Does talking the talk matter? Effects of supervisor safety communication and safety climate on long-haul truckers' safety performance

Safety Climate in the Utility Industry: Perceptual Discrepancies Across Organizational Hierarchy

OBJECTIVES

This study aims to extend safety climate research by considering perceptions across the following three hierarchical levels within a workplace: (1) senior leaders/executives, (2) field leaders/supervisors, and (3) front-line employees.

METHODS

We conducted a quantitative survey study at a US utility company where we collected data related to safety climate perceptions and employee-reported safety behaviors across the different levels of organizational hierarchy.

RESULTS

The findings revealed the highest safety climate scores among senior leaders/executives, followed by field leaders/supervisors, and then employees, suggesting potential discrepancies between espoused and enacted safety values in the workplace.

CONCLUSIONS

These results suggest that supervisors and top managers may have different mental models of workplace safety compared with employees. Consequently, assessing perceptions at different organizational levels provides a fuller picture of safety in the workplace.

Interplay between Safety Climate and Emotional Exhaustion: Effects on First Responders' Safety Behavior and Wellbeing Over Time

Various job demands continuously threaten Emergency Medical Service (EMS) first responders' safety and wellbeing. Drawing on Job Demands-Resources Theory, the present study examines the effects of the organizational context-safety climate-and the psychological context-emotional exhaustion-on safety behaviors and wellbeing over time. We tested our hypotheses in a longitudinal study of 208 EMS first responders nested within 45 stations from three fire departments in US metropolitan areas over 6 months during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Multilevel modeling showed that the relationship between safety climate and safety compliance behaviors can be attenuated when EMS first responders experience high emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion was also negatively associated with morale while safety climate was positively associated with morale. Additionally, EMS first responders experienced increased depression when their emotional exhaustion levels were high. Higher safety climate was associated with decreased depression when emotional exhaustion was within a low-to-medium range. Higher safety climate was also associated with lower absolute levels of depression across the entire range of emotional exhaustion. These findings suggest that promoting safety climate and mitigating emotional exhaustion can augment EMS first responders' safety behaviors and wellbeing.].

Measuring Safety Culture Using an Integrative Approach: The Development of a Comprehensive Conceptual Framework and an Applied Safety Culture Assessment Instrument

An exponential amount of academic research has been dedicated to the safety culture concept, but still, no consensus has been reached on its definition and content. In general, safety culture research lacks an interdisciplinary approach. Furthermore, although the concept of safety culture is characterised by complexity and multifacetedness, the safety culture concept has been characterised by reductionism, where models and theories simplify the concept in order to better grasp it, leading to confined approaches. In this article, the multifacetedness of safety culture is acknowledged, and the topic is addressed from a safety science perspective, combining insights from multiple academic disciplines. An integrative and comprehensive conceptual framework to assess safety culture in organisations is developed, taking into account the limitations of existing models, as well as the needs of the work field. This conceptual framework is called the 'Integrated Safety Culture Assessment' (ISCA), where the 'assessment' refers to its practical usability. The practical rendition of ISCA can be used to map the safety culture of an organisation and to formulate recommendations in this regard, with the ultimate goal of bringing about a change towards a positive safety culture. The comprehensiveness of ISCA lies in the inclusion of technological factors, organisational or contextual factors and human factors interacting and interrelating with each other, and in considering both observable or objective safety-related aspects in an organisation, and non-observable or subjective safety-related aspects. When using ISCA, organisational safety culture is assessed in an integrative way by using a variety of research methods involving the entire organisation, and by taking into account the specific context of the organisation.

