Assessing Warehouse Safety: Culture, Behavior, and Facilitation Report

This report investigates the critical aspects of warehouse safety, focusing on safety culture, worker behavior, and methods for assessment and facilitation within the logistics service provider (LSP) environment. Through a literature review and case studies, the report identifies key sub-dimensions of safety culture, including procedures, people, and technology, and explores the factors influencing the translation of safety culture into safe behaviors. The study highlights the varying importance assigned to safety, potentially indicating the presence of warehouse subcultures, and emphasizes the contributions of leadership and technological advancements in mitigating risks. The findings underscore the significance of employee motivation and workload in influencing safety practices, contributing valuable insights to the limited existing literature on warehouse safety and offering practical implications for improving workplace safety. The report also presents an overview of warehouse operations, types of warehouses, and the functions they serve, along with data on workplace accidents and fatalities, emphasizing the need for continuous improvement in safety measures.

Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to focus on the effects of safety behaviour of workers,
safety culture, and warehouse safety assessment and facilitation. Through a literature
study, we have developed a method for providing insights into how to assess and
facilitate the safety of warehouse. To minimize the risk of accidents and injuries, the
management plant must ensure safety. Using literature, we identify sub dimensions of
safety culture and safety behaviours and factors that may affect how safety culture
translates into safety behaviour. The sub-dimension is procedures, people and
technology. Our findings show what sub-dimensions and influencing factors are
important to employees of Logistics Service Providers (LSP) and why through case
studies. We found that the importance assigned to safety differs, which may indicate
the existence of warehouse subcultures. This paper contributes to the limited existing
warehouse safety literature that does not investigate the safety - related factors well.
LSP is investigated in the case study that providing valuable insights into and how to
influence important safety aspects. Future research might address this issue by
unknown in the process of reaction, for example by directing a study, or possibly by
performing a consideration of perception. Taking everything into account, our
discoveries demonstrate the significance of the group pioneers ' contribution as well
as their insight into, safety and the significance of innovation in counteracting /
limiting dangerous circumstances when efforts are made to build up the safety culture.
Furthermore, the inborn inspiration of representatives and the worker's outstanding
task at hand are the primary variables that impacting the interpretation of a security
culture to safe conduct.
Keywords: Warehouse Safety, Improve Facilities, Leadership, Safety Behaviour

1.0 Introduction
The aim of this paper is primarily to evaluate and facilitate warehouse safety and
discuss the methodology to be used to assess the importance of warehouse safety as it
is considered to be of importance to both employees and companies. This paper also
correctly identifies the findings and limitations of research. Moreover, through our
methodology, the paper also helps to offer practical implications as well as paper
originality. Thousands of employees worldwide are suffering from serious accidents
every day. Not only do these accidents have a negative impact on employees '
physical and mental health, but they also bring high costs to the business and society
as a whole. In the warehouse, a large part of these accidents took place. According to
the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, there were 4,585 deaths
from workplace injuries in 2013, and it is estimated 50,000 people die from
workplace exposure are reported annually. These figures do not even indicate the
injured workers, some of whom may be sufficiently serious to prevent them from
engaging in manual labour.(SIMON BRISK, 2017) In the logistics service industry,
safety is generally important as data from 2016 helps to indicate, such as the United
States. Data from 2016 shows that the number of deaths in the transportation and
warehousing sector in the United States is ranked second highest in the number of
deaths. In addition, the injury rate of 13.5 people per 100,000 workers is about four
times higher than the average injury rate in all industries. (U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics 2015) In general, the warehousing sector accounts for the second highest
number of problems and deaths. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2015), as
summarized in Figure 1 below.
Safety at the warehouse is about protecting employees and the business. But they still
don't have the awareness of the dangerous for many people. In a small country like
the Netherlands, there were 651,279 occupational accidents in 2015 that caused
injuries and joblessness. The number of occupational deaths ranged from 99 to 150
annually between 2016 and 2017 (Bureau of labor statistics, 2017). An unsafe
working environment can lead to an accident, and there is also a tendency for the
employer to have more rule. Most accidents in the warehouse are associated with the
use of forklift trucks. In 2015, 1700 people were seriously injured in the Dutch
warehouse in the Netherlands, according to data from (www.logistiek.nl).

