Roles and Autonomous Motivation of Safety Officers: The Context of Construction Sites

Safety officers have been underlined as key individuals in the implementation of safety programmes at construction sites. However, previous research mentioned that some project managers predominantly focus on other aspects, such as the productivity of construction and the management of time and cost. Such emphases may potentially demotivate safety officers from fully engaging in safety initiatives for construction projects. Moreover, scholars have devoted piecemeal discussions to the motivation of such practitioners. These problems were addressed in the current work through the development of a conceptual paradigm that captures the actual situation between project managers and safety officers. To this end, four constructs were extensively examined: (1) autonomy-oriented support from project managers; (2) the motivation of safety officers; (3) the engagement of safety officers in safety programmes (covering four major categories of safety-related tasks); and (4) safety performance. From August to September 2022, valid data from 195 safety officers working in construction projects were considered, after which the proposed paradigm was analysed via structural equation modelling. The results showed that the autonomous motivation of safety officers was activated by autonomy-oriented support from project managers (beta = 0.520, sig. = 0.000). Such motivation significantly affected their safety performance (beta = 0.231, sig. = 0.007) and levels of engagement with safety initiatives (beta = 0.529, sig. = 0.000). These findings indicate that in the implementation of safety programmes, the autonomous motivation of safety officers serves as the engine, while autonomy-oriented support from project managers functions as the ignition key. Policymakers in construction companies can use the results as a reference for decision-making on initiating safety policy that highlights methods of training project managers in supporting safety officers.