Safety Climate: A Brief Overview

Businesses and schools have started re-opening with new policies and procedures to maintain a safe space. These policies such as social distancing, wearing masks, and frequent handwashing require behavior modification of individuals and are all considered safety behaviors. Research shows that safety climate is a strong predictor of safety behaviors. Safety climate has been studied by Industrial-Organizational psychologists for many years. These studies have mostly focused on industries like chemical plants, healthcare, and construction. However, due to COVID-19, all jobs (and schools) that involve people in close proximities have to deal with new risks and hazards.

Safety climate is defined as “individual perceptions of policies, procedures, and practices relating to safety in the workplace” (Neal & Griffith, 2006). It is typically discussed in terms of ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ safety climate and is measured through surveying employees. Safety climate can be distinguished from safety culture by the idea that climate is perceived by workers at a specific moment in time. Organizations should strive for safety cultures, but the more immediate focus tends to be on safety climate, as cultures take time to build.

While a large number of dimensions of safety climate have been studied, a meta-analysis by Clarke (2010) identified the dominant themes as the following: work task or environment (e.g., level of risk); management attitudes and actions (e.g., management commitment to safety); safety management system (e.g., training); and, individual responsibility and involvement. Well-established organizations in common industries (e.g., chemical plants, healthcare, construction) that have to maintain safe environments have structures and resources to devote. They do this because safety is related to their bottom line. They are also subject to federal regulations and audits by OSHA. Today, many industries (e.g. retail, education) are being forced to quickly adapt to keep their employees safe and without much guidance at a federal level.

So, what can we, as leaders, do? Many studies have identified management commitment to safety as fundamental to establishing a positive safety climate. The degree to which managers are viewed as committed to safety as an organizational priority will have a significant influence on employees’ perceptions of the importance of safety. When safety is sacrificed for other organizational goals and outcomes, then the climate suffers.

If you haven’t been working in an industry with occupational risks, you probably haven’t considered your own organization's safety climate before. Therefore, the first step is to assess your own climate. After you assess your climate, then you can make necessary adjustments to ensure you are establishing the conditions needed to promote safety behavior. Here is a set of questions that can serve as a quick and easy tool to survey your group, offered by the CDC.

Add up your score. The range of possible scores is 6–24.

If your score is:

• Between 9 and 15, this indicates a Poor safety culture at work
• Between 16 and 20, this indicates a Fair safety culture
• Between 21 and 24, this indicates a Good safety culture