No abstract

The implementation of effective workforce safety programmes ought to be linked to an understanding of the specificity of the work in the organisation concerned, taking into consideration the assessment of the level of safety expressed by the professional group representing it at the executive level. The main purpose of the study presented in the paper, which is part of a broader project of researching safety culture in the organisation, is a diagnosis of the safety climate in the Polish branch of an international manufacturing company. The following research question was formulated: Is the examined international manufacturing company a homogeneous organisation from the point of view of assessing its safety culture? The research was exploratory. In total, 203 respondents, which amounts to 35% of the employees, participated in the study. The selection of the sample was representative—in proportion to the number of employees in individual departments and their positions in the examined organisation. The presented paper includes an analysis of the results obtained on the basis of the abbreviated version of the Safety Climate Questionnaire, a self-developed tool to assess ten separate dimensions of safety climate. The results of a single-factor analysis of variance (ANOVA) along with post hoc tests prove that there is a statistically significant difference between the respondents representing different positions in the organisation and different areas of employment. The position held in the company significantly differentiates the employees in a statistically significant way—in eight out of eleven diagnostic areas, including the Summary Safety Climate Indicator (SSCI). In the case of department, statistically significant differences were found in seven out of eleven diagnostic areas. Education proved to be the factor that differentiates the respondents the least in terms of the assessment of workplace safety climate. Statistically significant differences occurred only in three out of eleven diagnostic areas. The observed differences in the assessment of the dimensions of workplace safety climate point to the need for the promotion of more diversified and individualised measures, taking into account the specificity of work and the nature of hazards in a given position, and the creation of practical safety programmes not only in the procedural and technical dimensions but also in social and psychological ones.

Implementation of effective programs to improve occupational safety should be linked to an understanding of the specific nature of the given job. The aim of the research was to compare occupational groups with different job-related specificities: industrial production line workers, retail workers and mine rescuers, in terms of their assessment of the work safety climate. The survey covered 2,995 respondents with diversified demographic characteristics. The study used an abridged version of the Safety Climate Questionnaire by Znajmiecka-Sikora (2019) to assess 10 separate safety climate dimensions. The results of the MANOVA multivariate analysis, Wilks’ multivariate F-tests and univariate F tests prove that there is a statistically significant difference between the respondents representing the three occupational groups collectively in terms of global assessment of all work safety climate dimensions, and also indicate significant differences between workers belonging to the three occupational groups in terms of their assessment of the individual dimensions of the work safety climate, except the organization’s occupational health and safety management policy as well as technical facilities and ergonomics, which may be due to the universality of the requirements set for organizations with regard to these two aspects of safe behavior. The differences observed in the assessment of the remaining work safety climate dimensions induces one to promote more differentiated and individualized activities, taking into account the work specificity and the nature of the threats occurring in the respective working environment of the representatives of the different occupations. The difference in assessment of the work safety climate found in the research encourages one to create practical programs for safety, not only in the procedural and technical dimension, but also in the social and psychological one.