Multi-level safety climates: An investigation into the health and safety of workgroups in road construction

In construction projects, occupational health and safety (OHS) competes with traditional bottom line issues, such as costs and time, and is sometimes overlooked in the interests of competing pressures. Even when formal policies stating organizational commitment to OHS and comprehensive OHS procedures have been developed, unsafe work practices continue to occur. Research indicates that safety climate mediates the relationship between management practices and OHS performance, suggesting that workers observe management behaviour, develop shared perceptions of the relative importance of OHS and behave accordingly. However, in complex and highly decentralised environments, this simplistic theory is complicated by the fact that work is undertaken in semiautonomous teams who may have little opportunity to observe the activities of management. Construction operations are decentralised with work conducted on sites remote from the corporate office, in which OHS policies and procedures are made. This geographical dispersion is likely to increase the impact of group-level safety climate relative to that of the organisation. It is possible that a strong organization-wide OHS climate does not even develop in this context because workers¿ interactions with coworkers and their immediate supervisors are more important determinants of their safety attitudes. A safety climate survey was undertaken in a large regional area of one statebased road authority, in Australia. Nineteen workgroups participated in the survey.