Managing the Wellbeing of Elite Rugby Union Players from an Occupational Safety and Health Perspective

The intense, physical contact nature of rugby union often encourages the normalization of risk-taking behaviour resulting in a relatively high acceptance of risk. This study aims to explore safety culture in rugby union from an OSH perspective, with the purpose of assisting coaches and management in their decision-making processes to improve players' health, welfare, and long-term well-being. In terms of data collection, this study involved semi-structured interviews with senior support staff (n = 15) in elite rugby union. Interview transcripts underwent inductive analysis prior to an abductive analysis that was guided by an established occupational-safety-and-health (OSH) framework. Rugby union players' safety can be considered from two dimensions: management's commitment to safety (i.e., safety prioritization, safety empowerment, and safety justice), players' involvement in safety (i.e., safety prioritization, and trust in other players' safety competence, and players' safety concern for the opposition players). Within the themes identified, players' attitude towards their opponents' safety which has been rarely considered as a factor for injury prevention is also discussed in this study. If sport support staff (i.e., managers/coaches/medical) can become more involved in players' performance-orientated training using OSH management processes to aid in their decision-making, their exists the capacity to benefit players' safe return to play after injury rehabilitation. Meanwhile, directing the development of appropriate behavioural educational interventions to raise safety-awareness amongst players can improve their long-term health and well-being and provide them with the necessary safety and health information to support their own decision-making processes. As a multidisciplinary design, this study contributes new multidisciplinary insights that have the potential to advance managerial practices utilizing an OSH perspective, including decision-making supporting risk alleviation for safety and long-term health and wellbeing initiatives in competitive team sports.

The psychological mechanism of construction workers' safety participation: The social identity theory perspective

INTRODUCTION

Safety participation has gained increasing attention as an important dimension of workers' safety behaviors. Although previous studies attempted to identify factors affecting workers' safety participation, only a few studies paid attention to the psychological mechanisms behind it. Therefore, this study aimed to develop and test a research model that explains how management factors are implicated in workers' safety participation. Specifically, this study focused on project-based organizations (e.g., construction projects) because employee psychological mechanisms may have a unique nature in such transient employment.

METHOD

The hypotheses in the research model of the psychological mechanism of construction workers' safety participation are tested using survey data from 261 construction workers.

RESULTS

The results indicated that construction workers' safety participation is influenced by project identification after controlling the shared variance of safety compliance. Project identification also mediates the effects of transformational leadership and communication climate on safety participation.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

This study offers researchers and practitioners an explanation of how management factors influence construction workers' safety behaviors and clarifies the role of project identification play in explaining the effects of management factors on safety compliance and safety participation.

The Effect of Positive Reinforcement of Behavioral-Based Safety on Safety Participation in Philippine Coal-Fired Power Plant Workers: A Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) Approach

The power plant accident is considered one of the man-made disasters in many developing countries, including the Philippines. The purpose of the study was to identify the factors influencing behavioral-based safety of coal-fired power plant workers which subsequently led to their active safety participation. 201 coal-fired power plant workers in the Philippines answered the questionnaire which consist of 60 items using a purposive sampling approach. PLS-SEM revealed that PM had significant effects on SI, SMS, and SP. In addition, SP was found to have a significant effect on BBS which subsequently led to SPT. Finally, SMS was found to have a significant effect on SC which subsequently led to SCM, BBS, and SPT. This study is the first study that explored the BBS in the Philippine coal-fired power plant. This study can be used to positively reinforce the safety participation of workers in the coal-fired power plant industry.

The effect of an embargo, sanctions and culture on safety climate: A qualitative view from aviation maintenance in the MENA region

INTRODUCTION

Safety climate assessment is a key measure of organizational safety. A strong safety climate is integral to the high safety performance in aviation. Most survey instruments that purport to measure safety climate are derived from evidence obtained in developed countries in the west. It is rare for these studies to examine the influence of macro-environmental factors on safety climate, and rarer still in countries found in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

METHOD

The researchers conducted 28 semi-structured interviews with experienced aviation maintenance engineers from a national carrier in the region. The interview questions were derived from an extensive review of existing studies of safety climate. Data from interview transcripts were coded, creating a data structure using participant quotes for 1st order codes and arriving at three aggregate dimensions: organizational commitment to safety, organizational safety practices and social relationships and their consequences.

