Abstract
The accident rate in the Italian mechanical sector is still too high, and evidence-based interventions to improve safety performance are essential. To better address this, our study contributes to the understanding of how to promote safety compliance through safe behaviours by using a sample of Italian mechanical workers (n = 109). Before and after scheduled safety training, intervention data on organizational factors, as well as on individual factors affecting safety-related behaviours, were collected. Particularly, data were collected using multiple sources, including self-perception questionnaires (to measure the safety climate among the management and colleagues and the safety attitude), paper and pencil tests (to measure safety knowledge), and observations by personnel with experience in observation tasks (to measure safety behaviours objectively). A model class of competing general linear models was built to determine which of the models was best suited for predicting safety-related behaviours. The results showed that both knowledge and the management’s safety climate effectively promoted safety compliance. Crucial implications for the effectiveness of active teaching methods, along with the need for continuous training and the prominent role of the management team members in giving, through their actions, further relevance to the need to respect rules and procedures, were revealed. Finally, practical implications for researchers, corporate decision makers, government agencies, and international bodies are discussed.
Highlights
We focused on the precursors of safety compliance, which were seen as workers’ behaviours related to their tasks, and we analysed the data associated with the impact of safety training on safety knowledge, attitude, and work climate
This study, which was based on a pre–post design, aimed to understand, in a sample of Italian mechanical workers, the effects of organizational factors, as well as individual factors, on safety-related behaviours
Our study demonstrated that the workers’ perception that safety was a priority of the company management—which added to safety knowledge—increased the frequency of safe behaviours at the individual level
Summary
In 2018, across all 27 current members of the EU, there were 2.21 fatal accidents (2.7 in Italy) [1] and 1769 non-fatal accidents (Italy’s index is below the EU average) per100,000 employed persons [2]. The organizational literature has pointed out the fact that only multi-causal models can provide an exhaustive explanation for adverse events as a symptom of a malfunctioning socio-technical system, which is seen as the interaction of human beings with the system and the social environment. Along this line, recent reviews of the safety literature have emphasized the influence of organizational factors on accidents and near-misses, pointing at the need to shift the interest from individual behaviours to the contexts in which accidents and near-misses occur [4]. Consider the context, task, and characteristics of the operator that may contribute to unsafe behaviours and reduce safety performance [5]
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