Safety perception referents of permanent and temporary employees: safety climate boundaries in the industrial workplace

A staffing perspective on barriers to and facilitators of temporary worker safety and health

BACKGROUND

Research has documented occupational health disparities, including higher rates of work-related injuries, among temporary workers compared with workers in standard employment arrangements. According to guidance from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), both staffing companies and host employers are responsible for protecting the occupational safety and health (OSH) of temporary workers. To date, there has been little qualitative research on temporary worker OSH in the United States and a lack of evidence-based OSH programs designed to meet the needs of temporary workers. The aim of this study was to better understand the barriers to and facilitators of temporary worker OSH from the perspective of US staffing companies.

METHODS

In-depth interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of representatives from 15 US staffing companies. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed through a three-step process.

RESULTS

Commonly mentioned barriers to temporary worker OSH include differential treatment of temporary workers by host employers; lack of understanding among host employers and staffing companies of joint OSH responsibilities; and workers' fear of job loss or other negative repercussions if they report an injury or illness or voice OSH concerns. Commonly mentioned facilitators of temporary worker OSH include conducting client assessments and site visits and fostering strong communication and relationships with both host employers and temporary workers.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings can help inform the tailoring of OSH programs to promote health equity in temporary workers.

Safety training in context: technical, cultural and political factors affecting its design, delivery and transfer

INTRODUCTION

Safety training is integral to modern safety management systems. However, what is trained in the classroom is not always adopted and applied in the workplace, creating the training transfer problem. Taking an alternative ontological stance, the aims of this study were to conceptualize this problem as one of 'fit' between what is trained and the contextual factors in the work environment of the adopting organization.

METHOD

Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with experienced health andsafety trainers having diverse backgrounds and experience. Data were thematically coded 'bottom-up' to capture reasons for safety training and where consideration of context occurs in the design and delivery of training. Then, the codes were thematically grouped against a pre-existing framework to categorize contextual factors that affect 'fit' into technical, cultural, and political factors each operating at different levels of analysis.

RESULTS

Safety training occurs to satisfy external stakeholder expectations and meet internal perceptions of need. Consideration of contextual factors can occur both in the design and delivery of training. A range of technical, cultural, and political factors were identified, which can operate at individual, organizational, or supra-organizational levels to influence safety training transfer.

CONCLUSIONS

The study draws particular attention to the influence of political factors and the impact of supra-organizational factors on the successful transfer of training, areas not consistently considered in safety training design and delivery.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

The application of the framework adopted in this study provides a useful tool for discriminating between different contextual factors and the level at which they operate. This could enable more effective management of these factors to improve the potential for transfer of safety training from the classroom to the workplace.

Health Equity and Worker Justice in Temporary Staffing: The Illinois Case

Temporary staffing has an increasing role in world economies, contracting workers and dispatching them to work for leasing employers within countries and across borders. Using Illinois as a case study, co-authors have undertaken investigations to understand the occupational health, safety, and well-being challenges for workers hired through temporary staffing companies; to determine knowledge and attitudes of temp workers and temp staffing employers; and to assess temporary staffing at a community level. Temporary staffing workers in Illinois tend to be people of color who are employed in the most hazardous sectors of the economy. They have a higher rate of injury, are compensated less, and often lose their jobs when injured. Laws allow for ambiguity of responsibility for training, reporting, and compensation between the staffing agency and host employers. Our findings illustrate the ways in which principles of fairness and equity are violated in temporary staffing. Shared responsibility for reporting injuries, providing workers' compensation insurance, and training workers should be mandated in law and required in contractual language between temporary staffing and host/contracting employers. Monitoring, enforcement, and adjustment of the law based on experience are required to "promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all.

