Background: The wood-processing industry has historically exhibited high rates of occupational hazards resulting in illness and injury. One of the major causes of high injury rates is small firm size, as resource constraints generally preclude hiring safety officers. This study examined the effect of a safety leadership training program that included coaching for managers on workers' safety behaviors and safety climate in three wood-processing companies. Methods: One or two managers at each site participated in this study. The manager training consisted of safety leadership education, safety observation, positive or corrective feedback on workers' behaviors, goal setting, and low-cost rewards for meeting goals. The dependent variable was the percentage of safe employee behaviors recorded on a critical behavior checklist developed for this study. Safety climate was measured before and after the intervention. An AB multiple baseline design across settings was adopted. After the baseline (A), the training program (B) was introduced to each site at different points in time. Results: After the introduction of safety leadership training, the mean rate of safety compliance increased by 15.3%, from 80.38% to 95.68%, and safety climate scores increased significantly from an average of 3.2 to 3.47. Conclusion These results suggest that safety leadership coaching can be effective in improving safety management in small sawmilling sites. Implications, limitations, and possible future research directions are discussed.

Background: The wood-processing industry has historically exhibited high rates of occupational hazards resulting in illness and injury. One of the major causes of high injury rates is small firm size, as resource constraints generally preclude hiring safety officers. This study examined the effect of a safety leadership training program that included coaching for managers on workers' safety behaviors and safety climate in three wood-processing companies. Methods: One or two managers at each site participated in this study. The manager training consisted of safety leadership education, safety observation, positive or corrective feedback on workers' behaviors, goal setting, and low-cost rewards for meeting goals. The dependent variable was the percentage of safe employee behaviors recorded on a critical behavior checklist developed for this study. Safety climate was measured before and after the intervention. An AB multiple baseline design across settings was adopted. After the baseline (A), the training program (B) was introduced to each site at different points in time. Results: After the introduction of safety leadership training, the mean rate of safety compliance increased by 15.3%, from 80.38% to 95.68%, and safety climate scores increased significantly from an average of 3.2 to 3.47. Conclusion These results suggest that safety leadership coaching can be effective in improving safety management in small sawmilling sites. Implications, limitations, and possible future research directions are discussed.

Background: The wood-processing industry has historically exhibited high rates of occupational hazards resulting in illness and injury. One of the major causes of high injury rates is small firm size, as resource constraints generally preclude hiring safety officers. This study examined the effect of a safety leadership training program that included coaching for managers on workers' safety behaviors and safety climate in three wood-processing companies. Methods: One or two managers at each site participated in this study. The manager training consisted of safety leadership education, safety observation, positive or corrective feedback on workers' behaviors, goal setting, and low-cost rewards for meeting goals. The dependent variable was the percentage of safe employee behaviors recorded on a critical behavior checklist developed for this study. Safety climate was measured before and after the intervention. An AB multiple baseline design across settings was adopted. After the baseline (A), the training program (B) was introduced to each site at different points in time. Results: After the introduction of safety leadership training, the mean rate of safety compliance increased by 15.3%, from 80.38% to 95.68%, and safety climate scores increased significantly from an average of 3.2 to 3.47. Conclusion These results suggest that safety leadership coaching can be effective in improving safety management in small sawmilling sites. Implications, limitations, and possible future research directions are discussed.

Background: The wood-processing industry has historically exhibited high rates of occupational hazards resulting in illness and injury. One of the major causes of high injury rates is small firm size, as resource constraints generally preclude hiring safety officers. This study examined the effect of a safety leadership training program that included coaching for managers on workers' safety behaviors and safety climate in three wood-processing companies. Methods: One or two managers at each site participated in this study. The manager training consisted of safety leadership education, safety observation, positive or corrective feedback on workers' behaviors, goal setting, and low-cost rewards for meeting goals. The dependent variable was the percentage of safe employee behaviors recorded on a critical behavior checklist developed for this study. Safety climate was measured before and after the intervention. An AB multiple baseline design across settings was adopted. After the baseline (A), the training program (B) was introduced to each site at different points in time. Results: After the introduction of safety leadership training, the mean rate of safety compliance increased by 15.3%, from 80.38% to 95.68%, and safety climate scores increased significantly from an average of 3.2 to 3.47. Conclusion These results suggest that safety leadership coaching can be effective in improving safety management in small sawmilling sites. Implications, limitations, and possible future research directions are discussed.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to identify the influence of workers' perceived workload, accident experiences, supervisors' safety leadership, and an organization's safety climate on the cognitive and emotional risk perception. METHODS: Six hundred and twenty employees in a variety of manufacturing organizations were asked to complete to a questionnaire. Among them, a total of 376 employees provided valid data for analysis. To test the hypothesis, correlation analysis and hierarchical regression analysis were used. Statistical analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS program, version 23. RESULTS: The results indicated that workload and accident experiences have a positive influence and safety leadership and safety climate have a negative influence on the cognitive and emotional risk perception. Workload, safety leadership, and the safety climate influence perceived risk more than accident experience, especially for the emotional risk perception. CONCLUSION: These results indicated that multilevel factors (organization, group, and individual) play a critical role in predicting individual risk perceptions. Based on these results, therefore, to reduce risk perception related with unsafe behaviors and accidents, organizations need to conduct a variety of safety programs that enhance their safety climate beyond simple safety-related education and training. Simultaneously, it needs to seek ways to promote supervisors' safety leadership behaviors (e.g., site visits, feedback, safety communication, etc.). In addition, it is necessary to adjust work speed and amount and allocate task considering employees' skill and ability to reduce the workload for reducing risk perception.
Climate* ; Education ; Leadership*