Introduction
This research study was conducted in 2008 on a large U.S. railroad with a long history of developing and implementing effective safety programs. It is intended for anyone who is interested in effective safety programs in the U.S. railroad industry. Historically, the railroad approach to safety has been a top-down approach that has emphasized a high level of regulation and discipline that has resulted in low-levels of trust between management and employees. The employees are mostly unionized, and the railroad industry itself is highly regulated. Many of the railroads current safety practices are mandated by federal regulations. While federal supervision has resulted in greater accountability it has also made implementing change more cumbersome.
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) reports that employee on-duty deaths decreased from 27 in 1998 to 17 in 2007 and overall employee personal injuries saw similar improvement from 8227 in 1998 to 5024 in 2007. However, employee fatalities actually increased to 17 in 2007 from 16 in 2006 and overall employee injuries also increased to 5024 in 2007 from 4952 in 2006 (FRA, 2008). The increase in overall injuries is the first increase in employee on-duty injuries in the railroad industry during this same ten-year period. In addition, as a result of increased concern about terrorism and transportation of hazardous materials there is greater public awareness about railroad safety. Research into organizational behavior and industry best safety practices indicate that the best safety results are achieved through voluntary commitment and not compliance based programs. This paper examines railroad employees' attitudes toward safety to explore what barriers exist that could inhibit voluntary commitment on the part of railroad employees to effective safety programs.
Safety Culture
Reason maintains there are three elements involved in recurrent accidents (1998, p 300 - 301):
1. Universals. These are the hazards that are always present in a given work environment.
2. Local traps. These are characteristics unique to a local work environment.
3. Drivers. These are the motivating factors that contribute to a person actually being 'trapped' by the universal and local hazards.
The mere existence of hazards is not sufficient to result in accidents and injuries. There must also be a driving force. In organizations the safety culture is seen as the driving force that contributes to a person falling prey to these hazards.
In general, culture is defined as a set of values manifested by common practices, rules and behaviors within an organization. There is much discussion about how culture should be understood within an organization and how many different kinds of cultures exist within an organization. For our purposes we are concerned only with safety cultures, but it is important to note that within any organization safety cultures vary by location and work-group. A common misconception is that everyone within an organization conceptualizes safety in the same manner. Previous research has confirmed that cultures differ within an organization amongst different work groups (Harvey, Erdos, Bolam, Cox, Kennedy, & Gregory, 2002, p. 19). Thus, when we think of a corporate safety culture we are really referring to the sum total of all the different safety cultures within that organization. The International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) describes two major components of safety culture: "(a) the framework determined by organizational policy and by managerial action; and (b) the response of individuals in working within and benefiting by the framework, and suggest that success depends on commitment and competence, provided in the policy and managerial context and by individuals themselves" (Harvey, et al. 2002, p. 19-20).
Reason proposed that an effective safety culture consists of three essential components; a just culture, a reporting culture, and a learning culture (Burns, Mearns, & McGeorge, 2006, p. 1139). Reason concluded it is possible that each of these subcultures can be intentionally engineered by organizations. The basic building block in building a safety culture is trust. Employees must be willing to trust management enough to share information about their behavior and the behavior of their fellow employees without fear of reprisal or reprimand. This level of trust is essential to building a reporting culture that is abasic requirement for a learning culture to exist. A learning culture exists when the information gathered is analyzed and intelligent, and relevant feedback is rapidly deployed throughout the organization. As this information flow is developed, an informed culture develops and a safety culture begins to emerge. An informed culture is one in which people, at all levels, understand the risks involved and know how to mitigate them. To foster this environment an organization must be willing to address its' just culture. Reason said, "An effective reporting system depends, crucially, upon how an organization handles blame and punishment" (Reason, 1998, p. 302). Organizations must be willing to align their discipline systems with the goal of creating a safety culture. There are a couple of significant ways that should be explored. One is peer review. And, secondly, one must determine whether an employee's behavior is reasonable given the safety culture that exists in their work environment. If a reasonable employee would normally have done the same behavior, then the problem cannot accurately be attributed to only individual behavior.
Trust
To build a safety culture it is necessary to understand what trust is and how to build and maintain trust in an organization. Trust in the context of building a safety culture is widely seen as a psychological state where one is willing to be vulnerable to another based upon positive expectations of their intentions or behavior (Burns, Mearns, & McGeorge, 2006, p. 1140). Many studies have been done on trust that indicates trust and distrust are not separate entities, nor are they opposites. Instead trust and mistrust coexist and are dynamic and both are necessary and beneficial to building a safety culture. For instance, one should have a healthy mistrust that
permits one to question instructions that jeopardize their own safety. Blind trust is more dangerous than little or no trust.