RESULTS

Commercial considerations influenced negatively organizational commitment to safety. Organizational safety practices were weak. There was a lack of safety training, a lack of resources to support safe working, poor safety communication, and a failure to report safety issues. Strong friendships were developed through working together in teams. This adversely influenced the reporting of errors and the punishment of violations.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The apparently weak organizational safety climate reported here was attributed to financial constraints following the imposition of economic sanctions and embargos, and to the influence of Arabic cultural values that privilege family connections and the importance of maintaining harmony in social relationships that precludes punishment.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

Financial constraints inevitably limit resources for safety and encourage prioritization of production. Arabic cultural values inhibit the development of a 'just' culture and a 'reporting' culture and challenge the universal adoption of approaches for promoting organizational safety developed in the West.

Size matters: How safety climate and downstream outcomes vary by fire department organization type

BACKGROUND

Safety climate is an upstream predictor of safety behaviors (e.g., safety compliance), organizational outcomes (e.g., burnout, engagement), and safety outcomes (e.g., injuries). The Fire Service Organizational Culture of Safety (FOCUS) survey, which was psychometrically validated, measures the industry-specific safety climate of the US fire and rescue service. It is expressed by two factors, Management Commitment to Safety and Supervisor Support for Safety.

METHODS

The FOCUS beta-test included a random sample of 132 fire departments stratified by Federal Emergency Management Agency region and organization type (career, combination, volunteer). We conducted descriptive analysis with the responses from 8414 firefighters nested within 611 stations in 125 fire departments. We reported descriptive statistics to assess the distribution of all continuous [mean ± standard deviation (SD)] and categorical variables (counts, percentages) stratified by organization type. Regression analyses were conducted to investigate the associations between safety climate, safety behaviors, organizational outcomes, and safety outcomes stratified by organization type.

RESULTS

The mean age of the analytic sample was 40.2 years, and the mean years of experience was 16.1 years. This sample included 53.6% career, 27.2% combination (career and volunteer), and 19.2% volunteer fire departments. The mean Management Commitment score was 71.4 (SD =  ± 10.4), and the mean Supervisor Support score was 81.7 (± 5.2). The mean Management Commitment scores were 67.1 (± 8.4), 72.2 (± 10.7), and 82.1 (± 6.1), respectively, for career, combination, and volunteer fire departments. The mean Supervisor Support scores were not notably different by organization type. Regression analyses generally supported the beneficial role of safety climate, while suggesting organization type as a potential effect modifier. Specifically, we observed a more negative association between Management Commitment as departments became more career.

CONCLUSIONS

Analysis of nationally representative data from the US fire and rescue service indicates safety climate is positively associated with safety behavior, organizational outcomes, and safety outcomes reflecting employee well-being. The findings also suggest that this association varies by organization type. In fact, a dose-response relationship was observed, with Management Commitment to safety lowest among career departments. Thus, our results suggest that it is not just being busy that decreases Management Commitment.

Informal Safety Communication of Construction Workers: Conceptualization and Scale Development and Validation

Existing studies have highlighted the importance of informal safety communication among workers at construction sites. However, there is still a lack of empirically tested theoretical models with valid and reliable scales for describing and measuring construction workers' informal safety communication (CWISC). Accordingly, this study aimed to fill this need by developing an instrument to assess the communication performance of construction workers. Four stages of scale development were described: construct formation, item generation, factor extraction through the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) (n = 219), and scale assessment through the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (n = 156). Using questionnaire data drawn from construction workers in China, the CWISC was verified to be a three-dimensional construct including citizenship safety communication (CSC), self-needed safety communication (SSC), and participatory safety communication (PSC). The corresponding CWISC scale with 12 items was shown to have acceptable internal consistency reliability, as well as content, convergent, and discriminant validity. The CWISC scale could serve as an instrument to assess and identify the weaknesses in informal safety communication performance of construction workers. In turn, this information could help supervisors implement appropriate management practices to those workers to enhance workplace informal safety communication. Related studies taking a multidimensional CWISC into account were expected to be carried out.

Characterizing accident narratives with word embeddings: Improving accuracy, richness, and generalizability

INTRODUCTION

Ensuring occupational health and safety is an enormous concern for organizations, as accidents not only harm workers but also result in financial losses. Analysis of accident data has the potential to reveal insights that may improve capabilities to mitigate future accidents. However, because accident data are often transcribed textually, analyzing these narratives proves difficult. This study contributes to a recent stream of literature utilizing machine learning to automatically label accident narratives, converting them into more easily analyzable fields.