There is usually heavy traffic in the warehouse, forklifts and workers work on foot,
and work is often under the pressure of time. (Koster et al., 2011).
Figure 1: Data in the United States. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2016, n.d.)
Therefore, focusing on safety behaviour and safety culture is important. Safety culture
is found to be mainly integrated with the number of observed safety culture. It is not
clear how to measure the safety culture and safety behaviour of the organization. It
appears that the term "safety culture" was first used after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
(“International Warehouse Logistics Association (IWLA)). Since then, a number of
safety culture definitions have been published. The United Kingdom Health and
Safety Committee has developed one of the most commonly used definitions of safety
culture. Today, in the workplace of each industry, safety culture is defined as attitude,
beliefs, perceptions or values that employees share with respect to safety.
"Communications based on mutual trust, shared perceptions of the importance of
safety and confidence in the effectiveness of preventive measures are characteristic of
organizations with positive safety culture."(U.K. Health and Safety Commission)
There are five characteristics of a positive safety culture. Firstly, leadership is a highly
visible commitment to safety by top management, which is critical to creating a

positive safety culture. Secondly, safety should be communicated as a value, not as a
priority that can be traded on cost and timelines. Thirdly, creating and maintaining a
positive safety culture, decentralized decision-making and accountability by key
security groups are important. Fourthly, all staff should learn about safety and help to
improved safety ideas. If employees learn from insight and intuition rather than
incidents and by sharing their experiences and addressing shared issues change their
way of thinking and acting, a positive safety culture is achieved. Finally, a positive
safety culture is one which safety is a top priority and is integrated into all aspects of
the business. A good safety culture can be promoted by the commitment of senior
management to safety, the practical approach to dealing with hazards, ongoing
organizational learning, and attention and concern for shared risks across the
workforce.(“A guide to implementing a SAFETY CULTURE in our universities,”
2016) An organization's safety culture can have a significant impact on people's
performance in safety-related tasks and thus on the organization's safety performance.
Safety behaviour is safety-related behaviour. It can refer to behaviour-based safety,
enhancing safety by monitoring and changing people's behaviour and stress-relieving
activity performed by anxious individuals. Moreover, it requires more than mitigation
control to improve safety behaviour or active care behaviour. It would be effective if
management could use the Behaviour-Based Safety (BBS) approach. The BBS
concept is intended to change unsafe behaviour into safe behaviour and eliminate
accidents in the workplace. The steps taken by the BBS can be divided into four main
stages, identifying, observing, intervening, reviewing and monitoring.(Ismail et al.,
2012) BBS is not only suitable for the construction industry, but also for other
industries. (Chen & Tian, 2012) The use of social recognition and motivation to
conduct safe behaviour will have a more positive effect than the application on
changing normal safety standards within the group. All incident data are tabulated in
Table 1.

Yea
r
Location Accident Known /
suspected cause
Effect Refere
nces
201
5
Tianjin,
China
Explosion Dangerous
chemicals stored
on the site.
(Safety Culture)
The explosion
injured more than
700 people, many
extensive injuries,
mostly caused by
burns and
explosive injuries.
There were more
than a thousand
firefighters on the
scene, and 95 were
killed.
BBC
(2015)
201
7
Netherlan
ds
Falls from
height
There is no safe
work system in
place as none of
the workers have
safety harnesses
and the worker
does not pay
attention.(Safety
Culture)
The company have
been fined after a
worker fell from a
warehouse racking
system, suffering
serious head
injuries.
HSE
(2017)

