Is the safety perception of employees on their company related to their actual workplace number of illness and injuries? Researchers are agreeing with this more recently.
“We’ve known for some time that certain occupations are more dangerous than others due to a variety of physical and other hazards,” said study author Dave DeJoy, Ph.D. “But in the last 20 years, there has been growing evidence that management and organizational factors also play a critical role. That is, actions taken or not taken at the organizational level can either set the stage for injuries or help prevent them.”
Studies done by DeJoy and other colleagues have been published in Journal of Safety Research. According to the results in this journal, the workers’ perception of safety in their job site can decrease actual injuries by 32%. Along with this, day-to-day work tasks and operations were a factor in defining the study.
“Enacted policies and procedures-not formalized ones but those acted upon-define a climate of safety.” DeJoy agrees. “Injury is a failure of management. Organizations who blame individuals for injuries do not create a positive safety climate.”
Of course, there were several other factors taken into consideration when they examined this study including, work-family interference, management-employee relations, organizational effectiveness, safety climate, job content, advancement potential, resource adequacy and supervisor support.
So beyond having safety training implemented in your company, it is also important to constantly make sure your employees are being careful and stay safe at all times while doing their job. Great managing is certainly a must for overall safety in the workplace.
To read the original article, go to:
http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/02/21/workplace-culture-can-reduce-injuries-on-the-job/35083.html
To schedule safety training or consulting, call us at 407-535-8165 or go to the calendar to see our upcoming in-house classes:
https://safetylinks.net/index.php/training/trainingevents-calendar