METHOD

First, a large dataset of accident narratives in which workers were injured is collected from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Word embeddings-based text mining is implemented; compared to past works, this methodology offers excellent performance. Second, to improve the richness of analyses, each record is assessed across five dimensions. The machine learning models provide classifications of body part(s) injured, the source of the injury, the type of event causing the injury, whether a hospitalization occurred, and whether an amputation occurred. Finally, demonstrating generalizability, the trained models are deployed to analyze two additional datasets of accident narratives in the construction industry and the mining and metals industry (transfer learning). Practical Applications: These contributions improve organizations' capacities to rapidly analyze textual accident narratives.

A mixed-methods approach to examining safety climate among truck drivers

The purpose of the current study was to use a mixed-methods approach to understanding safety climate and the strategies to improve safety climate among truck drivers. Using both survey (N = 7246) and interview (N = 18) responses provided by truck drivers regarding key safety climate items, the current study identified a number of positive and negative policies, procedures and practices that truck drivers perceived as the determinants of whether their organizations are committed to the promotion of safety at work. Item response theory (IRT) analyses were conducted to identify discrimination parameters indicating which safety climate items were most sensitive to the safety climate level. Discriminative items were identified at both the organization and group levels which can be used to evaluate safety climate and differentiate a high versus low safety climate across groups and organizations in the trucking industry. Based on our results, we also offer safety researchers and practitioners some recommendations on what and/or how to intervene with and promote organizational safety climate in the trucking industry.

Where to focus? Insights from safety personnel and external safety consultants on lessons learned about safety climate interventions - A qualitative approach

INTRODUCTION

Safety climate is important for promoting workplace safety and health. However, there is a dearth of empirical research on the effective ways of planning, designing, and implementing safety climate interventions, especially regarding what is going to be changed and improved. To address this gap, the present study sought to extract a comprehensive pool of compiled suggestions for safety climate intervention based on qualitative interviews with professionals in occupational safety and health management from potentially hazardous industries.

METHOD

A series of systematic semi-structured interviews, guided by a comprehensive sociotechnical systems framework, were conducted with company safety personnel (n = 26) and external safety consultants (n = 15) of 21 companies from various industries. The taxonomy of five work system components of the sociotechnical systems approach served as overarching themes, representing different areas of improvement in an organization for occupational safety and health promotion, with an aim of enhancing safety climate.

RESULTS

Of the 36 codes identified, seven codes were based on the theme of external environment work system, four were based on the theme of internal environment work system, five were based on the theme of organizational and managerial structure work system, 14 codes were based on the theme of personnel subsystem, and six were based on the theme of technical subsystem.

CONCLUSIONS

Safety climate intervention strategies might be most commonly based upon the principles of human resource management (i.e., codes based on the personnel subsystem theme and organizational and managerial structure work system theme). Meanwhile, numerous attributes of external/internal environment work system and technical subsystem can be jointly improved to bolster safety climate in a holistic way. Practical Applications: More systematic and organized management of safety climate would be available when various interrelated codes pertinent to a given context are carefully considered for a safety climate intervention.

Incidents and Disaster Avoidance: The Role of Communication Management and the Organizational Communication Climate in High-Risk Environments

Health, safety and the working environment are of paramount importance, especially in the high-risk environments found at facilities in the oil and gas industry, where hazards are inevitable and accidents may lead to regrettable situations such as explosions, oil spills and other disasters. The high number of accidents and disasters at such facilities bring safety-related matters to the fore. The complexity of the communication process is very often underestimated, where failures in communication could lead to major disasters. This paper investigates the role of communication management and the organizational communication climate and their impact on incidents and disaster avoidance. This study embarks on a quantitative approach involving 260 personnel from high-risk workplaces at oil and gas facilities, based on purposive sampling. Hypotheses were tested using PLS-SEM to identify causal relationships and for mediation analysis. The findings of this study show that communication management and the organizational communication climate have a significant impact on disaster avoidance. The organizational communication climate is also found to be a significant mediator for the relationship between communication management and disaster avoidance. Communication management and the organizational communication climate need to be enhanced and to be integrated with other technology and innovation to improve safety regulation adherence in the oil and gas industry.