Paternalistic Leadership and Safety Participation of High-Speed Railway Drivers in China: The Mediating Role of Leader-Member Exchange

This research aimed to examine the effects of paternalistic leadership on the safety participation of high-speed railway drivers. Survey data were collected from 601 drivers in major Chinese rail companies. Structural equation modeling was conducted to analyze the influence of paternalistic leadership on safety participation via leader–member exchange (LMX). The results indicated that moral leadership directly promotes safety participation. Besides, benevolent leadership was positively associated with safety participation. Also, LMX partially mediates the positive relationship between benevolent leadership, moral leadership, and safety participation. Therefore, paternalistic leadership promotes the safety participation of high-speed railway drivers.

The Effects of Multi-Sociodemographic Characteristics of Construction Sites Personnel on Perceptions of Safety Climate-Influencing Factors: The Construction Industry in Saudi Arabia

The construction industry in Saudi Arabia relies prominently on migrant workers of multi-sociodemographic characteristics with different perceptions of a safety climate. The exploration of the perceptions regarding the safety climate among various groups of migrant workers may help identify effective means of improving safety levels at construction sites in Saudi Arabia. This study aimed to examine the effects of multi-sociodemographic characteristics of construction site personnel on their perceptions of the factors that influence the safety climate at construction sites in Saudi Arabia. Data were collected from 401 construction site workers, employed at ongoing construction project sites in Saudi Arabia, using a designed questionnaire. A generalized, linear model approach was applied, using the single ordinal logistic regression method, to analyze the collected data. The results revealed the significant sets of sociodemographic characteristics and their associated subgroups that had significant effects on the perception of importance assigned to each safety climate-influencing factor. These findings provide a better understanding of the views of construction site personnel on the safety climate and can assist construction industry decision-makers, safety policy designers, government agencies, and stakeholders when designing better-targeted enhancement plans and strategies to improve the safety climate of construction sites, based on the sociodemographic makeup of the personnel at each construction site.

Determinants of Occupational Safety Culture in Hospitals and other Workplaces-Results from an Integrative Literature Review

Background: The aim of the present study was to obtain an overview of occupational safety culture by assessing and mapping determinants in different workplaces (hospital workplaces and workplaces in construction, manufacturing, and other industry sectors) using an already established theoretical framework with seven clusters developed by Cornelissen and colleagues. We further derived implications for further research on determinants of occupational safety culture for the hospital workplace by comparing the hospital workplace with other workplaces. Methods: We conducted an integrative literature review and searched systematically for studies in four research databases (PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL, and PsycINFO). The search was undertaken in 2019, and updated in April 2020. Results of the included studies were analyzed and mapped to the seven clusters proposed by Cornelissen and colleagues. Results: After screening 5566 hits, 44 studies were included. Among these, 17 studies were conducted in hospital workplaces and 27 were performed in other workplaces. We identified various determinants of an occupational safety culture. Most studies in hospital and other workplaces included determinants referring to management and colleagues, to workplace characteristics and circumstances, and to employee characteristics. Only few determinants in the studies referred to other factors such as socio-economic factors or to content relating to climate and culture. Conclusions: The theoretical framework used was helpful in classifying various determinants from studies at different workplaces. By comparing and contrasting results of studies investigating determinants at the hospital workplace with those addressing other workplaces, it was possible to derive implications for further research, especially for the hospital sector. To date, many determinants for occupational safety culture known from workplaces outside of the healthcare system have not been addressed in studies covering hospital workplaces. For further studies in the hospital workplace, it may be promising to address determinants that have been less studied so far to gain a more comprehensive picture of important determinants of an occupational safety culture in the hospital sector.

Safety Climate Among Nontraditional Workers in Construction: Arguing for a Focus on Construed External Safety Image

Safety climate, employees' perceptions of work-related safety, ¹ has been promoted as a leading indicator of workplace safety in construction. ^{2 , 3} While research has primarily examined internal organizational sources (e.g., manager attitudes, formal organizational policies) on these perceptions, external sources of information might be more relevant to construction workers in nontraditional jobs who work for a limited time and/or have limited interaction with other employees. This paper argues for the future development of a construed external safety image scale to measure employees' perceptions about how external groups view their organization's safety. ⁴ The construed external safety image would capture the external sources that nontraditional workers use to assess safety climate and will allow public health researchers to identify and change dangerous workplaces while more effectively communicating information about safe workplaces to workers. The public health relevance of safety climate and construed external safety image for monitoring and communicating safety to nontraditional workers require examination.

