Safety perception

As a part Peterson s program, a manual is provided, the purpose of which is to describe how to use CoreMedia s Dan Petersen Safety Perception (SPS) software program package. Its purpose is to identify shortcomings in safety management systems and to provide information to management on incorporating improvements into the accountability system. 

Operations / Machine Safety Perceptions Protective Clothing Psychological Recovery Respiratory Protection... 

Williamson, A., Feyer, A.-M., Caims, D. and Biancotti, D. 1997. The development of a measure of safety climate The role of safety perception and attitudes. Safety Science, 25, 15-27. 

More recently, safety people have applied leading, upstream, predictive, activity, preventive or process indicators or metrics to measure safety performance. This family of measures often includes safety audits, behavior-based safety measures, safety perception surveys, safety training, corrective actions completed, reductions in risk and risk factors, identifying safety and ergonomic opportunities, and other measures. Many use leading indicators to do the following ... 

Luria G, Yagil D (2010) Safety perception referents of permanent and temporary employees Safety climate boundaries in the industrial workplace. Accid Anal Prev 42(5) 1423-1430 Morrow SL, McGonagle AK, Dove-Steinkamp ML, Walker JrCT, Marmet M, Bames-Farrell JL (2010) Relationships between psychological safety climate facets and safety behavior in the rail industry a dominance analysis. Accid Anal Prev 42(5) 1460-1467 Olsen E (2010) Exploring the possibility of a common stractural model measuring associations between safety climate factors and safety behaviour in health care and the petroleum sectors. Accid Anal Prev 42(5) 1507-1516... 

Likert invented a way to measure climate with a forced choice questionnaire that he administered to employees to find out their perception of how good the company is in the ten areas. He later took the perception survey results and ran correlation studies with things like profitability, return on investment, growth, and other bottom-line figures, invariably coming up with extremely high positive correlation. Apparently, climate determines results [3,4]. We will discuss employee safety perception and how it will affect the operation in more detail in Chapter 17. 

Results of employee safety perception surveys Safety manuals... 

The process to assess the safety culture is to determine the collective attitudes (perception) about safety. (Safety perception surveys are discussed in Chapter 17.) Confidential interviews are conducted with all levels of employees and management (see the discussion of independent reviews in Chapter 17). A strategic action plan model is developed where a new course is charted for instilling safety into the organization. The point is to design a new culture that is consistent with management and employees perception of the safety objectives [3]. 

As we have discussed, there are many tools that can be used to evaluate any workplace independent review, employee safety perception survey, document (records) review, workplace evaluations, self-assessments, job hazard analysis, employee interviews, etc. These are some of the basic tools for an evaluation of the workplace. 

Collect and review background information of facihty Results/action plan of safety perception survey Results/action plan of self-assessment... 

Employee perceptions can provide other useful information. An employee s opinion of how easy it is to report a hazard and get a response will tell you a lot about how well the hazard reporting system is working. If employees indicate that the system for enforcing safety rules and safe work practices is inconsistent or confusing, you will know that the system needs improvement [2]. We will discuss safety perception surveys later in this chapter. 

Figure 17-9 Sample safety perception survey results.

Sample Safety Perception Survey Form and Questions... 

This category includes support for safety, perception of the safety culture, goal setting, establishing objectives based on operational procedures, and the employee perception of trust. Number of times leadership participated in preshift safety meetings. 

Safety Perception Survey A tool that samples the perceptions of employees and managers, allowing for comparisons (e.g., between employees, supervisors, and top-level managers) and highlights areas where strengths and weaknesses in the safety management system... 

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. 

Use periodic safety perception surveys to obtain information about what woikers think... 

The book includes helpful resources in the appendices, such as a nurse safety perception survey, an accident causal factor chart, sample ergonomics symptoms report, sample TB exposure control plan, and a model respirator plan for small organizations. Complete with review exercises in each chapter, this book is ideal for certification training in nursing programs and as a reference for developing nursing in-service safety sessions. 

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