Research indicates that trust operates both explicitly and implicitly (Burns et al. 2006, p. 1141). Implicit trust operates intuitively without one consciously being aware of it, while explicit trust operates on the surface and is based on well-thought out and conscious deliberations. Organizations with safety cultures have fewer negative safety outcomes and more positive responses on both explicit and implicit measures of trust, and that they should be expressed for all members of an organizational hierarchy (Burns et al. 2006, p. 1147).
In a study of a UK gas plant researchers found that relationships between employees are characterized by both high levels of trust and higher levels of distrust, while employee relationships with management exhibited lower levels of trust and distrust (Burns et al. 2006, p. 1148). This suggests that employee relationships with each other are characterized by both positive and negative experiences while employee relationships with management are characterized by more limited interactions and experiences. The most optimal condition for a safety culture is to have both higher scores for trust and lower scores for distrust. For management this means that there must be greater interaction between management and employees and that more of those experiences must be positive. Some behaviors that are helpful in building a more trusting environment are rapid responses to safety concerns, meaningful discussions with employees about safety and work practices, and by treating employees fairly and consistently when incidents do occur which reduce their feelings of mistrust. Additional research, has indicated that major safety incidents are influenced by attitudes toward management, while less serious events are influenced by attitudes toward co-workers (Conchie, & Donald, & Taylor, 2006, p. 1102). This highlights the need for organizations to build trust throughout all levels of an organization.
Another type of trust study focused on the role of trust in the post-privatized UK railway industry and showed the existence of a "rule-based" trust (Jeffcott et al. as cited in Conchie et al. 2006, p. 1100). In this environment employees are found capable of working together in high risk work environments, but its taken-for-granted nature has the potential to reduce personal responsibility for safety. This produces over confidence in others' safety, and inhibits the development of an informed culture where employees remain cautious about the risks in their work environment.
Safety Leadership
Being an effective safety leader requires something different than what is required to be a great leader. Great safety leaders generally have a strong emotional commitment to make a difference and require a great deal of empathy and compassion. Being a great safety leader is not just about what a person does, but is very much about who a person is. The interior character of the individual is central to the success of a great safety leader. The development of this kind of leadership requires the teaching and coaching of how to leverage natural strengths while compensating for one's shortcomings. In this context an organization's success in developing a safety culture is contingent on developing great safety leaders.
Another kind of great safety leader is often referred to as a transformational leader. Transformational leaders are often seen as those who can motivate subordinates to achieve key organizational goals. Transformational leaders inspire people by utilizing intellectual stimulation and inspirational motivation. Intellectual stimulation encourages employees to think about safety in new ways. Inspirational leadership encourages employees to look beyond their own self-interest to the best interests of the group. This requires that transformational leaders think beyond their own self-interests and to consider the best interest of the employees. In a study of swimming pool supervisors and their swim instructors results substantiated previous research indicating that there is a positive relationship between safety-specific transformational leadership and safety compliance and participation (Sivanathan, Turner, & Barling, 2005). These results suggest that the message that the managers send to their employees can have significant impacts and that providing transformational leadership training is another viable intervention to improving workplace safety.
Methodology
I conducted a random survey of railroad employees who all worked within one single work location on a large U.S. railroad in September of 2008. There were 30 surveys issued in person by a management trainee who had limited familiarity with the workforce. Of the 30 surveys issued, 27 were fully completed, 2 were partially completed, and one was not filled out at all. The 3 surveys that were not fully completed were excluded from the survey results. The survey used a 4-response force-choice Likert survey that asked respondents to reply to 20 statements that utilized a summated scale to score responses. The scoring system utilized rated the highest positive response as a 54 while the lower the number indicated a more negative response. Of the 27 counted surveys, 20 were issued to transportation department employees while 7 were issued to mechanical department employees. This skewed the results toward transportation department employees. There were only 3 responses from road employees that limited the response from this work group. About one-half the responses came from employees working variable work schedules while most of the rest came from employees who worked the daylight shift. This unintentionally limited the responses from second and third shift employees. The age and experience demographics were well represented. The major shortcoming of the survey is that it is too limited in its geographical and functional representations. The survey needs more responses from road employees and employees from the locomotive and engineering departments. It also needs to include employees from more than one work location and needs more representation from all three shifts.
Findings
The results from the surveys indicated that the employees surveyed were motivated to work safely and that they considered themselves trustworthy to work safely. Employees were less confident about their co-workers concern for safety, or trustworthiness than their own. The survey results gave management almost as high a score as their co-workers when it came to concern for safety in general as well as concern for their personal safety. Employees were not as confident that management could be relied on to issue rules that promoted safe work activity. So while employees in general viewed management's intentions as good they did not see their results as positively as their intentions.
