Assessing a national work health and safety policy intervention using the psychosocial safety climate framework

Abstract

Despite support for work health and safety (WHS) policy interventions, the evaluation of their effectiveness has been overlooked. As such, many important policy developments have not been assessed for their impact within jurisdictions and organisations. We addressed this research gap by using the Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) framework, theory, measurement toolthe PSC-12, and benchmarks -to investigate the impact of a WHS policy intervention, across Australian jurisdictions, that standardised policy approaches (i.e. harmonisation) and legislated the protection of psychological health. PSC refers to a facet of organisational climate that relates to psychological health and safety and is a predictor of job design and employee health. We investigated perceived organisational PSC across jurisdictions, across time, and contrasted effects between those that did (harmonised) and did not (non-harmonised) adopt the policy. Results showed Time X Group effects for the global PSC measure, indicating a significant difference over time between the harmonised and non-harmonised jurisdictions. Specifically, PSC levels significantly decreased in the non-harmonised jurisdiction over time. Analysis of PSC subscales showed that a significant decline in management commitment and priority, and communication (marginally) in relation to employee psychological health, within the non-harmonised group underpinned these effects. We noted no significant overall PSC change across the harmonised jurisdictions, with the exception that participation and consultation in relation to employee psychological health significantly increased. Results imply that without harmonisation the PSC levels reduced. Future research should seek detailed information regarding policy implementation, regulator perspectives and employer data to compliment results from the PSC-12.

Validating the Psychosocial Safety Climate Questionnaire – Integration of Findings from Cognitive Interviews in Germany and Sweden

“…Findings from confirmatory factor analyses support the construct validity of the theoretically based four-factor structure measured by the 12-item version of PSC (Hall et al, 2010;Pien et al, 2018). Despite the theoretical reasoning behind the PSC measure, it seems data most often are collapsed into one single composite PSC score (see e.g., Afsharian et al, 2018;Biron et al, 2018;Bronkhorst, 2015;Idris et al, 2015;Potter et al, 2017). In addition, a 4-item version comprising the theoretical dimensions has been introduced (Dollard & Bakker, 2010).…”

“…A measure for PSC was first developed and introduced in Australia, where it also has been proven to be of practical relevance for policy makers and in relation to organizational interventions (Leka, Jain & Lerouge, 2017;Leka, Jain & Zwetsloot, 2010;Potter et al, 2017;Potter et al, 2019). The PSC comprises four theoretically based components: how employees perceive the senior management 1) engages, 2) prioritizes, 3) communicates, and 4) involves employees in psychosocial workplace safety issues (Dollard & Bakker, 2010).…”

“…PSC has been demonstrated to capture essential aspects of OSH policies and procedures (Leka et al, 2017;Potter et al, 2017) and to have important implications for working conditions, employees' health, and engagement (Idris et al, 2012); Yulita, Dollard & Idris, 2017). However, it is necessary to explore the universal validity and transferability of the PSC concept as a useable-and novelframework for understanding organizational policies and procedures to ensure psychosocial risks among employees in different cultural settings and OSH traditions.…”

Safe Behaviour in The Petrochemical Industry: Evaluating The Consistency Between Conceptual Frameworks and Factors Reported by Iranian Workers

“…The codes of these categories have been matched with concepts in the reviewed models by using the character 'c' in Table 2. 10 (32%) of the 31 studies found constructs included in the model and matches with categories and codes of theme 'c' (2,5,11,14,17,19,24,25,26,28). The broader organisational factors theme includes unsafe management culture and organisational impact on workers' safety categories.…”

“…Recent studies have placed importance on psychosocial conditions in policy, and demonstrated the value of workers' psychological wellbeing at work. Organisations which aim to concentrate on both physical and psychological factors together have safer working environments at lower risk of employee mental and physical health harm, and in consequence, lead to the positive workplace behaviours like work engagement and safety incident reporting [25].…”