Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Nevertheless sickness and absenteeism rates are
seen as a reliable indictor of the levels of motivation
and commitment to work. Job roles that provide little
satisfaction for the employee will often experience high
levels of sickness.
4.3.3 Staff turnover
Again, staff turnover is often quoted as a good indica-
tor of organisational culture, but again caution must be
exercised when drawing inferences about the culture
in a particular organisation. In general it is thought that
the more positive a safety culture in an organisation the
greater the feelings of loyalty among the staff and there-
fore the less the turnover. There are, however, a number
of factors that affect staff turnover that have little rela-
tionship with safety culture, including:
Figure 4.1
Downward trend of accidents at work
➤
Industry norms
➤
well indicate a positive culture in that staff are motivated
to report minor incidents because they believe manage-
ment will take some action to improve safety. Conversely
minor accidents may be reported in order to fl ood man-
agement with paperwork or frustrate, or express disap-
proval of, the introduction of new equipment or work
practices.
As with all other indicators, caution must be used to
draw too fi rm a conclusion from this important but single
indicator.
Managers will normally take comfort if in general the
accident/incident rates are in ratios that would normally
be expected, there are few serious injuries and the
rate of injuries maintains a downward trend - as would
reports from employees highlighting fi re safety issues,
making a positive contribution to the management of fi re
risk in the workplace.
Remuneration packages of competitors
➤
Life/work balance issues for the individual
➤
Personal career aspirations.
4.3.4
Compliance with safety rules
An examination of the degree to which safety rules are
applied or breached at work gives a good indication of
the effectiveness of the safety culture. This is because
almost all factors that affect the implementation of
safety rules are in the direct control of the management.
Therefore it is possible to draw reasonable inferences
from an analysis of breaches of safety rules.
With a positive safety culture at work, individuals will
be aware of the rules, have suffi cient physical resources,
time and competence to apply them and be motivated
to do so.
Active monitoring systems (see Chapter 6) will enable
instances of breaches in safety rules. Particularly effective
formal active monitoring systems include safety tours,
inspections and workplace audits. Less formal but none
the less relevant are those occasions when observing
behaviour in the workplace occurs as a result of visiting
the workplace for other reasons, for example quality
control or welfare.
Fire doors wedged open, bad housekeeping and
breaches of security arrangements that are identifi ed
during active monitoring will provide a good indication
that routine fi re safety management is poor.
4.3.2
Sickness and absenteeism rates
Sickness and absenteeism rates are often used in an
attempt to draw conclusions about workplace culture for
two reasons. First, they are easy to quantify and second,
there appears to be a logical co-relationship between an
absence from and a lack of desire to work.
In addition to the numbers of days lost through
sickness and absenteeism, it is equally pertinent to
examine the nature of the sickness or absence in terms
of the duration of absences, the timing of absences
through the calendar or work cycle and the reasons
given for absence.
Absenteeism rates can also be affected by contract-
ual conditions of work, for example it is a recognised
phenomenon that public service workers have signifi -
cantly higher absenteeism rates than their private sector
counterparts.
4.3.5 Complaints
The level of complaints in a workplace can be indica-
tive of a dissatisfi ed workforce. Dissatisfi ed workers
are not motivated to comply with any management sys-
tems. Again it is a fairly good indicator of the state of