The Balance Between Safety and Productivity and its Relationship with Human Factors and Safety Awareness and Communication in Aircraft Manufacturing

Background

This paper presents the findings of a pilot research survey which assessed the degree of balance between safety and productivity, and its relationship with awareness and communication of human factors and safety rules in the aircraft manufacturing environment.

Methods

The study was carried out at two Australian aircraft manufacturing facilities where a Likert-scale questionnaire was administered to a representative sample. The research instrument included topics relevant to the safety and human factors training provided to the target workforce. The answers were processed in overall, and against demographic characteristics of the sample population.

Results

The workers were sufficiently aware of how human factors and safety rules influence their performance and acknowledged that supervisors had adequately communicated such topics. Safety and productivity seemed equally balanced across the sample. A preference for the former over the latter was associated with a higher awareness about human factors and safety rules, but not linked with safety communication. The size of the facility and the length and type of employment were occasionally correlated with responses to some communication and human factors topics and the equilibrium between productivity and safety.

Conclusion

Although human factors training had been provided and sufficient bidirectional communication was present across the sample, it seems that quality and complexity factors might have influenced the effects of those safety related practices on the safety–productivity balance for specific parts of the population studied. Customization of safety training and communication to specific characteristics of employees may be necessary to achieve the desired outcomes.

Association between safety leading indicators and safety climate levels

OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of leading indicators for occupational health and safety, particularly safety inspections and non-compliances, with safety climate levels.

METHODS

Nordic Occupational Safety Climate Assessment Questionnaire was employed to evaluate safety climate in cross-sectional design. The geographically diverse population of the inspection body made it possible to conduct the survey across 10 provinces in Iran. 89 completed questionnaires were obtained with a response rate of 47%. Except for management safety justice, the internal consistency of other six dimensions was found to be acceptable (α≥0.7).

RESULTS

Mean scores of dimensions ranged from 3.50 in trust in the efficacy of safety systems (SD=0.38) to 2.98 in workers' safety priority and risk non-acceptance (SD=0.47). Tukey HSD tests indicated a statistically significant difference of mean scores among groups undergoing different number of safety inspections and those receiving different number of non-compliances (p<0.05), with no significant differences based on safety training man-hours and sessions (p>0.05). Spearman's rank-order correlation showed no relationship between work experience and number of non-compliances (correlation coefficient=-0.04, p>0.05) and between safety training man-hours and number of non-compliances (correlation coefficient=-0.15, p>0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Our results indicate that safety climate levels are influenced by number of safety inspections and the resultant non-compliances.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Findings suggest that safety non-compliances detected as a result of conducting safety inspections could be used to monitor the safety climate state. Establishing plans to conduct scheduled safety inspections and recording findings in the form of safety non-compliance and monitoring their trend could be used to monitor levels of safety climate.

Nonstandard work arrangements and worker health and safety

Arrangements between those who perform work and those who provide jobs come in many different forms. Standard work arrangements now exist alongside several nonstandard arrangements: agency work, contract work, and gig work. While standard work arrangements are still the most prevalent types, the rise of nonstandard work arrangements, especially temporary agency, contract, and "gig" arrangements, and the potential effects of these new arrangements on worker health and safety have captured the attention of government, business, labor, and academia. This article describes the major work arrangements in use today, profiles the nonstandard workforce, discusses several legal questions about how established principles of labor and employment law apply to nonstandard work arrangements, summarizes findings published in the past 20 years about the health and safety risks for workers in nonstandard work arrangements, and outlines current research efforts in the area of healthy work design and worker well-being. Am. J. Ind. Med. 60:1-10, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Promoting safety participation through diversity and inclusion climates

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of diversity climate and inclusion climate on safety participation behaviors through the mediating effect of the motivation to actively promote safety at work.

