Relationship beliefs of workers and owners with regard to workplace safety in small metal manufacturing businesses

Background: Safety climate refers is often cited as crucial for improving worksite health and safety. Hence it is important to gain a better understanding of the relationship between worker and management perceptions of worksite safety and how these are correlated with objective measures of worksite safety.

Methods: Perceptions of worksite health and safety were evaluated using a survey based on Social Cognitive Theory. Surveys were completed in 40 small metal fabrication shops. We used a shop safety scorecard to evaluate shop safety, including conditions of the production environment, administrative/management policies and programs, and work practices.

Results: Shops employed an average of 47 total and 37 production workers (range 4-98). Owners rated their shops as having better safety and health programs and procedures than did employees. Employee and owner construct scores based on Social Cognitive Theory were moderately correlated and were predictive of independent ratings from the shop safety scorecard (odds ratios ranged from to 1.2 to 3.7). Non-English speaking and less educated employees reported higher levels of knowledge about safety than did their more educated and English speaking peers.

Conclusions: A positive correlation was seen between employees' and owners' perceptions of their business' health and safety. Employee perceptions based on Social Cognitive Theory are predictive of those found by a researcher audit of business safety. These data point to the need to consider the relationship between owner and worker beliefs in the development of intervention programs and reinforce the need for the development of multi-lingual training programs.