The primary research indicated that while employees generally understood hat manager’s job assessments were linked with their safety results, it also indicated that employees were not particularly concerned how their managers were evaluated. In fact, the primary research showed that employees responded most negatively to the following two statements about employee relationships with their personal managers, “ I am proud of my relationship with my manager,” and, “I care how my manager is evaluated.” Paradoxically, while employee’s responses demonstrated that they were not very concerned about their manager, the survey results showed that the employees thought that their managers were concerned about them.
The survey also measured how often employees had contact with management. It asked employees to respond how many times they had a contact with any railroad manager and how often they had contact with their personal manager. When all respondents were considered they estimated their contact with management to be greater than the employee group who had responded negatively about their relationships with their personal managers. This would suggest that employees with more negative attitudes toward their managers actually have less
contact with their managers, or estimated the amount of contact with their manager to be less that it actually was. At any rate there is a relationship between the amount of contact an employee estimated they had with management and their attitudes toward their manger.
Conclusion
The scope of the primary research was to measure employee's attitudes in the railroad industry toward safety and evaluate how employees felt about management's commitment to safety. Research has consistently indicated the important role that management plays in
implementation of effective safety programs. Historically the railroad industry has viewed management's responsibilities as one of regulator and rules enforcer. The regulatory agencies responsible for overseeing the railroads have reinforced this management style with
their own regulatory and enforcement oversight style. This style of management often results in strained employee relationships. It can result in rule-based safety compliance, but it is not likely to stimulate voluntary commitment. The challenge for the railroad industry is to implement safety programs that are based on more recent organizational behavior research that indicates employees want to be involved in the safety process when they feel respected and
listened to. Most importantly employees need to feel that they will be treated fairly and justly. This requires a new approach by railroad management. It requires a participatory approach that recognizes all employees have a stake in safety and encourages participation by all employees. The best safety programs involve the greatest number of participants.
I suggest that the railroads first address their "just" culture. The discipline systems must move away from blame and punishment to learning and encouragement. Research indicates that trust is absolutely essential in order to have a self reporting system that encourages a learning culture that is essential for a safety culture to exist. To develop this kind of trust requires more than policy changes. It requires a change in the way managers interact with employees. In turn, this requires a change in how upper management interacts with middle management, and how middle management interacts with front-line managers and supervisors. Trust must exist through all levels of an organization.
Organizational behavior research highlights the important role that management plays in safety. It starts with the managers who are closest to the employees. This survey indicates that employees' attitude about their personal managers is an area in need of improvement. This suggests that managers need to be better developed to be "safety leaders." Research has shown that being an effective safety leader is not only about what a manager does but also about what kind of person a manager is. This suggests that "safety leaders" are caring people. Geller suggests caring employees exhibit a positive self - esteem, a sense of belonging, and empowerment (Watson, 2005, p. 307). It is a daunting challenge, but there are interventions that can aid in this development. One possible intervention is to develop management-training programs that afford managers more experience actually performing the tasks done by the employees they manage. This would equip managers to better understand the requirements of employees’ jobs. Another viable intervention would be to develop management-training programs that encourage promotion from within the ranks and afford an opportunity for those selected to promotion to receive college education while working. This would require flexible schedules, and college reimbursement programs, but just as importantly, it would require incentive programs that discouraged promoted employees from returning to their previous positions. Another viable intervention would be greater opportunities for managers to do service learning by participating in community service activities. This would benefit both the community and the company by helping to develop more effective safety leaders.
Recently railroads have made adjustments in their approach to employee safety, but they have not made the kind of change needed to generate trust. While audits and learning are important tools, the railroads still promote a testing culture that emphasizes finding and reporting employee failure. In order to improve trust between employees and managers there must be both greater interaction and more positive interaction. Employee relationships need to change from failure finding to coaching and teaching success. Instead of managers being held accountable for testing exceptions, measure the number of coaching sessions performed or the number of employees coached.
The railroads traditionally measure safety progress by improvement in injury and accident rates. While these kind of measurements are meaningful at the corporate level they fail to recognize and motivate those who work safely. A better measurement system focuses on positive safety achievements like measuring participation levels in safety programs, the number of employees trained, elimination of safety hazards, etc.
The railroads and the FRA have historically been too comfortable assigning responsibility for human caused incidents to only human failure while not sufficiently considering the contribution of the safety culture. If railroads are to continue to make the kind of improvement in safety that they have in the past decade, then their employees will have to be committed to those same goals. This will require voluntary commitment from the employees. This survey’s results show that overall the railroad employees reported positive attitudes towards safety, but it also indicates that there needs to be more progress made in how managers interact with employees. It is clear that employees who responded most negatively about their relationship with their managers also reported they had less contact with management. A simple management intervention would be to increase both the quantity and quality of employee contacts with their managers.
Figure 1: Employee response survey.
Higher scores indicate more positive responses, while lower scores indicate less positive
responses:
Table 1 Frequency of managerial contact by
employees:
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