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Exploratory analysis of the safety climate and safety behavior relationship.

The nature of safety culture: A survey of the state-of-the-art

Safety management practices and safety behaviour: assessing the mediating role of safety knowledge and motivation.

Arthur Chickering is Distinguished Professor of Higher Education at Memphis State University. On leave from the Directorship of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Memphis State, he is Visiting Professor at George Mason University. Zelda Gamson is a sociologist who holds appointments at the John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and in the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education at the University of Michigan.

Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education: Faculty Inventory. Institutional Inventory.

Relation between occupational safety management and firm performance

The relationship between employees' perceptions of safety and organizational culture.

Successful Safety Committees: Participation Not Legislation

www.asse.org AUGUST 2010 PROFESSIONAL SAFETY 29 SH&EPROFESSIONALSKNOWseveral applications for trailing measures, such as trend analysis, control charts and evaluating the effectiveness of safety initiatives. The problem many organizations encounter is that the measures they use do not provide adequate feedback for continuous improvement of the safety process nor do they contribute to the development of the safety culture. The safety culture is unlikely to be positively affectedwhen trailing indicators are the primary focus or are the sole safety metrics an organization uses to assess performance. Leading indicators measure actions, behaviors and processes, the things people actually do for safety, and not simply the safety-related failures typically tracked by trailing measures. Performance has two aspects: “Performance is a function of both the behavior and accomplishment of a person or a group of people. Performance includes the actions of a person or people and the result of the action or actions” (Stolovitch & Keeps, 2004, p. 8). This distinction is important to understanding activity measures (behaviors) versus results measures (accomplishments).

Leading Measures: Enhancing Safety Climate and Driving Safety Performance

The fundamental management process is to allocate available resources to a productive end. In the case of safety and health, management must identify how to best allocate limited resources to ensure the fewest mishaps that result in injuries to employees, damage to equipment or harm to the environment. Research suggests that the safety management system has the most significant impact on injury rates (Carder, 2003; O’Toole, 2002). Other research involving safety management systems suggests that the most critical factor influencing successful safety results is that of management’s demonstrated support of safety (Erickson, 2008). Based on her earlier research, Erickson (1994) also suggests that interventions targeting only safety-related items are less than successful if addressed in isolation. In other words, problems or issues identified as safety related are really a symptom of a broader management system issue, such as leadership and/or visible support for safety and health issues. Zohar (1980; 2005) used employee safety questionnaires to identify the relative importance of specific safety factors in several industrial settings in Israel. Bailey and Petersen (1989) used the Minnesota Safety Perception survey to identify factors that positively contribute to injury reduction in the railroad industry as well as in several other industries. Results of Bailey’s (1997) follow-up study suggest that at facilities with low injury rates, employees’ perceptions of critical safety factors were highly positive. Perceptions, like attitudes, have been recognized as an important factor in safety. Research in this area suggests that when measured, perceptions can predict the likelihood of certain behaviors (Ivers, Senserrick, Boufous, et al., 2009). The importance of this factor is especially critical where employees have little or no direct supervision. In such settings, an employee makes important choices and decisions about safety rules, practices and procedures. If perceptions about safety are low, that employee may be more likely to take a shortcut or engage in some other at-risk behavior which can lead to an injury. Other research suggests that employees’ safetyrelated perceptions are predictive of organizations’ safety results (Carder, 2003; O’Toole & Nalbone, 2007; Seo, 2005). Where employee perceptions of an organization’s safety climate are low (negative), the incidence of injury tends to be higher than in those organizations where employee safety perceptions are high (positive). IN BRIEF •Employee safety perception surveys measure employee perceptions about key factors or domains of an organization’s safety management system. •Such surveys provide additional vital information that identifies areas which need attention and enables management to improve an organization’s safety process.

Michael O’Toole

Papers

The relationship between employees' perceptions of safety and organizational culture.

Successful Safety Committees: Participation Not Legislation

Leading Measures: Enhancing Safety Climate and Driving Safety Performance

Safety Perception Surveys: What to Ask, How to Analyze

Is the Safety Climate a Barometer of Safety Results