A study on the impact of management system certification on safety management

Abstract

This study presents an empirical investigation of the influence of management system certification on the relationship between safety management and safety performance in major accident hazard chemical industry. The perceptions of employees about six important safety management practices and self-reported safety behaviour are measured with the help of a questionnaire survey administered in eight chemical companies in the state of Kerala in India. One thousand five hundred and sixty six workers participated in the survey with a response rate of 72%. The validity and reliability of the scales are found acceptable. Analysis of the data revealed that employees in companies with OHSAS 18001, ISO 9001 and no certification at all perceive different levels of the above safety variables in them and those in OHSAS 18001 organizations are significantly higher compared with the others. Step-wise regression analysis revealed that four out of six safety management practices predicted safety behaviour in OHSAS 18001 certified organization and three safety management practices were found to predict safety behaviour in the other two groups. But, safety rules and procedures (SR) emerged as a common predictor of safety behaviour in all the three models. This study emphasizes the need for OHSAS 18001 certification to reduce the accidents and thereby to reduce liability and improve productivity and safety and health of employees.

Introduction

In the recent years, management system certification has become an essential requirement in manufacturing to remain competitive. This is because the long term success of an organization is dependent on its ability to improve its operations by reorganizing itself, so as to meet the challenging environmental contingencies on a continuous basis (Hitt et al., 1991). ISO 9001 quality management system is one among them. ISO is the International Standards Organization (http://www.iso.ch), a world wide federation of national standards bodies from 130 countries. It is a non-governmental organization established in 1974. The mission of ISO is to promote the development of standardization and related activities in the world with a view to facilitating the international exchange of goods and services, and to developing cooperation in the spheres of intellectual, scientific, technological and economic activity. More recently, the US Occupational Health and Safety Administration (http://www.osha.gov) published the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS 18001:1999). This standard is aimed at supporting and helping to systematize the management of risk factors and the promotion of good working conditions. Organizations which require special focus on safety of work environment and employees, such as large chemical and process industrial organizations that have hazardous work environments are going for OHSAS 18001 certification worldwide.

OHSAS 18000 is an international occupational health and safety management system specification. It comprises two parts, 18001 and 18002 and embraces a number of other publications. The following documents and standards related to occupational health and safety, amongst others, were used in the creation process:

• BS8800:1996 Guide to occupational health and safety management systems.

• DNV Standard for Certification of Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems (OHSMS):1997.

• Technical Report NPR 5001:1997 Guide to an occupational health and safety management system.

• Draft LRQA SMS 8800 Health and safety management systems assessment criteria.

• SGS and ISMOL ISA 2000:1997 Requirements for Safety and Health Management Systems.

• BVQI Safety Certification: Occupational Safety and Health Management Standard.

• Draft AS/NZ 4801 Occupational health and safety management systems specification with guidance for use.

• Draft BSI PAS 088 Occupational health and safety management systems.

• UNE 81900 series of pre-standards on the prevention of occupational risks.

• Draft NSAI SR 320 Recommendation for an occupational health and safety (OH and S) management system.

OHSAS 18001:1999 Standards is an Occupation Health and Safety Assessment Series for health and safety management systems. It is intended to help an organization to control occupational health and safety risks. It was developed in response to widespread demand for a recognized standard against which occupational health and safety system could be certified and assessed.

The OHSAS specification is applicable to any organization that wishes to:

• Establish an occupational health and safety management system to eliminate or minimize risk to employees and other interested parties who may be exposed to occupational health and safety risks associated with its activities.

• Assure itself of its conformance with its stated occupational health and safety policy.

• Demonstrate such conformance to others.

• Implement, maintain and continually improve an occupational health and safety management system.

• Make a self-determination and declaration of conformance with this OHSAS specification.

• Seek certification/registration of its occupational health and safety management system by an external organization.

Essentially, OHSAS offer substantial helps to minimize risk to employees, improve an existing occupational health and safety management system, demonstrate diligence, gain assurance etc. Since this accreditation is quite new, there is not much research evidence for its validation or comparative study.

ISO 9001 refers to an international standard that establishes procedures and requirements for the management of quality (Elmuti and Kathawala, 1997). It is a very popular standard in Europe. Many quality standards, national as well as international, have incorporated the ISO 9001 standards as a first phase requirement in approving the use of their mark in specific product-certification schemes. The latest version ISO 9001:2000 is the core module of ISO 9000 series which provides quality systems for design, development, production and services. This consists of quality management principles like management commitment, communication, work environment, involvement of people etc., which are key safety management practices. ISO 9001 standards have helped many organizations implement quality integrated safety management since they describe the essential elements (Herrero et al., 2002). Regulations based on ISO 9000 have been created to guide companies in developing systems for management and prevention of worker risks. Annex A and B of ISO 9001–2000 gives various clauses and sub-clauses related to the necessary elements of this standard.

