Safety Climate and Behavior at Z construction company : Report
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Added on 2020-01-15
Safety Climate and Behavior at Z construction company : Report
Added on 2020-01-15
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SAFETY CLIMATE AND BEHAVIOR ATZ CONSTRUCTION COMPANY
TABLE OF CONTENTSINTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3.....................................................................................................................................................5Literature review..............................................................................................................................6REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
INTRODUCTIONOverview of sectorConstruction industry is the one of the largest sector in the UK. Mentioned nationproperty market basically encompasses three main sectors which are retail, offices and industries.In 2013 value of this industry was 67 billion. It is one of the fastest growing industries across theglobe (Spillane and Oyedele, 2013). Huge length of buildings are constructed in the UK andother nations of the world and due to this reason main stress is laid down on the safety of theemployees at the workplace that are involved in construction related work at the workplace.Every year number of business firms provides safety training to the employees in order toimprove their safety performance. Main focus of the present study is on identifying the extent towhich improvement in safety performance affect the safety culture and safety climate of theorganization (Leung, Chan and Yu, 2012). It is observed that most of the business firms that areoperating in the construction industry are giving more and more training to the employees interms of safety measures that they can adopt in order to make their life safe at the workplace.However, then also an accident takes place in the real estate sector. 45 cases of death ofindividuals were observed in the UK real estate sector in the FY 2015-16. It can be said that in amonth at least 3 people died in the mentioned nation construction industry. This reflects thatsteps needs to be taken to reduce cases of accidents at the workplace.In current time period construction industry is in the better condition. It is providingincome and employment to large number of the people in the UK. Hence, it can be said that realestate sector is significantly contributing to growth of the nation. In past years large number ofthe accidents takes place in the real estate sector which reflect that either firm is not makingavailable proper safety equipment’s to the employees or they are not strictly following safetypolicies and procedures at the workplace. In many studies it is identified that UK constructionindustry is much safer than other nation’s real estate sector (Kaskutas and et.al., 2010). It isobserved that construction industries is one of the most dangerous industry worldwide causingworker’s accidents that cause injuries, death, work-related illness, economic and financial directand indirect loss. Safety climate is the important term that is used in the construction industry. Every realestate company develops its own safety climate at its construction site. It is very important tounderstand that term safety climate in systematic way. Safety climate refers to the perception that
people or employees have towards safety policies and procedures of an organization. Each andevery firm that is operating in the construction industry have its own safety policies andprocedures (Oyedele et.al., 2013). This is determined in order to ensure that life of employees issafe at the workplace. Safety procedures are like guidelines for the employees which they have tofollow. In safety procedure way in which safety equipment’s will be used by the employees isdetermined clearly. In past few years it is observed that the UK construction firms take manysteps in order to improve safety climate at the workplace (Leung, Chan and Yuen, 2010). Withimprovement in the safety climate labors perception about organization safety policies andprocedures also get changed. It can be said that safety climate will get improved at the workplaceemployees will feel safe to work. Hence, in current time period most of business firms arefocusing on improving their safety climate.Safety climate is a wide term that is used in the construction industry of the UK. Safetyculture refers to the attitude, belief and values that is present in the organization system, peopleand firm leadership in respect to the norms about ways in which things are done in theorganization. In simple terms it can be said that safety climate indicate the thinking and attitudethat people have towards the safety related procedures that are followed at the workplace. It ispossible that employees and management holds different opinions or thinking on the proceduresrelated to safety that are followed at the workplace. This is because both managers andemployees observed things in a different ways. In the UK construction industry main emphasis isgiven on improving safety culture at the workplace (Feng, 2013). It is observed in case of themany business firms that employees have negative perception about safety related policy andprocedures that are implemented at the workplace. Hence, they strictly does not follow all safetyrelated policies and procedures at the workplace. Due to this reason it become very important tochange employee’s attitude and belief in respect to safety policies in a systematic way. In the present research concepts are in focus namely safety climate and safety culturewhich are the two different thing. Safety climate refers to the perception that employees of thefirm have towards the safety policies and procedures (Azhar, 2011). On other hand, safetyculture indicate the attitude that employees of the firm have towards the norms that are related tothe ways in which things must be done at the workplace (Hardie and Newell, 2011). It can besaid that both safety climate and safety behavior are opposite of each other. This is because oneis related to the perception that employees have towards safety policy but other one is related to