201
7
Singapore Hit by
Forklifts
The company had
not trained or
communicated
any safe system
of work with the
forklift driver.
(Safety
behaviour)
A company was
fined S$80,000
after an accident
involving a
company forklift
caused an
employee to
sustain serious leg
injuries.
CHAN
NEL
NEWS
ASIA
(2017)
201
8
Bengalur
u
Crushed by
heavy racks
fill with
crates full of
goods
Racks over
loaded and the
worker still
continues to
complete it.
(Safety behavior)
Stock was damage
and cause serious
injuries even dead
THE
NEWS
MINUT
E
(2018)
201
6
Tesco Manual
handling
incidents
Regular
movement of
cartons to pallets.
Rolls of stretch-
wrap and flat
pallets. (Safety
behavior)
Injury to
colleagues and
cost to the
business.
SHP
(2016)
Table 1 Selected Safety behaviour and culture hazard (2015-2018)
1.1 Research boundaries
This paper's scope is to cover the entire warehouse. Regardless of what the warehouse
is, the safety culture and safety behaviour is the same, so this proposed project will
cover all warehouse. However, this research involves a global outlook on warehouse
safety and is not limited to specific countries because safety culture and safety
behaviour in today's globalization era will be the same across multiple countries.
2.0 Literature review
2.1 Introduction of warehouse

In that sense, we can interchangeably use the words "warehouse" and "distribution
centre." (De Villiers, Nieman, & Niemann, 2008) Warehousing may be defined as a
planned space for the efficient storage and handling of goods and materials as well as
for the assumption of responsibility for the storage of goods. Warehousing creates
time utility by storing and releasing the goods as and when necessary throughout the
year.
Four types of warehouses are available, including private warehouses, public
warehouses, bonded warehouses, cooperative warehouses. Private warehouses are
owned for the storage of their own goods by individual producers, wholesalers in
different cities. In return for storage fees, the public warehouse is set up as
independent units for the storage of goods. These warehouses are state-licensed.
Government controls and regulates the way they operate and the rate of charge.
Bonded warehouses are duly authorized by the government to accept imported goods
to the store. The goods are released upon payment to the importer of customs duties.
The bonded warehouses may be owned by the dock or a private owner. These
warehouses operate under the country's customs authorities ' supervision and control.
It is also possible to establish cooperative warehouses in villages or cities.
Cooperative warehouse members can store their goods, which is relatively lower than
a private warehouse. (Umar Farooq, 2016)
All warehouses are used by customs, importers, manufacturers, wholesalers, exporter
transportation companies, etc. (Harris, 2006). They are usually large plain buildings
located in the outskirts of towns, villages or cities, located in industrial parks. Usually
they have docks for loading and unloading goods from trucks. Sometimes warehouses
are designed directly from railways, airports or seaports to load and unload cargo.
Usually they also have forklifts and cranes for moving goods, which are often loaded
into pallet racks on standard ISO pallets. Stored goods may include any
manufacturing, raw materials, packaging materials, spare parts, components or
finished goods.
There are many features in the warehouse that are very useful and helpful to
everyone. Warehouse functions include storage, price stabilization, risk bearing,
grading and packing, and funding. (Umar Farooq, 2016) Storage is the basic