Safety management relates to the actual practices, roles and functions associated with remaining safe (Kirwan, 1998). It is usually regarded as a sub-system of the total organizational management and is carried out via the organization’s safety management system with the help of various safety management practices. In hypothesizing the constituents in safety management, those safety management practices should be included that could commonly be perceived by the employees and those should also have a pertinent role in shaping the safety environment. There have been numerous attempts to identify specific safety management practices that predict safety performance. Cohen, 1977, Cohen et al., 1975, DePasquale and Geller, 1999, Griffiths, 1985, Harper et al., 1997, Shafai-Sahrai, 1971, Shannon et al., 1996, Shannon et al., 1997, Smith et al., 1975 revealed that organizations with lower accident rates were characterized by a few of the following factors: safety officers held high rank; management showed personal involvement in safety activities; superior training for new employees; frequent training for existing employees; display of safety posters for identifying hazards; well defined procedures for promotion and job placements; daily communication between workers and supervisors about health and safety; frequent safety inspections; higher priority for safety in meetings and decisions concerning work practice; thorough investigation of accidents; more frequent attendance of senior managers at health and safety meetings and empowerment of the workforce. Vredenburgh (2002) included worker participation, safety training, hiring practices, reward systems, management commitment and communication and feedback as the safety management practices in the study of hospital environment.

In one of the first investigations of safety climate, Zohar (1980) found that management’s commitment to safety is a major factor affecting the success of an organization’s safety programmes. The safety commitment of the management must result in an observable activity on the part of the management and must be demonstrated in their behaviour as well as their words (Hofmann et al., 1995). Employees’ perception will reflect how employees believe that safety is to be valued in the organization (Griffin and Neal, 2000). In high risk environments like chemical industries, management commitment has been repeatedly highlighted (Cox and Flin, 1998, Flin et al., 1996, Cox and Cheyne, 2000). Following Vredenburgh (2002), this study also include management commitment as one of the management practices, and is measured using items related to managements’ priority for safety, corrective actions, safety manager attending safety meeting, accident/near miss investigation, and providing adequate personal protective equipments.

In order for employees to be active participants in a safety programme, they must receive occupational safety training. It provides workers with the knowledge, capabilities and skills needed to carry out their tasks safely. It also helps them to identify the risks in the workplace, and the procedures available to prevent, correct or minimize these risks (Fernandez-Muniz et al., 2007). To improve the level of safety and health for all employees, organization should institute a systematic, comprehensive safety and health training programme for new employees, provide a mentor for these employees and use a buddy system to help orient new employees in the safety, health and quality systems (Vredenburgh, 2002). The studies of Ostrom et al., 1993, Tinmannsvik and Hovden, 2003, Cohen et al., 1975, Smith et al., 1975, Zohar, 1980 have found that those companies with lower accident rates were characterized by good safety training for employees. Therefore, safety training is considered as a management practice and is measured using items related to training for newly recruited employees, discussion of safety issues in training sessions, training to meet emergency situations, encouragement to attend training programs, and hazard assessment training.

Employee involvement is a behavioural oriented technique that involves individuals or groups in the upward communication flow and decision-making processes within the organization. The amount of participation can range from no participation, where the supervisor makes all decisions, to full participation, where everyone connected with, or affected by the decision, is involved. Since employees close to the work are the best qualified persons to make suggestions for improvements, they can be consulted before making final decisions, especially for those decisions that affect the employees (Vredenburgh, 2002). This empowerment of workers provides them with authority, responsibility and accountability for required decisions and ensures that both employees and management are involved in setting goals and objectives. It induces employees to do their best work as individuals and as a team, while relieving the manager to plan, lead and mentor (Cohen and Cleveland, 1983). Worker involvement has been reported as a decisive factor in safety management by Rundmo, 1994, Dedobbeleer and Beland, 1991, Shannon et al., 1996, Cox and Cheyne, 2000. Therefore, workers’ involvement in safety is considered as a management practice and is measured using items related to safety committee comprising of workers’ representatives, involvement of workers in safety related decision making, involvement in identifying safety problems, and consultation with workers about safety matters.

Regular communication about safety issues between management, supervisors and workforce is an effective management practice to improve safety in workplace. Cohen, 1977, Vredenburgh, 2002, Cox and Cheyne, 2000, Mearns et al., 2003 included communication and feedback as a factor in their surveys using questionnaire among various category of workers and showed that safety performance is influenced by the level of communication in an organization. This study also accepts safety communication and feedback as a management practice and is measured using items related to hazard reporting system, open door policy for safety issues, communication about safety goals and targets between managers and workers, and opportunity to discuss safety issues in meetings.

Well documented safety rules and procedures and its enforcement by supervisors and managers can improve safety behaviour of workers. Glendon and Litherland (2001) reported this as a reliable factor after factor analyzing the data collected from construction workers. Cox and Cheyne, 2000, Mearns et al., 2003 included safety rules and procedures as a factor in their offshore safety studies and showed that it has significant correlation with accident rates. Based on the above findings, the level of enforcement of safety rules and procedures is taken as a safety management practice and is measured with the help of questionnaire items related to effective rules and procedures of work to prevent accidents occurring, adequate safety department, supervisors and managers enforcing safety rules, and regular safety inspections.

