This studied how the stigma associated with having a workplace incident may impact self-reported safety behaviours and psychological health outcomes, while controlling for safety climate. 528 workers were surveyed.
While authors hypothesised that safety stigma would be positively associated with safety compliance and participation (due to the social pressure of engaging in expected routines), the opposite was found. Safety stigma was found to decrease safety compliance, not affect safety participation, and lead to poorer psychological health, due to the fear of being evaluated negatively following an incident.
The authors suggest that stigma may decrease employee compliance because it has taken away their “control in choosing whether or not to perform the behaviours” (p188), responding in a like way, as they see it, to the lack of company support.
Importantly, the authors argue that the company directive to continually drive the message of safety may increase stigma concerns.
I really wonder how the myopic barrage of platitudes & trivial safety/safety performance in companies, detached from the nature of work and goals, can harbour this safety stigma and grow dissent and disengagement.
Authors: Kristen Jennings Black, Alec Munc, Robert R. Sinclair, Janelle H. Cheung, 2019, Journal of Safety Research
Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsr.2019.07.007
Link to LinkedIn article:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stigma-work-psychological-costs-benefits-pressure-ben-hutchinson
SafetyInsights.org 