Design/methodology/approach

Participants were 491 workers employed in four Italian metal-mechanical companies. They completed a paper questionnaire containing measures of psychological diversity climate, psychological inclusion climate, safety motivation participation and safety participation behaviors. Data were analyzed with structural equation modeling.

Findings

Results showed that safety participation motivation fully mediates the relationship between diversity climate and safety participation behaviors, whereas it partially mediates the relationship between climate for inclusion and safety participation behaviors.

Practical implications

The present findings can help managers to motivate employees in pursuing safety goals independently of compensation or obligation by creating an organization in which the main concern is caring for each other’s well-being.

Originality/value

This is the first study which has empirically tested the relationships between diversity climate, inclusion climate and safety behaviors. It has extended previous research which simply tested the effects of objective types of diversity on safety performance.

Differences in Hospital Managers', Unit Managers', and Health Care Workers' Perceptions of the Safety Climate for Respiratory Protection

This article compares hospital managers' (HM), unit managers' (UM), and health care workers' (HCW) perceptions of respiratory protection safety climate in acute care hospitals. The article is based on survey responses from 215 HMs, 245 UMs, and 1,105 HCWs employed by 98 acute care hospitals in six states. Ten survey questions assessed five of the key dimensions of safety climate commonly identified in the literature: managerial commitment to safety, management feedback on safety procedures, coworkers' safety norms, worker involvement, and worker safety training. Clinically and statistically significant differences were found across the three respondent types. HCWs had less positive perceptions of management commitment, worker involvement, and safety training aspects of safety climate than HMs and UMs. UMs had more positive perceptions of management's supervision of HCWs' respiratory protection practices. Implications for practice improvements indicate the need for frontline HCWs' inclusion in efforts to reduce safety climate barriers and better support effective respiratory protection programs and daily health protection practices.

Psychosocial safety climate as a lead indicator of workplace bullying and harassment, job resources, psychological health and employee engagement

Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) is defined as shared perceptions of organizational policies, practices and procedures for the protection of worker psychological health and safety, that stem largely from management practices. PSC theory extends the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) framework and proposes that organizational level PSC determines work conditions and subsequently, psychological health problems and work engagement. Our sample was derived from the Australian Workplace Barometer project and comprised 30 organizations, and 220 employees. As expected, hierarchical linear modeling showed that organizational PSC was negatively associated with workplace bullying and harassment (demands) and in turn psychological health problems (health impairment path). PSC was also positively associated with work rewards (resources) and in turn work engagement (motivational path). Accordingly, we found that PSC triggered both the health impairment and motivational pathways, thus justifying extending the JD-R model in a multilevel way. Further we found that PSC, as an organization-based resource, moderated the positive relationship between bullying/harassment and psychological health problems, and the negative relationship between bullying/harassment and engagement. The findings provide evidence for a multilevel model of PSC as a lead indicator of workplace psychosocial hazards (high demands, low resources), psychological health and employee engagement, and as a potential moderator of psychosocial hazard effects. PSC is therefore an efficient target for primary and secondary intervention.

Friends in Need: The Protective Effect of Social Relationships Under Low-Safety Climate

Previous studies have explored the role of social relationships, mainly with the supervisor, in promoting a high organizational safety climate. Not much is known, however, about the effect of social relationships when the safety climate is low. This study explored whether high-quality social relationships could compensate for a low level of safety climate. Hypotheses were tested among 673 employees and 46 managers from 46 departments in 11 manufacturing organizations in Israel. Results of both partial least squares and mixed-model procedures showed that employees’ climate perceptions mediate the relationship of supervisors’ climate perceptions with employees’ safety behavior. In addition, employees’ climate perceptions interacted with the quality of relationships with colleagues to affect safety behavior. However, the quality of the relationship with supervisors did not moderate the relationship between supervisors’ and employees’ climate perceptions. The results suggest that high-quality social relationships with colleagues could buffer the effects of low-level safety climate.