warehouse function. It is not immediately necessary to store surplus commodities in
warehouses. When the customer needs it, they can be provided. In the process of price
stability, warehouses play an important role. It is implemented by creating
warehousing time utility. The price of the goods will fall if the supply of goods is
sufficient and the price rises during the slack season. When the goods are stored in
warehouses, they face many risks in the form of theft, deterioration, exploration, fire.
Warehouses should be built in such a way that these risks are minimized. Nowadays,
warehouses provide packing, processing and grading facilities for goods. Loans can
be raised against the goods stored by the owner from the warehouse keeper.
(K.K.Pandey, 2018.) Likewise, banks and other financial institutions are also
advancing loans against receipts from warehouses. In this way, warehousing is used to
meet business operations as a source of finance for businessmen.
3.0 Warehouse Safety
All benefit from a safe and healthy workplace. This means that the employees feel
good and work flows smoothly. Supervisors were responsible for financial and
operational safety and health in the workplace. Each employee is obliged to take
reasonable care of themselves and the health and safety of their colleague and to
inform the supervisor of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) and representative of
the workplace deficiencies causing culture or behaviour. Induction and work guidance
play an important role in ensuring safety at work. Induction refers to all actions taken
to familiarize a new employee with the workplace, its culture, and behaviour of
people, as well as the work itself and the related behaviour. Work guidance includes
everything related to the performance of the parts and stages of the task as well as the
knowledge and skill required by the job..(“Safety Responsibilities for Supervisors,” )
Nowadays, there are many accidents occurred in the warehouse, such as falling on
height, blade cutting, hitting by the forklift, etc. According to (Ding et al., 2016),
factors that are useful for warehouse safety are generally identified as helpful in
reducing hazard as well as various types of safety - specific transformation - based
leadership that further contribute to significant warehouse safety influence. They also
find appropriate safety awareness that does not interfere with the impact of Safety-
Specific Transformation Leadership (SSTL) on warehouse safety. It is stated by

(Peninsula et al., 2016) that hazardous materials generally have well - defined storage
standards which are mainly set with the help of legislation to minimize potential
hazards. It is found that this type of storage standards must be allowed permitted and
therefore the various list of potential hazards generally serves as one of the inputs for
the risk management process.
According to (J. et al., 2016) , the hazardous substance shall be properly stored
outside the warehouse at a distance of approximately 5 - 10 m by combining the
various types of hazardous materials generally stored. Separation is found to generally
mean storage within the entire storage area, but with the help of barriers or gaps,
products with different classes can be separated from each other. Exceptions related to
the case different types of storage regulations such as regulations related to
explosives, where flammable substances are observed quite effectively. In addition,
segregation storage is generally required within the proper storage area. Moreover,
proper labelling of different chemical-based substances is considered as one of the
main issues as it is considered to be the most visible communication tools. (Office,
2017) This label is generally regarded as the first sources of information generally
alerting the users to various inherent chemicals hazards and instructions related to safe
storage and handling.
4.0 Methodology
In this paper, factors affect the translation of safety culture into safety behaviour in
the logistics services industry. Behaviour is known to be influenced by culture, but
also by contextual factors interacting with culture. (Edwards, Davey, & Armstrong,
2013). There are two methods to be implemented that are safety culture and its
dimension and safety behaviour and dimension, as summarized in Figure 2 below.

Both methods are used to ensure warehouse safety to achieve the warehouse's safe
environment. Warehouse safety is very important because inside the warehouse there
are many workers working. Their safety is one of the priorities to be taken into
account in order to maximize warehouse productivity.
Figure 2: Conceptual model.
4.1 Safety culture and its dimension
Safety culture is not a new concept, and it took place in companies in the late 1980s
on larger safety culture. (Guldenmund, 2000) However, the fact that organizations on
the one hand want to be fully perceived on the market and are looking for ways to cut
costs and improve the quality of their operations. On the other hand, more attention is
paid to monitoring the activities by external business customers. In many scientific
and practical research, issues related to safety culture appear more frequently in the
organization. The benefits of "high" safety culture are being recognized by more and
more companies. (Zou, 2011)
According to (Ell et al., 2016), it is agreed that safety culture is not self - constrained,
but is part of the organization's culture. The different concept of safety culture and its
association with organizational culture need to be reviewed. Safety culture is
generally considered as one of the structural aspects of safety that helps in
manifesting itself on a proper organizational level. The proper definition of the safety
culture as one of the important observable output is generally reflected in the context
of the organization's safe resources. It is stated by(Fan, Lo, Ching, & Kan, 2014) ,
(Linda Goldenhar; Matt Gillen; Scott Schneider; Steve Hecker, 2013)).
Influencing Factors
Safety Culture Safety Behaviour

