Elsevier

Safety Science

Volume 106, July 2018, Pages 146-153
Safety Science

High performance workplace systems’ influence on safety attitudes and occupational driver behaviour

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2018.03.016Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The results suggest that HPWS are not designed or implemented to support safety of the driver.

  • Drivers reported safer driver behaviour if they had a positive attitude toward safe driving.

  • Driver behaviour could be improved by incorporating clear goals relevant to safe driving.

Abstract

For organisations employing occupational light vehicle drivers, there are unique challenges to developing a safe working environment. Drawing on role theory, this study elaborates on these challenges within a framework that identifies the role of both workplace management practices and individual attributes. The aim of this paper was to explore the relationship between attitudes and behaviour, and the role of High Performance Workplace Systems (HPWS) in moderating these relationships. The sample consisted of 911 drivers and 161 supervisors from 83 organisations. The results suggest that individual drivers' safety attitudes had a positive effect on safety behaviour in the work-related driver context, yet their organisation's HPWS has a negative impact on this type of safety behaviour. More importantly, organisation's HPWS appeared to moderate the relationship between safety attitudes and safety behaviour, such that safety attitudes had a stronger effect on safety behaviour when HPWS was low, rather than when HPWS was high. These findings suggest that when there is a lack of guidance through HPWS practices, employees draw on individual attitudes to direct behaviour. A key implication of this research is the need for multi-level interventions, addressing individual attitudes through behavioural modification programs, whilst also incorporating reform at the supervisory and senior management levels.

Section snippets

High performance workplace systems’ influence on safety attitudes and occupational driver behaviour

Work-related driving is a major risk for organisations. This is due, in part, to factors such as fleet vehicles in Australia travelling three times the distance of average private vehicles (WorkSafe, 2008). It has also been suggested that the higher risk can be attributed to a lack of understanding of how employers create a workplace that supports safe driving practices (Newnam et al., 2017, Warmerdam et al., 2017a).

Government agencies provide some direction for employers to support compliance

Participants and procedure

This research study was granted ethics approval by the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee. Recruitment of senior managers, occupational drivers and supervisors was facilitated through a government injury database spanning 13 industries, categorised according to Australian and New Zealand Industrial Classification (ABS, 2016). Enterprise-sized organisations (500 + employees; n = 52; 64%) were more highly represented in the sample compared with small to medium (1–199 employees;

Univariate descriptions

The bivariate correlations between the hypothesised variables are reported in Table 2. Consistent with the hypotheses, driver behaviour was found to be significantly correlated with HPWS (r = .13), safety climate (r = −.18), efficacy (r = −.14) and driver attitudes (r = −.19). These correlations showed that driver behaviour was negatively influenced by HPWS but positively influenced by individual attributes. This analysis does not take into account the multi-level nature of the data. As such,

Conclusion

Despite research efforts, work-related driving remains a major risk for organisations. This is the first study to test the higher order concept of HPWS across a sample of multiple organisations using a multi-level nested data structure that accounts for individual and organisational level contributions to safety. Overall, the results demonstrated that HPWS practices need to be aligned with safety goals in the work-related driver context in order to challenge driver’s attitudes toward safe

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