Empowerment-based health and safety training: evidence of workplace change from four industrial sectors

Empowerment-based health and safety training programs posit that training workers to take action on health and safety issues is key to improving work environments. This article assesses how two union-led, empowerment-based hazardous materials training programs impacted health and safety workplace conditions across four industrial sectors.

A cross-sectional telephone interview survey was conducted with 362 workers and managers, six to twelve months following training.

Participants reported increased attempts and successes in advocating for workplace health and safety changes, as well as individual changes in awareness and work practices. The training also appeared to influence two organizational factors key to worker-initiated changes in the workplace: manager support and union involvement.

Empowerment-based training approaches appear to be effective in fostering workers' ability to initiate change in the workplace. Future evaluations should further refine training evaluation measures of workplace change processes, and consider them in the unique contexts in which they operate.