A structural equation modelling approach examining the pathways between safety climate, behaviour performance and...

Area of Science:

• Occupational Health and Safety
• Behavioral Science
• Risk Management

Background:

• Safety climate is linked to safer behaviors and fewer injuries.
• Understanding the mechanisms linking safety climate to injury risk is crucial, especially in high-risk environments like limited-service restaurants.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between employees' perception of safety climate, specific safety behaviors (wearing slip-resistant shoes), and the risk of workplace slips.
• To model safety climate as a higher-order factor comprising safety training and management commitment.

Main Methods:

• Surveyed 349 employees across 30 restaurants regarding safety perceptions and demographics.
• Observed the wearing of slip-resistant shoes as a measure of safety performance.
• Prospectively collected data on employee work hours and slip incidents over 12 weeks.

Main Results:

• Confirmatory factor analysis validated safety climate as a higher-order factor of safety training and management commitment.
• Structural equation modeling revealed that safety climate indirectly reduced slip risk through improved safety performance.
• No direct association was found between safety climate and the occurrence of slips.

Conclusions:

• Safety climate can mitigate workplace slip incidents by promoting adherence to safety behaviors.
• This study provides a potential causal pathway illustrating how safety climate influences injury reduction.
• Safety climate is effectively conceptualized as a composite of safety training and management commitment.