Work safety climate. Comparison of selected occupational groups

studied representatives of the three occupational groups together in terms of their assessment of the organizational occupational health and safety management policy and the technical facilities and ergonomics dimensions. It can be concluded on the basis of the results that ques- tions 2a, 2b, 2c, 2d, 2e, 2g, 2h and 2i can be answered affirmatively, while questions 2f and 2j should be answered negatively. The results also indicate the existence of a significant difference between the assessments given by the respondents when the analyses involved comparisons of two occupational groups each time (univariate F test values and effect sizes measured with adjusted R2, see Table 6). Sig- nificant differences were found between production workers and retail workers in most of the studied work safety climate dimensions, except the organizational occupational health and safety management policy dimension. These differences concern mainly the following dimen- sions: workplace accident risk management (rated much higher by production workers), workplace atmosphere, management engagement in health and safety and occupational health and safety training process (the last three dimensions rated significantly higher by retail workers). Similarly significant differences between industrial production line workers and mine res- cuers in terms of their judgments concern six dimensions of work safety climate. The main dif- ferences between these two groups concern their assessments of work safety climate aspects

such as the pace of work and fatigue levels and the occupational health and safety training pro- cess (these dimensions are rated much higher by mine rescuers). Significant differences also concern the assessment of the following work safety climate dimensions: safe behavior and management engagement in health and safety (dimensions rated much higher by production workers) as well as workplace atmosphere and workplace accident risk management (rated higher by mine rescuers). Industrial production line workers and mine rescuers do not differ in terms of their assessment of employee participation in safety-related matters, modeling and enhancing safe behaviors in the organization, technical facilities and ergonomics, and organi- zational occupational health and safety management policy. The results also prove the existence of statistically significant differences in the assessment of most dimensions of the work safety climate between retail workers and mine rescuers. They concern mainly aspects such as management engagement in health and safety and safe behav- ior (rated significantly higher by retail workers), workplace accident risk management, and pace of work and fatigue levels (rated significantly higher by mine rescuers). Significant differ- ences between these occupational groups were also observed in the assessment of the following dimensions: modeling and enhancing safe behaviors in the organization and atmosphere in the workplace (rated significantly higher by retail workers), as well as the occupational health

and safety training process and employee participation in safety-related matters (perceived more positively by mine rescuers). No significant differences were found between retail work- ers and mine rescuers in terms of their assessments of work safety climate aspects such as tech- nical facilities and ergonomics, and the organizational policy with regard to occupational health and safety management. Discussion The lack of differences observed in the presented results between the studied groups in their assessment of such work safety climate dimensions as organizational occupational health and safety management policy and technical facilities and ergonomics may result from the fact that in practice, they constitute the basic and often the only area of activities in many organizations. Initiatives of this nature are highly visible to the employees, as they are related to the reward and penalty systems in place in the respective companies, as well as systematic training and PLOS ONE Work safety climate PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243056 December 14, 2020 12 / 19