the value system (employees like and dislike) in respect to the methods by using which safetyrelated measures are adopted at the workplace. However, both safety climate and culture arerelated to each other. This is because in former one main focus is laid down on the thinking thatemployees have towards safety policies and procedures. On other hand, latter one is related tothe like and dislike and attitude that employees have towards safety measures which are used inthe organization. It is common that first of all one have thinking on the specific thing and on thatbasis he like or dislike same things. On this basis it can said that safety climate and safety cultureare related to each other.There are many factors that influence the safety climate at the workplace. Employeeattitude is one of them. It is identified that many time in an organization employees havedifferent attitude towards the safety policies and procedures (Hoonakker, Carayon and Loushine,2010). Hence, in such kind of organization safety climate remains weak. This is because safetyrelated policies and procedures are not receiving full support from employee’s side as all of themare not following relevant thing which is determined by the organization. It is very important forthe firms to ensure that all employees of the firm have equal consensus on the firm safetyplanning and procedures. In many business firms policies and procedures related to safety areprepared but same are not implemented effectively by the supervisors. It can be said that topmanagement at its own level prepare safety policies but at ground level relevant entities are notgiving much attention on same due to which many times accidents takes place at the constructionsite. There are many researches that are conducted on identification the relationship betweenexperience and the perception that employees have on safety. In some of relevant research papersit is identified that experience greatly affects the employee’s perception about safety at theworkplace. In the relevant researches it is identified that those workers which are experiencedhave more constructive perspective on safety in comparison to the entities that have less or noexperience in the construction industry (Chen and Jin, 2012). It is also identified in theseresearches that experienced workers highly comply with the safety policies then those who doesnot have experience. In the present research main focus will be given on identifying the impactthat safety climate have on the employee’s safety behavior. Apart from this, it will also beidentified that to what extent age and experience affects the safety climate.
Safety behavior is the term that is widely used in the researches that are done in respect tothe construction industry of the nation. It is observed that in the construction industry there arelarge number of workers that does not follow safety guidelines. It is observed that workers oftenabstain from using safety equipment’s or following guidelines because compliance with samelead to consumption of more time in the performance of the activity at the construction site.Hence, many times employees use short cuts and put their life on risk in order to do work inshort duration. It is well known fact that safety behavior at the workplace is greatly affected bythe availability and type of safety policies that are implemented by the organization at the groundlevel. Availability of manpower, equipment’s also determine the safety behavior of theemployees at the workplace (Hu and et.al., 2011). If there will be less availability of equipment’sand supporting manpower then in that case employees will reveal unsafe safety behavior at theworkplace. It can be said that even safety policies and procedures are prepared at the workplacethen also employees are found to be involved in the unsafe practices at the workplace. There is close relationship between safety climate and behavior. This is because safetyclimate reveal the perception that people have towards the safety policies and procedures. Ifperception of people will be negative towards that safety climate then it means that they will lessadopt safety equipment’s and safe methods to perform operations or vice versa. This reflects thatsafety climate to great extent affects the safety behavior at the workplace. There is a very highdegree of correlation between the safety climate and safety behavior. It can be seen that anyaction an individual take on the basis of overview he had about specific thing. On the basis ofoverview an individual form a perception. That perception is used by the human beingpsychologically every time for making business decisions (Han and et.al., 20140. Hence, if anindividual will form negative perception about safety climate then safety behavior will getaffected. Means that he will less follow safety related policies and procedures. Contrary to this, ifan individual form a positive perception about the safety climate then it means that he will surelyfollow all relevant policies and procedures related to safety at the workplace. It can be said thatsafety climate and behavior are interrelated to each other.Literature reviewDimensions of the safety climateAccording to Conchie, Taylor and Charlton, (2011) dimensions of the safety climate arethe characteristics of the safety climate. In past time period in researches many researchers try to
