Psychosocial safety climate, safety compliance and safety participation: The mediating role of psychological distress

Abstract

We conceptualize that psychosocial safety climate (PSC) has a positive effect on employees' safety behavior by reducing their psychological distress. A high-level PSC environment reduces psychological distress by eliminating the employees' need for devoting psychological resources toward safety concerns. This preserves psychological resources to be invested in important behaviors i.e., safety compliance and participation. Data were collected from 190 production workers in the oil and gas industry across three states of Malaysia. Results showed strong support for our hypotheses. PSC was negatively linked with psychological distress. Psychological distress predicted safety compliance and participation and mediated the relationship between PSC and safety compliance/participation. Results suggest that in order to improve safety compliance and participation, management in safety-sensitive industries should pay attention to psychosocial factors in the work environment. The implications of these results for safety interventions and further research are discussed.

Refugees at Work: The Preventative Role of Psychosocial Safety Climate against Workplace Harassment, Discrimination and Psychological Distress

“…There is robust evidence that shows PSC can predict employees' health along with motivational outcomes such as work engagement. PSC is an important indicator of emotional exhaustion and psychological distress [36][37][38], emotional exhaustion and cynicism [39], depression [40,41], work engagement [39,42], sickness absence in workers [36,43], employee presenteeism [43], and compensation claims for physical injuries at work [40,44,45]. In sum, PSC is a leading indicator of work conditions and social-relational aspects (harassment and discrimination), health and motivational outcomes, and productivity.…”

Assessing the Mediating Role of Safety Communication Between Safety Culture and Employees Safety Performance

“…Our research adds to the safety culture literature by demonstrating that a psychosocially safe culture can prevent psychological distress and fatality even in unsafe working environments. Only a few research have looked at this association in risky conditions such as accidents and fatalities ( 6 , 151 – 153 ). In addition, most previous research on injuries served as a measure of workplace safety, and little research has been done on how safety communication affects safety performance between workers.…”

How discretionary behaviors promote customer engagement: the role of psychosocial safety climate and psychological capital

“…First, PSC helps employees and organizations to maintain, protect and supply resources at job level through supportive management decisions. In high PSC, employees perceive the organizational climate as supportive of their psychosocial well-being and eager to communicate with them about their concerns (Mirza, Isha, Memon, Azeem, & Zahid, 2019). Thus, employees expect to overcome the job demands with less effort and appraise demands as challenge stressors, which is expected to have a positive effect on performance and motivation (Lepine, Podsakoff, & LePine, 2005).…”