Employees attitude

Comment on the wisdom of trying to control the following in a study of factors influencing employee attitudes size of the company, number of employees, salary, length of employment. Would such a study be more likely to use observations or experiments ... 

Results of periodic employee attitude or perception surveys ... 

Sanitation in a pharmaceutical plant influences the quality of drug products as well as employee attitude. The quality of a drug product demands that it be fabricated and packaged in an area that is free from environmental contamination and free from contamination with another drug. 

Orpen, C. (1993). The effect of time management training on employee attitudes and behaviour A field experiment. The Journal of Psychology 128 393-6. 

Griffin, R. W. (1989), Work Redesign Effects on Employee Attitudes and Behavior A Long-Term Field Experiment, in Academy of Management Best Papers Proceedings (Washington, DC), Academy of Management, Briarcliff Manor, NY, pp. 214-219. 

The claimed benefits of QCs include quality and cost awareness reduction in conflict and improved communications higher morale, motivation, and productivity and cost savings (Head et al. 1986). The effect of this type of teamwork on employee attitudes is assumed to be the primary reason for their success (Head et al. 1986). Marks et al. (1986) propose that QC participation wiU lead to enriched jobs, with employees experiencing work as more meaningful, obtaining greater knowledge... 

Rafaeli, A. (1985), Quality Circles and Employee Attitudes, Personnel Psychology, Vol. 38, pp. 603-615. 

Monitoring of changes (continuous data collection and monitoring of employee attitudes and performance)... 

Hartel, C. E. J. (2004). Towards a multicultural world Identifying work systems, practices and employee attitudes that embrace diversity. Australian Journal of Management, 29 2), 189-200. 

Riordan, C. M., Shore, L. M. (1997). Demographic diversity and employee attitudes An empirical examination of relational demography within work units. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 342-358. 

Risks are controlled and mitigated by a systems approach using a structured safety management system. A safe work environment and positive employee attitudes are a result of a good safety management system. Control is perhaps the most important management function, as this is what drives the safety system. 

Motor carrier safety is dependent in large measure upon employees attitudes and work habits. Without employee cooperation, the use of safety measures is no guarantee of workplace safety. Proper direction from management can greatly affect worker cooperation and attitude. Reinforce the concept that your managers and supervisors must be your safety champions. 

Safety and risk management research in healthcare has adopted as its dominant trend the systems oriented approach, modelled largely on previous research in safely critical industries such as aviation and nuclear power. The systems view entails that the focus is not primarily on the mechanisms of individual human error but on the factors that shape human performance (Rasmussen 1986 Reason 1993,1997). In an organisational context, such factors are, of course, those that are within the control of the organisation. For instance, it has been suggested that quahty and safety are affected not only by operators professional and technical competence and skills, but also by their attitudes to and perceptions of their job roles, their organisation and management (Helmreich and Merritt 1998). Such employee attitudes and views are important elements which shape safety cirlture - and its related notion safety climate . Indeed, survey studies have shown that staff attitudes are important indices of safety performance not only in human-machine system domains such as railway operations and constmction (e.g. Itoh and Andersen 1999 Itoh et al. 2004 Silva et al. 2004) but also in healthcare (e.g. Colla et al. 2005 Itoh and Andersen 2010). 

For a safety program to be effective, the safety climate needs to be supportive of the program. The safety climate includes management, workers, the physical equipment in the workplace, and the interfaces between the people and the environment. Perception surveys can be used to assess the status of the safety climate in the workplace. Key areas that perception surveys can assess include management support for safety and employees attitudes and beliefs about safety. Environmental conditions and interfaces between equipment and workers can be assessed using various system safety techniques. Examples of system safety techniques include root cause analysis and failure modes and effects analysis. 

A preventive maintenance program can be developed for any industrial function that has a maintenance component. The same principles used in the truck operator example in this chapter can be used for other mobile equipment, machinery, or process maintenance (see Figure A.3). It matters little the type of maintenance. It is more important that the workers, operators, supervisors, and management realize that the care taken in prevention will pay dividends in cost savings, accident costs, less equipment damage, and better overall working conditions and employee attitudes. Care of your physical assets (physical plant, vehicles, machinery, etc.) is critical to the bottom line. The bonus is that you will reduce one of the factors that can contribute to your occupational injury rate. 

The system addresses leading indicators of safety effectiveness, including employee attitudes and employee behaviors. 

An additional and perhaps even more pervasive gradient effect is based on rank, as shown in a survey of attitudes conducted amongst RAAF aircraft aircrew (Braithwaite, 2001). Respondents were asked what they would do if faced with a new rule that they considered to be unsafe. The question was designed to explore the effects of hierarchy upon employee attitudes towards safety context, and is reproduced in Figure 20.2. 

The general consensus within the literatnre is that assessing employee attitudes alone is not satisfactory when wishing to measnre an organization s safety culture, as they can only elicit safety perceptions and attitndes (HSE, 2005a). Other methods that can be used in addition to safety culture questionnaires include observational studies, focus groups, interviews, case studies, surveys, and qnestionnaires. 

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