When it Comes to Safety – Size Matters
In a paper entitled Size matters: How safety climate and downstream outcomes vary by fire department organization type, researchers utilized the psychometrically validated Fire Service Organizational Culture of Safety (FOCUS) survey to solicit responses from 8,414 firefighters across 611 stations in 125 departments for the purpose of determining management commitment to safety, and supervisor support for safety, and analyzing that data in the context of department size and type.
The researchers were able to reliably conclude, "…that safety climate is positively associated with safety behaviour, safety outcomes, and organizational outcomes reflecting employee well-being." The paper importantly discusses thoughts on what is meant by and what is involved in a "safety climate."
The paper also discovered that, "as a department becomes more career, its Management Commitment to Safety decreases." The researchers were able to control for the variables necessary to also conclude that it isn't the fact of being busy that decreases the management commitment to safety, but rather something else within the organization. Some possibilities are discussed, but future research is suggested to explore why management commitment to safety decreases as departments become more 'career'.
You can read the research paper at: Size matters: how safety climate and downstream outcomes vary by fire department organization type
