How Does Safety Climate Affect Worker Behaviour?

A safety climate is the shared set of perceptions and expectations that workers have regarding safety in their organisation at any given time. But how does this safety climate affect how workers approach their day-to-day work, and any health and safety concerns that may arise? The literature says the impact is significant.

A 2005 study found workers with a negative perception of safety climate were more likely to engage in unsafe acts, which in turn increased the likelihood of an accident¹.

Employees may have all the training and equipment necessary to complete their job safely, however, over time, they will begin to cut corners and become complacent, without sufficient accountability. Similarly, the same study found workers who perceived job insecurity, anxiety and stress within their organisation, experienced a drop in safety motivation and compliance, and recorded a higher accident rate.

Such a negative safety climate can quickly become toxic, and can greatly increase the risk of incidents. If workers don’t consider safety an organisational priority, then they are unlikely to treat it as such.

A 2018 survey of Australian workers found one in ten were afraid to report a safety breach over fears it would cost them their job, and one in five said they had made a safety complaint that was never acted on. Furthermore, an alarming 17 percent of respondents said a colleague had been fired after being hurt in the workplace².

At the time, Safe Work Australia Special Advisor Dr Peta Miller laid the blame on employers, telling the ABC that organisations needed to foster workplace cultures that encouraged workers to speak up.

“Our evidence is showing us that, in fact, most workers will speak up if a positive organisational culture is created, where workers views are respected and listened to.”

This is backed up by the research – a negative safety climate can be reversed when management implements a top-to-bottom safety focus.

Once workers trust that safety is an organisational priority, they begin to take ownership of safety-related issues, and a culture of safety begins to form. And the benefits that come from that are significant.

The same 2005 study found workers with a positive perception of their workplace safety registered fewer accidents. This study also found that safe work behaviours were directly linked to whether an employee thought their employer was concerned about their wellbeing.

In 2007, Canadian Institute for Work and Health scientist Dr Phil Bigelow said safety climate was directly related to safety performance. Bigelow said organisations that conducted internal safety climate surveys found it was an effective way to predict workplace injury.

Safety climate has enormous potential to improve a company’s health and safety performance and reduce workplace injury rates.

“If a company routinely monitored its safety climate, it could lead to sustainable improvements in occupational health and safety (OHS) performance.”

¹University of Helsinki, Workers’ Perceptions of Workplace Safety and Job Satisfaction, 2005
²Shine Lawyers, Health and Safety Survey, 2018