from a cross-sectional survey of employees in a single large organization in only one business sector of the U.S. economy. CONTRIBUTION OF THE PROJECT TO THE FIELD: This is one of first studies to systematically explore the job and organizational determinants of safety climate. It provides initial empirical support for the often cited, but rarely tested, assertion, that managing workplace safety and health is not different in kind from managing other important aspects of enterprise operation. This work also suggests the potential applicability of high-involvement and high-performance work systems to improving outcomes related to employee safety and health and loss control. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Occupational Health Safety Workplace
• Keywords:
  Cross Sectional Studies Occupational Safety Safety Climate Work Environment Worker Health Work Organization
• ISBN:
  2760618455
• Publisher:
  Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Abstract or Summary
• Place as Subject:
  Georgia ; OSHA Region 4
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  363-365
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20060305
• Citation:
  6th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Control, May 12-15, 2002, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Les Presses de l'Université de Montréal, 2002 May; :363-365
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2002
• Performing Organization:
  University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc., Athens, Georgia
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  19990930
• Source Full Name:
  6th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Control, May 12-15, 2002, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• End Date:
  20030929
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:d7fa9f0db70ed7913d3869db9989b268d8e8a8ad7b9e98f60fea9475851d74f219e2f211ba4fd794e05c6e222d3c46846a5884d37ee6a4004145a68ce6c63c70
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/224250/cdc_224250_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 64.49 KB ]