Research summary - Measuring enterprise safety climate

From: Employment and Social Development Canada

Official title: Measuring Enterprise Safety Climate in the Canadian Federal Jurisdiction Road Transport Sector

Author of report: Fauzia Gardezi and Cameron Mustard (Institute for Work and Health)

Why this study

Safety climate refers to how workers think their employer views the importance of health and safety at their workplace.

Responses to safety climate questionnaires can predict future risk of injury and illness at work.

This study develops a plan to collect and make use of safety climate data in the federal road transportation sector. This study examines this sector because of its high rate of workplace injuries.

What we did

The Labour Program worked with the Institute for Work and Health to do the research. The Institute for Work and Health is a non-profit health and safety research organization.

They looked at previous studies on safety climate, and created a safety climate questionnaire for the trucking industry.

Their report also recommends steps for recruiting trucking companies to take part in the research.

Finally, the report outlines a plan for the analysis and use of the data collected.

What we found

The proposed questionnaire mixes general safety climate questions with questions specific to trucking.

The report also suggests the following:

• get data from at least 100 employers, each with 50 or more employees
• get data from employers with poor, average and strong performance, in terms of injuries
• have employees complete the questionnaire, not managers and supervisors
• focus on safety climate at the level of the entire organization, instead of at the supervisory level
• check that safety climate scores in businesses with poor health and safety performance are lower than scores in those with strong performance

What it means

Safety climate scores can predict differences among employers in their risk of future injuries. This report outlines a plan for how the Labour Program can collect and use safety climate data. The Labour Program can use this data to prevent injuries in the road transport industry.

Contact us

Labour Program, Workplace Directorate, Performance, Analysis, Research and Learning Division

Email: esdc.nc.sspb.research-recherche.dgpss.cn.edsc@hrsdc-rhdcc.gc.ca