Common sense dictates that if
an organization wants to cre-ate
a strong culture of work-place
safety and reduce employee injuries,
then that direction must come from the
top and permeate the organization, but
until recently there was no data that sup-ported
this assumption. A recent study
provides strong support for the role of
the chief executive officer (CEO) as a driv-ing
force who initiates and communicates
safety priorities throughout the organiza-tion,
with the end result of reducing work-related
injuries.
In a study funded by the Saskatchewan
Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB),
researchers collected data from 2,714
employees, 1,398 supervisors and 229 man-agement
teams in 54 small-, medium- and
large-sized private and public sector orga-nizations
and analysed the influence that
top leaders have on frontline employee
injuries. In return, the researchers present-ed
participants with their own benchmark
reports, creating a win-win scenario for re-searchers
and participants.
Authored by Dr. Sean Tucker (Universi-ty
of Regina), Dr. Babatunde Ogunfowora
(University of Calgary) and Dayle Ehr (Uni-versity
of Regina), a paper that describes
the study and findings, “Safety in the C-Suite:
How CEOs Influence Organization-al
Safety Climate and Employee Injuries,”
recently appeared in the Journal of Applied
Psychology.
Phil Germain, the WCB’s vice president of
prevention and employer services, said the
WCB funded the academic study because
Saskatchewan has a dire need to improve
its safety record. The subject of the study
– examining the CEO’s role as a driver of
safety – also aligns with the province’s safe-ty
initiatives, including the Saskatchewan
Health & Safety Leadership Charter.
Based on WCB’s data, Dr. Tucker said
Saskatchewan has the fourth-highest av-erage
work-related fatality rate between
2000 and 2014, with a rate of 9.09 per
100,000 (the estimated number of full-time
equivalent (FTE) employees covered
by WCB). It ranked first among the prov-inces
for an average injury-related fatality
rate of 7.01 per 100,000 FTEs between 2010
and 2014.
He explained there are two types of work-place
fatalities: occupational disease and
traumatic injury. Saskatchewan is highest
in the traumatic injury. In the heavy con-struction
industry, Germain said that at
least one traumatic-injury fatality is report-ed
every year.
Why is Saskatchewan’s safety track re-cord
so abysmal?
“The thinking is that it is probably cul-ture
– the jump-in-and-get-things-done
mentality and working while fatigued. Our
Safety from
the Top
Study finds chief executive officers wield significant
influence over organizational safety culture
By Candice G. Ball
SAFETY
CHINNAPONG/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
saskheavy.ca | Quarter 2 2017 | Think BIG 35
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