develop dimensions in respect to the safety climate. Zohar was an intellectual person whodevelop eight factor by using which safety climate in the organization can be measured. Theseeight factors are importance of safety, status of safety committee, status of safety officer andlevel of risk at the workplace etc. Apart from Zohar there are many other intellectual people whomake an attempt to develop dimensions for the safety climate. In this regard work of Donald isvery popular under which he develop a safety attitude questionnaire (SAQ) to measure attitude ofthe employees at the ground level in respect to safety. In this questionnaire there were sixteenquestions. It must be noted that mentioned sort of questionnaire was latter used in the fortycompanies in six years. The results obtained on these scales were highly reliable. It can be saidthat there are questionnaires that can be used to measure attitude of employees. Contrary to this Kongsvik, Johnsen and Sklet, (2011) state that there is no existence ofthe universal factors that can be used to measure employee’s attitude in respect to safety at theworkplace. This is because employees change from one organization to other. Preferences of thepeople get change from one nation to another. Hence, specific type of questionnaire cannot becompletely used to measure employee’s perception about safety policies at the ground level. As per views of Zanko and Dawson, (2012) demographic features to some extentinfluence the safety climate and which ultimately affect the safety behavior at the workplace.There are number of questions related to demographic factors that are usually asked in thequestionnaire. Some usually asked questions are related to the age, sex, marriage and educationlevel etc. It is find out in many researches that demographic factors affect safety climate whichultimately put an impact on the safety behavior of the employees at the workplace. Employeesperception to risk at construction site is greatly affected by the factors like gender, age shift andwork area etc. It can be said that there are number of factors which differentiate people thinkingabout safety climate at the workplace. Hence, while hiring any new worker all relevant factorsmust be considered by the firm. If employees will be selected by the firm in wrong way thensuch kind of practice will negatively affect the safety climate at the workplace or vice versa.Business firms can determine some criteria in terms of age, sex and gender and by followingsame strong workforce can be kept in the firm which will ensure that there will be good safetyclimate and required safety behavior from employee side at the workplace. Contrary to this Mitropoulos and Memarian, (2012) state that gender, age, experience andwork area does not affect the employee’s perception about safety climate and safety behavior at
the workplace. This is because all employees know that safety climate that is prepared at theworkplace is benefiting them. Whether, individual is experienced or fresher in the constructionindustry he can easily understand mentioned thing. Hence, factors like experience and age etcdoes not affect the safety climate and safety behavior at the workplace. In simple words it can besaid that demographic factors does not have any impact on the safety climate at the workplace. Incurrent time period even an individual is working as worker at low level in the organization iseducated and can understand things in proper way. Workers very well know that they areworking in building and any incident may takes place while performing operations. Hence, theyfavor safety climate of the organization. As per views of Bohm and Harris, (2010) older workers revealed more positive attitudetowards the safety then youngsters. This does not mean that youngsters completely does notadopt safety measures. It can be said that both old and young people are adopting safetymeasures but in comparison to former group latter one adopt less safety equipment’s at theworkplace. There are many factors like marital status, family responsibility, education level andsafety knowledge which determine safety climate at the workplace. Issues influencing safety climateAccording to Goh and Abdul-Rahman, (2013) there are number of factors that influencesafety climate of the organization. Some of these factors are senior management commitment,management style, management visibility, job control, communications, training, jobsatisfaction, workforce composition and pressure of production. All these factor to large extentinfluence the safety climate at the workplace. If all these things are in favor of the employee’ssafety then climate in respect to same will be good. It can be seen that management commitmentto safety to large extent affects the safety climate of the organization. This is because it ismanagers that determine ways in which various things will happen at the workplace. If managerswill be fully committed towards safety of the employees at the construction site automaticallythey will take number of steps to protect employees at the site. It can be said that it is necessarythat managers must be committed towards providing more and more safety to the employees atthe workplace.Contrary to this Hardie and Newell, (2011) state that management commitment towardssafety is not sufficient at the workplace. Workers that work at the construction site play a veryimportant role in forming better safety climate at the construction site. Means that mangers can
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