Safety culture is mainly linked to the company's climate through the whole concept is
mainly related with the term’s safety culture as well as safety climate that are utilized
interchangeably. It is quite imperative to make the proper distinction (Del Puerto,
Fontan-Pagan, Molina-Bas, & Mrozowski, 2016). The climate of the company can be
considered as the product of certain underlying hypotheses and is therefore considered
as a way to make the culture of the company visible.
On the other hand, it is shared by (Ding et al., 2016), that the company's climate could
be seen as the outer layers of the company's culture. The observed safety culture
therefore helps to emphasize continuity while its climate is considered to be
comparable to a perceived culture snapshot. It is found that a significant difference
that exists between these concepts is considered as a way which can be measured
easily. Moreover, the safety climate of the company generally corresponds with the
outer as well as visible and perceived layers of observable safety cultures. (Thierry
Meyer,) So, it can be measured significantly with the help of standardized
questionnaires. The safety culture that is observed is found to be more fundamental so
that the entire instance can be measured with the help of in-depth interviews as well
as observations.
As we know, there are some models of safety cultures such as the model of total
safety culture and the model of reciprocal safety culture and more. According to
people, procedures and technology model of (Reniers, Cremer, & Buytaert, 2011) we
can expect the safety culture to be made up of three dimensions: people, procedures
and technology. This model explains safety culture sub-dimensions for each
dimension and is based on the model and literature review we know that safety culture
is relevant to the safety of the warehouse.
The first dimension is people, the extent to which employees such as team leaders,
managers and employees are responsible for security(Reniers et al., 2011) and
communicate on a daily basis, particularly management, about security.(Cigularov,
Chen, & Rosecrance, 2010), as summarized in Table 2 below. They may reflect
workplace safety behaviour. Similarly, the extent to which employees apply their
safety knowledge on a daily basis may reflect safe behaviour in the workplace. The

involvement of both staff (Reniers et al., 2011) (Veltri et al., 2013) and external
stakeholders in security policy development (Cigularov & Rosecrance, 2010) reflects
the importance of security in organizations and its resources. Organizational safety
culture reflects the overall priority given to security within an organization and the
extent to which open security communication between employees is possible.
(Reniers et al., 2011).
The second dimension is the procedures. Procedures give employees insight into how
to handle security-related issues, as summarized in Table 2 below. The degree to
which employees are aware of their safety expectations may reflect safe behaviour.
(Reniers, Cremer, & Buytaert, 2011). In addition, safe workplace behaviour,
employees adhere to safety policies and safety marks. (Flin, Mearns, O’connor, &
Bryden, 2000) The existence of safety policies and procedures reflects the importance
of safety just as safety marks are placed (Reniers et al., 2011).
Technology is the third dimension. Storage may include filing cabinets, manuals in
corporate archives or libraries, or using modern technology such as databases, CD-
ROMs, disks, tapestreamers, etc. Each of these should be able to handle the addition
of additional information and the maximum amount of data that may be needed in the
future, so decisions on what needs to be stored and how long will need to be made.
Information processing issues will concern the system's integrity when a number of
people want to use it simultaneously and what happens when a large number of
people who all extract information at the same time actually access the system. We
know that technology can reduce hazards and risks, as summarized in Table 2 below.
An important sub - dimension of a culture of safety is the availability of equipment
and facilities to improve safety. For instance, help prevent dangerous situations from
being minimized. The advance of technology could ensure the safety of workers while
they are working inside the warehouse. (Hofstra, Petkova, Dullaert, Reniers, &
Leeuw, 2017) For example, they using the forklift to carry the staff instead of using
their own hand. This could help them to avoid injure during moving the items. On the
others hand, the maintenance of machine is also an important issue due to ensure the
lifetime and safety of the machine.