Associations between safety climate and safety management practices in the construction industry

Background: Safety climate, a group-level measure of workers' perceptions regarding management's safety priorities, has been suggested as a key predictor of safety outcomes. However, its relationship with actual injury rates is inconsistent. Weposit that safety climate may instead be a parallel outcome of workplace safety practices, rather than a determinant of workers' safety behaviors or outcomes. Methods: Using a sample of 25 commercial construction companies in Colombia, selected by injury rate stratum (high, medium, low), we examined the relationship between workers' safety climate perceptions and safety management practices (SMPs) reported by safety officers. Results: Workers' perceptions of safety climate were independent of their own company's implementation of SMPs, as measured here, and its injury rates. However, injury rates were negatively related to the implementation of SMPs. Conclusions: Safety management practices may be more important than workers' perceptions of safety climate as direct predictors of injury rates.