The use of incentives, awards and recognition to motivate employees to perform safely is an accepted feature of both organization behaviour management and total quality management models (Hagan et al., 2001). They can add interest to the hazard control programme of an organization and enhance self-protection action on the part of the workforce (Cohen et al., 1979). A well-designed reward system should be characterized by high level of visibility in the organization, offering recognition, which can help modify behaviour (Vredenburgh, 2002). This study also recognizes safety promotion policy as one of the safety management practices and is assessed using items related to counting safe conduct as a positive factor for promotion, rewards and incentives for reporting hazards, creating awareness among workers by programmes during safety week celebrations, healthy competition among workers to report unsafe conditions or acts, and supervisors welcoming and encouraging workers to report safety matters.

Recruiting new personnel, who are pre-disposed to displaying safety conscious attitude in their work, is a management practice adopted in many developed countries. Turner, 1991, Eckhardt, 1996, Vredenburgh, 2002 found that the consideration of safety performance in the selection of employees is a significant predictor of injury rates. Discussions with top management people from industries revealed that this practice is not followed in Indian industries due reasons such as high population and high percentage of unemployment. Hence, the above management practice is not considered in this study.

Another important factor that comes in safety management is the extent to which the management is able to control drugs and alcohol consumption of employees during working hours (O’Toole, 2002). Even though this cannot be considered as a management practice, it could have been included as an item in safety rules and procedures or management commitment. However, this was ignored in this study purposefully because of the difficulty in extracting honest response.

The perceptions of employees on the level of the selected six safety management practices implemented in their organizations are considered as organizational factors which can influence their safety performance. Hence the above six safety management practices are considered antecedents of safety performance in this study.

The model proposed by Neal and Griffin (1997) based the theories of job performance (Borman and Motowidlo, 1993, Campbell et al., 1993) distinguishes between various components of performance. With regard to safety, safety compliance and safety participation can be treated as safety behaviour or components of safety performance (Neal et al., 2000). In another study, Pousette et al. (2008) measured self-rated safety behaviour by three safety behaviour measures. They were named as structural safety behaviour (concerning participation on organized safety activities), interactional safety behaviour (concerning safety activities in the daily work in interaction with co-workers and management) and personal safety behaviour (measuring behaviour promoting personal protection). It is assumed that safety related behaviours such as safety compliance and safety participation can be considered as components of safety performance. Safety compliance represents the behaviour of the employees in ways that increase their personal safety and health. Safety participation represent the behaviour of employees in ways that increase the safety and health of co-workers and that support an organization’s stated goals and objectives (Hagan et al., 2001). Since these two measures are very closely associated with each other, the authors have decided to measure safety behaviour as a single construct containing questions related to safety compliance and safety participation.

Another measure of safety performance considered in this study is self-reported accident history during the previous year. Even though it is likely that self-reporting of accidents may lead to under-reporting of accidents (Cooper, 2000, Thompson et al., 1998), it is also argued that the use of self-reported measures of involvement in accidents is a reliable method measuring safety outcomes (Mearns et al., 2003, Young et al., 1997).

From review of literature, it is clear that there is scarcity of literature studying safety management variables in organizations with different management system certifications. Considering the increase in industrial accidents and loss to life, material and environment, more and more organizations are voluntarily embracing management system certifications. These management system certifications are expected to integrate safety management with the rest of the functions of the organization. Hence, there is a need for exploring the relationship between management system certification and safety management variables. The results of the present study would be of great practical relevance to safety managers and decision makers in industrial safety.

The first purpose of this study was to measure the employees’ perception about the levels of the six safety management practices (management commitment, safety training, workers’ involvement, safety communication and feedback, safety rules and procedures and safety promotion policies) and self-reported safety behaviour of employees in the selected companies and to establish their validity and reliability. The second purpose was to compare the levels of safety management variables among organizations with OHSAS 18001, ISO 9001 and no management system certifications. For this purpose, the following hypotheses were formulated.

H₀₁

There is no significant difference between certified and non-certified firms with respect to each of the safety management practices and safety behaviour.

H₀₂

There is no significant difference between OHSAS 18001 certified and non-certified firms with respect to each of the safety management practices and safety behaviour.

H₀₃

There is no significant difference between OHSAS 18001 certified and ISO 9001 certified firms with respect to each of the safety management practices and safety behaviour.

H₀₄

There is no significant difference between ISO 9001 certified and non-certified firms with respect to each of the safety management practices and safety behaviour.

The third purpose was to study the predictive capacity of employees’ perception of safety management practices on self-reported safety behaviour in the three groups of organizations grouped on the basis of management system certification.