Synergetic effect of safety culture and safety climate on safety performance in SMEs: does transformation leadership have a moderating role?

Objectives. In developing countries, health and safety is not given importance especially in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Incidents in health and safety are continuously increasing. The major reason is a lack of workplace safety culture. Secondly, enterprises lack resources, therefore it becomes hard for them to provide safety climate. Along with safety climate and safety culture, the behavior of leadership plays a significant role toward safety performance. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the moderating role of leadership for gaining safety performance through safety culture and safety climate. Methods. For the said purpose, the authors collected data from laborers and managers. A structured questionnaire was adopted and, after ensuring the reliability, structural equation modeling was applied. Results. The findings revealed that safety culture and safety climate both have a significant impact over safety performance; however, transformational leadership only moderates the relationship between safety culture and safety performance. Conclusions. Identification of the moderating role of transformational leadership is a significant contribution in social cognitive theory. Future researchers are also guided to identify the same link for large industries of developing countries.

Key drivers of trucking safety climate from the perspective of leader-member exchange: Bayesian network predictive modeling approach

PURPOSE

Safety climate, which is defined as workers' shared perceptions of organizational policies, procedures, and practices as they relate to the true or relative value and importance of safety within an organization, is one of the best indicators of organizational safety outcomes. This study identifies key drivers of safety climate from the perspective of leader-member exchange (LMX). LMX is a theory describing the nature and processes of social interactions between a supervisor and a subordinate. This study examines the impact of individual drivers and combinations of drivers on safety climate through Bayesian Network simulations to predict practices which most effectively improve safety climate in the trucking industry.

METHOD

Survey data were collected from 5083 truck drivers in a large U.S. trucking company. Bayesian Network analysis was used to identify key drivers (factors) of safety climate and the best joint strategies for improvement. The impact of the drivers on safety climate was assessed and the simulation identified their potential impact independently and in concert with other drivers.

RESULTS

The results from Bayesian Network analyses showed that the effects of LMX on organization- and group-level safety climate were conditionally dependent on four other drivers including psychological ownership, supervisory integrity, situation awareness, and safety communication. Among the five contributing factors, supervisory integrity and LMX had the strongest independent effects on organization- and group-level safety climate. Moreover, the results indicated that the best two joint strategies for promoting organizational (company/top management level) safety climate were LMX and psychological ownership as well as LMX and situation awareness, whereas the best two joint strategies for improving group (workgroup/supervisor level) safety climate were joint optimization of LMX and safety communication as well as LMX and psychological ownership.

IMPLICATIONS

Based on the study results, the strategies that may have the most potential to improve trucking safety climate are: enhancing leaders' ability to engage in high-quality exchanges (e.g., caring about employees), developing training to encourage employees/leaders to deliver on promises, and providing employees with more autonomy to enhance their ownership.

An empirical analysis of safety behaviour: A study in MRO business in Indonesia

This study aims to investigate employee safety behaviour by relating it to safety leadership, safety communication, safety commitment, and safety climate. This research was conducted at PT GMF AeroAsia Tbk in the Cengkareng home base, and multibase areas of Kalimantan, Bali & Nusa Tenggara, Sumatra, Sulawesi & East, and Java. The study began in early September 2019 until the end of March 2020, using a quantitative and explanatory design approach through testing hypotheses to examine the nature of relationships and influences between variables. The population of 2,400 employees with a sample of 342 respondents. The sample distribution uses proportionate cluster random sampling. Model testing and data processing using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The data was then analysed using AMOS 22 statistical software. Work accidents at the largest MRO (Maintenance Repair and Overhaul) companies were mainly caused by safety behaviour. Test results from several variables of this study can help the managerial team make an effective approach to improve safety behaviour in the workplace.

