Workplace Safety Culture Test

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Workplace Safety Culture Task Force
The safety of faculty, staff and students is a top university priority and OSU is committed to a culture of safety by offering programs that emphasize workplace safety, accident and injury prevention, and wellness.

A Workplace Safety Culture Task Force was created in 2021 to evaluate OSU workplace programs. The Task Force developed 11 recommendations that align with best practices. 

Read the Workplace Safety Task Force Recommendations

 

 

SAFETY Survey

Executive Summary 

Communications

Employee Safety Perception Survey - Feb 23, 2023

Workplace safety advancements and next steps - Jan 23, 2023

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

The National Research Council defines safety culture as an “organization’s shared values, assumptions, and beliefs regarding workplace safety or, more simply, the importance of safety within the organization relative to other priorities.” A strong, positive safety culture arises not because of a set of rules, but because of a culture that supports the free exchange of safety information, emphasizes learning and improvement, and assigns greater importance to identifying and solving problems than on placing blame.

OSU has partnered with the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities to implement university-specific recommendations for improving safety culture. In 2021, OSU worked with the University of Texas Health Science Center to conduct a peer-review of OSU EH&S programs. In the Spring of 2023, OSU contracted with National Safety Council to conduct a Safety Barometer Employee Safety Perception Survey. Over the past ten years EH&S staffing levels have increased to help support safety culture development. OSU experience rating over the last eight years has been excellent: 0.63 to 0.49. An experience rating of 1.0 is the industry average.  An experience rating of less than 1.0 means that the loss experience is better than the industry. Factors that contribute to a lower experience rating include: reduced frequency of incidents/accidents, accurate reserves, effective return to work programs, employee safety and education, and accountability.

Employee Safety Survey

The survey included 50 questions that covered six areas of safety performance – Management Commitment, Supervisor Engagement, Employee Involvement, Safety Support Activities, Safety Support Climate, and Organizational Climate.  Additionally, the survey captured data about employees’ work group, academic college, location, position, and work environment to provide further insight into trends in safety culture among subgroups of employees.

The NSC is America’s leading nonprofit safety advocate. The NSC was established in 1913 with a clear mission: to eliminate preventable deaths in the workplace, on the road, and in homes and communities. NSC focus on eliminating the leading causes of preventable injuries and deaths. NSC Employee Perception Surveys provide comprehensive, sensitive leading indicator metrics to assess safety culture, identify strengths and opportunities, and gaps in safety management systems that can assist in prioritizing continuous improvement efforts.

Researchers use benchmarking to help mitigate some of the biases inherent in surveys. The OSU Safety Survey results were benchmarked against the National Safety Council database, which is comprised of 1,520 organizations that have participated in the same survey over the past 30 years. These organizations come from a wide range of industries with robust safety systems.

 By comparing its survey results to all of the companies in NSC’s database, OSU can see where it ranks in comparison to other high-performing safety management systems and cultures. Additionally, OSU departments, colleges and units can see where elements of their safety systems rank against each other.
 

The survey was offered to all OSU employees including administrative staff, field employees, and student workers. The final response pool included 1,758 employees (16% of those eligible to respond), representing a wide cross-section of academic colleges, locations, and work environments.

OSU Safety Survey Results

OSU generated an overall score of 21.8. This means that OSU scored more positively than 21.8% of the organizations in the NSC Database, or over 331 organizations with similar, proactive safety programs. Across all safety performance categories, average scores regarding the safety culture at OSU were positive.

Among the safety-specific categories, Supervisor Engagement was the highest while Employee Involvement and Management Participation had the lowest scores.

Universities tend to have decentralized safety systems. This means that colleges and departments typically have many independent safety systems that are clustered around their specific risks and behavioral norms. As seen in OSU’s results, this may result in an inconsistent understanding of safety requirements and practices, and of leadership’s commitment to those practices. OSU aims to help different subgroups within the university learn from one another about how to build successful safety practices and systems, and to build a more unified safety culture across all areas of the university community.

Additional details about the safety survey results and future actions, as well as custom meetings with a member of the OSU EH&S team and a NSC Safety Barometer approved consultant are available by contacting Environmental Health and Safety at [email protected]

Get Involved

Contact your department safety representative or feel free to reach out to Environmental Health and Safety at [email protected] to be connected to the right person on your team.

Please feel free to share success stories with the Environmental Health and Safety team at [email protected] . We will feature these in the Safety Beaver Buzz and other communications. Safety performance is also a criteria for the OSU Safety Award.

Policy and Reporting

See the University Health and Safety Policy for information about the rights and responsibilities of employees at OSU, university safety committees, and tools and resources.

You can reach out at any time to Environmental Health and Safety team at [email protected] . All reports will be taken seriously and handled without risk of retaliation to the reporter.  EH&S will work toward resolution of the issue with an eye toward learning and continuous improvement. Your involvement in the safety process helps keep our whole OSU community safe.

Workplace Safety Task Force Recommendations Webinar - February 8,2023

Slides from the presentation