Evaluation of the level of safety culture and some selected OHS aspects

Abstract

The paper briefly describes some major aspects of work safety culture along with attainable objectives and benefits arising from its it improvement in the enterprise. Next, the article presents the output of questionnaire—based research carried out in 51 companies and concerning safety culture, as well as some selected economic performance indicators and subjective assessments of the economic situation of enterprises made by the managers. Given by over 1,400 employees, the survey feedback provided the basis for defining the level of safety culture in a given enterprise. The assessment of the level of work safety culture is the result of the average score of assessments covering 6 safety culture aspects to which the same weight was assigned in the study. The companies with different levels of safety culture were compared in terms of some aspects of health and safety culture, such as the implementation of a formal, certified system of the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) management, increased accident insurance premiums, spending on prevention and the indicator of economic performance. The research output discussed in this paper indicates that companies with a higher level of safety culture are more often included in the group of enterprises having a formal system of the OHS management in place, as well as a higher level of spending on prevention per one employee along with a higher rate of economic performance as compared to those with low levels of safety culture. The level of work safety culture has also been proven to be lower in the companies paying higher social accident insurance premiums.