Non-Technical Skills in Social Networks: The Spread of Safety Communication and Teamwork in a Warehouse

Safety at work should be considered as the result of the daily interaction of operators. The present research wants to analyze which factors are involved in the development of social networks about safety at work. We assumed that two relational non-technical skills, such as safety communication and safety team member support, affect the in-degree and out-degree bonds of workers in social networks. One hundred and eight workers of a warehouse were the participants of the research, in which they were asked to fill out a self-reported questionnaire. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Results confirmed that safety communication and safety support skills play a role in determining the quantity and the quality of social bonds that workers can create at the workplace. To be specific, while safety communication was found to be associated with out-degree centrality (b = 0.24; p = 0.01), a nonsignificant relationship was found for in-degree centrality. In contrast, safety team member support was found to be associated with in-degree centrality (b = 0.28; p = 0.04). In other words, on the one hand, it was found that high levels of safety communication skills are associated with the tendency of workers to proactively search for colleagues with whom they can share information about safety. On the other hand, workers with high levels of safety support skills tend to be considered as reference points in terms of safety by colleagues, who are more prone to look for their help. Implications for both scientists and practitioners are discussed.

Effectiveness of safety training interventions for supervisors: A systematic review and narrative synthesis

A wealth of research demonstrates that work unit supervisors serve a critical function in protecting the safety and health of workers. A systematic review examined the effectiveness of workplace safety training interventions intended for various supervisor populations published from 2000 to 2019. A search of seven electronic databases was supplemented with hand searches from the reference lists of identified publications, relevant scientific journals, and the gray literature. This review included an assessment of the methodological quality using a modified version of the Quality Assessment Tool for Quantitative Studies. A total of 22 peer-reviewed studies met a set of inclusion criteria and were subsequently assessed for methodological quality. Training interventions were grouped into five topical domains: ergonomics, leadership, supervisor-worker interaction, injury, and disability management, and general safety education. Consistent evidence was found for the effectiveness of supervisory training interventions across several outcome measures. To our knowledge, this is the first study to synthesize the literature on supervisory training interventions in the area of occupational safety. While the results are encouraging, they must be viewed with caution due to the fact that the methodological rigor of the reviewed studies was low.

Occupational Health Science in the Time of COVID-19: Now more than Ever

Workers bear a heavy share of the burden of how countries contend with COVID-19; they face numerous serious threats to their occupational health ranging from those associated with direct exposure to the virus to those reflecting the conflicts between work and family demands. Ten experts were invited to comment on occupational health issues unique to their areas of expertise. The topics include work-family issues, occupational health issues faced by emergency medical personnel, the transition to telework, discrimination against Asian-Americans, work stressors, presenteeism, the need for supportive supervision, safety concerns, economic stressors, and reminders of death at work. Their comments describe the nature of the occupational health concerns created by COVID-19 and discuss both unanswered research questions and recommendations to help organizations reduce the impacts of COVID-19 on workers.

Safety climate: Systematic literature network analysis of 38 years (1980-2018) of research

The objective of this paper is to examine the safety climate knowledge epistemology using bibliometric and systematic literature network analysis. For this purpose, bibliometric information of research article published on safety climate topic was retrieved from Scopus databases. In total, 494 articles published between 1980 and 2018 were retrieved. These articles cover 1373 authors, 203 journals and 2511 keywords. Information collected was analyzed employing bibliometric and network analysis approach using an open source computer program R and VOSviewer. The main findings of the study reveal the publication trends in safety climate literature since 1980 to present, identifies most productive authors, and most influential research work. Our findings suggest that Huang and Zohar are the top publishing authors in safety climate domain. Zohar's work has the highest citations. The most influential articles have been published in Journals such as Accident Analysis and Prevention, Journal of Applied Psychology, Safety Science and Journal of Safety Research. Network analysis of these articles yielded co-citation networks of most influential works, bibliographical coupling network and keywords co-occurrence network yielded the structure of safety climate knowledge. Findings of our research have theoretical and practical implications in the area of safety climate.

Fewer workers' compensation claims and lower claim costs if employers with high injury rates achieved the rates of their safer peers

INTRODUCTION

Employers engaged in similar business activities demonstrate a range of workers' compensation claim rates. Workplace injuries and illnesses could be prevented if employers with high claim rates achieved the claim rates of their safer peers.

