How should I invest in improving workplace safety?

Under ideal circumstances--surplus cash, clear priorities, and strong rationales--many organizational leaders are willing to invest in workplace safety. It’s a no brainer, right? However, limited resources, competing goals (e.g., the safety-efficiency trade-off), and anecdotal reports about what works, the questions of what and how to provide the best return on safety investment become murky. To help organizational leaders answer these questions, Haskayne researchers Steve Granger, Nick Turner, and Alyssa Grocutt reviewed the best evidence available on what management practices predict better employee safety. They published their synthesis in a forthcoming issue of Organizational Dynamics, a journal that publishes articles written by researchers explicitly for managers to help them navigate organizational problems.

In their review, Granger and colleagues identified two major drivers of workplace safety--management commitment (i.e., managers’ efforts to signal that safety is non-negotiable for the organization) and situational awareness (i.e., employees’ ability to spot potential hazards in the work environment)—and explored how these drivers are integrated into common management practices. Here are the highlights of their review:

1. Job design outlines the major characteristics of a job. Research evidence shows that jobs with higher levels of autonomy and lower levels of excessive demands result in better safety outcomes. 
2. Recruitment and selection involve creating an applicant pool and selecting the best fitting applicants for the role and organization. Research reports certain traits such as collaboration and altruism (i.e., agreeableness), discipline and responsibility (i.e., conscientiousness), and risk aversion as well as belief in an individual’s ability to control their life events (i.e., locus of control) are associated with safety and other positive organizational outcomes. These individual differences could be used as valid selection criteria when focusing on safety.
3. Training and development practices aim for improving the knowledge, skills, and abilities of employees that are necessary for their work. A comprehensive safety training investment not only demonstrates management’s commitment to safety but also increases situational awareness.
4. Performance appraisal and management practices involve measuring past performance and planning employees’ goals to ensure that they meet organizational standards. An efficient way of demonstrating management commitment and promoting situational awareness is to include safety behaviours (not injuries) in performance appraisal and performance management systems. 
5. Compensation and benefits refer to financial and non-financial rewards organizations provide to their employees in exchange for their work. Surprisingly, there is little systematic evidence on their effectiveness for safety, so thinking carefully about “danger pay” or rewarding zero-injury periods is warranted.
6. Employee relations and communications are about how leaders convey important organizational messages to employees through formal channels. Organizational leaders can use newsletters, memos, and town halls to communicate their commitment to safety and deliver safety-related information. 

Based on this review, Granger and colleagues make three recommendations to organizational leaders:

• Rely on the best evidence available to choose among management practices to enhance employee safety.
• Consider making long-term and sustainable investments in safety-promoting management practices.
• Prioritize investments that will result in immediate outcomes. Understanding the evidence can help with this priority-setting.

Reference:

Granger, S. Turner, N., & Grocutt, A. (forthcoming). The next best safety dollar: Using evidence to decide how to invest in workplace safety. Organizational Dynamics.