METHODS

We used Washington workers' compensation claims data for years 2013-2015 to calculate rates of compensable claims (eligible for disability or time loss benefits, if unable to work four days after injury) and total accepted claims (compensable plus medical-aid only claims) for each employer. We estimated the number and cost of claims to occur if employers with high claim rates reduced them to the rates of employers at the 25th percentile, adjusted for insurance risk class, employer size, and injury type. To evaluate the impact of setting more or less ambitious goals, we also estimated reductions based on claim rates at the 10th and 50th percentiles.

RESULTS

Over 43% of claims and claim costs would be prevented if employers with higher claim rates lowered them to the 25th percentile using either total accepted or compensable claim rates as the benchmark outcome. The estimated claim cost savings from benchmarking to compensable claims was nearly as great as the estimate based on benchmarking to total accepted claims ($308.5 mil annually based on compensable claims vs. $332.4 mil based on total accepted claims). Restaurants and Taverns had the greatest number of potentially prevented compensable claims. Colleges and Universities and Wood Frame and Building Construction had the greatest potential reduction in compensable claim costs among larger and smaller employers, respectively.

CONCLUSION

Substantial reductions in workers' compensation claims and costs are possible if employers achieve the injury rates experienced by their safer peers. Practical application: Evaluating the range of workplace injury rates among employers within industry groups identifies opportunities for injury prevention and offers another approach to resource allocation.

Using a psychological contract of safety to predict safety climate on construction sites

INTRODUCTION

The fact that safety climate impacts safety behavior and delivers better safety outcomes is well established in construction. However, the way workers safety perception is inclined and developed is still unclear.

METHOD

In this research, the influence of supervisors' developing safety climate and its impact on workers' safety behavior and their conceptualization of safety is explored through the lens of the 'Psychological Contract' (PC). More specifically, it is argued that 'Psychological Contract of Safety' (PCS) is a vital factor in explaining how workers attach meaning to a supervisor behavior. Extant research suggests: (a) safety climate is based on the perception of workers regarding safety; and (b) PCS is based on perceived mutual obligations between workers and supervisors. As a result, this research argues that if PCS or mutual obligations between workers and supervisors are fulfilled, then safety climate of the workers will be positively influenced. A model is presented depicting PCS as an alternative intervention in understanding how safety climate could be influenced and predicted by the level of fulfillment of mutual safety obligations. Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) the model of the PCS is validated with data collected from a mega-construction project in Australia.

RESULTS

The results suggest that to have a positive and strong safety climate, top-level managers must ensure that mutual safety obligations between supervisor and workers are fulfilled. This enables the PCS to be introduced as a new 'predictor' of safety climate. Practical applications: The novel outcome of the research could be considered as a management intervention to modify supervisors' behavior to produce better safety outcomes.

The Interplay Between Supervisor Safety Support and Occupational Health and Safety Vulnerability on Work Injury

Background

Workers exposed to hazards without adequate protections are at greater risk of injury and illness. Supervisor activities have also been associated with injury risk. We examined the interplay between supervisor safety support and occupational health and safety (OHS) vulnerability on workplace injury and illness.

Methods

A survey was administered to 2,390 workers employed for more than 15 hrs/week in workplaces with at least five employees who had a direct supervisor. We examined the combined effects of hazard exposure with inadequate protection (OHS vulnerability) and supervisor support on workplace injury and illness, using additive interactions in log-binomial regression models.

Results

OHS vulnerability and lack of supervisor support independently increased the likelihood of physical injuries at work. Crude and adjusted models showed that the risk of physical injury was at least 3.5 times higher among those experiencing both OHS vulnerability and a lack of supervisor support than individuals without OHS vulnerability and with a supportive direct supervisor. Workers who experienced vulnerability were at less risk if they had a supervisor who was supportive.

Conclusion

In workplaces where workers experience one or more types of OHS vulnerability, having a supportive supervisor may play an important role in reducing the risk of injury and protecting workers.