Essay Title - Attitude Change Safety
Introduction
This report has been written to recommend methods of how “Attitude Change” in relation to Health and Safety within the work place can be achieved. The report has been complied for the National Safety Authority (NSA).
An attitude is a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour.
Health & Safety can be described as preventing people from being harmed by work or becoming ill by taking the right precautions – and providing a satisfactory working environment.
The report is designed to identify areas of attitude which directly contribute to accidents and injuries within the working environment. Within the study we will be looking at three main areas of industry, Construction, Manufacturing & Agriculture, in all cases the injury rates are high.
The report will focus on specific areas that directly affect the health and safety of workers in these industries, in all cases a common link will be sited for the failure in the health and safety policies of these organizations. Explicated examples and recommendations will be given throughout the study to highlight previous examples of attitude which contribute to accidents in the work place and were attitude can be adjusted to decrease injuries and accidents occurring.
Various models and theories will be discussed in the recommendations; these can be used to achieve attitude change in relation to H&S in the work environment.
The study into the attitude change is of the highest importance, in recent years the number of industrial accidents and related injuries within the working environment has been increasing. (See figure 1.1 in appendices)
The study has been authorized by the NSA through a joint collaboration with the ITT Tallaght Business Management 2nd year students; a group of six students have taken part all participants are sited on title page.
Various methods have been used to gather the information for the document, interviews with shop stewards and safety representatives were conducted and book studies have been carried out into the psychology of attitudes. Findings
Construction
This section of the report will look at the Construction Industry; an interview was carried out on Shane Casey and Ronan Walsh, two employees from Roadstone Dublin Ltd.
Shane & Ronan were asked a number of questions and their answers are recorded below.
While interviewing Shane and Ronan who are involved in construction, we have identified the following phrases which do reflect the problematic attitudes within the sector:
“We have always done it this way and no one has ever been hurt”
These tend to be the words said by people who have been in the industry for a long time. Certain building/constructing processes are part of their everyday life which become a tradition, culture and get embedded in people’s minds and memories.
“The Health & Safety Authority do not require that”
This revealed the person’s intention to rationalise and explain his/her actions as being compliant. Even if it is plausible for workers to adhere to the rules & regulations, it should be noted that not everything can be covered by it.
“I don’t like wearing glasses/gloves/helmet; it is uncomfortable and slows me down”
This was probably the most common comment we came across. Construction workers weigh up the cost of being uncomfortable and reduced productivity when wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) against the benefits. In this sector people do tend to underestimate the risks they are personally exposed to.
Although our research was rather limited, we did discover that education level of workers in the construction industry plays a major role on their attitudes towards H&S.
The construction sector is the main employer for multinationals. While observing different cultures within the industry we have learned that most immigrants are becoming more aware of the environment and are adapting to it, though some negative attitudes brought in from different cultures are still present.
Agriculture
Using the agriculture industry as an example as this is the second highest sector to construction where fatal injuries occur.
You might think farms are peaceful; actually, farming is one of the most dangerous jobs in Ireland today.
The high level of Health and Safety accidents on Irish farms indicates that many farmers have opted for “Risk Taking” rather than “Accident prevention”. Some of the reasons why this rate is so high are:
- Farmers operate dangerous equipment
- Labour is scarce, so tasks are done alone
- Weather conditions
- Variation of tasks within a day which are rushed and shortcuts are taken
- Chemicals
- Live stock and diseases can lead to injuries
Along with new farming technologies and techniques new laws and guidelines come with them. All this takes a considerable toll on the individual farmer as all the normal work must still be done. The farmer is faced with balancing the safety needs of the home and farm while providing an adequate income.
This is where spending on safety equipment has the tendency to be neglected. The cost of prevention is insignificant compared to the overwhelming economic, social & emotional costs of an accident.
Key Health and Safety issues to be addressed in the Agricultural industry are:
- A deep-seated culture of risk-taking in the industry
- Farmers are resistant to official procedures and feel that the industry is unduly burdened by regulation and red tape
- Health and Safety is not regarded as an integral part of good farm business management.
Manufacturing Industry
GE Security Dublin has over 300 employees at their site in Citywest, Co. Dublin. 160 employees are involved in a team that promotes Safety at work.
When a new employee arrives at the Dublin site for work they are handed their Personal Protective equipment and are then brought for induction training which consists of everything that the employee needs to know about how to keep safe at the site.
The health and safety policies are communicated early in the employee’s career to encourage involvement and ownership of health and safety. This is all to change the work culture and provide a safer environment for all employees. There are good communications of all aspects of Health and Safety through their weekly communications. Some of the topics that get covered in these talks are as follows, Chemical Safety, Fire evacuation, First Aid and Accident Reporting
They encourage the reporting of all accidents and incidents and make the employee feel heard by recording all near misses and first aid /accidents onto power suite. This helps to monitor trends and reduce the risk of reoccurrence. Minor incidents are investigated by line management and more serious accidents are investigated by the investigation team. All serious accidents are communicated to employees throughout the organization.
They have linked EHS into the employee’s yearly appraisal with employees being scored on how they have performed during the year in relation to health and safety. This looks into the employee’s attitude to the health and safety procedures and how they comply with them.
Recommendations
Attitude Change
There are four theories of attitude change:
- Self-perception theory ( Attribution Theory)
- Dissonance theory
- Balance theory
- Involvement ( Social judgement) theory
- To produce change it is useful to employ just enough pressure to induce people to take action or make an explicit decision but not enough to provide them with justification for making that decision. With insufficient justification from outside, private attitudes change in order to psychologically justify what has to be done.
- Dissonance occurs when two or more beliefs we have are in conflict – this is psychologically uncomfortable and we will act to reduce it by changing the element least resistant to change. If however the person is locked into the position. E.g. Poverty then it will be the attitude that changes.
Dissonance occurs when two or more beliefs we have are in Conflict, High dissonance and attitude change is more likely to be brought about by personal interaction and word of mouth than by formal presentations and advertising It is more likely if incentives are lower, when personal responsibility is higher and when the action turns out badly
- An attitude towards a person can alter the attitude towards their actions and vice versa The attitude towards the person and the event must remain balanced otherwise the attitudes are dissimilar and produce tension which will be resolved by changing the attitude towards either the event or the person to restore the balance.
- A person who is highly involved in a situation is likely to accept only very few possibilities and reject most of them, they distort messages about the situation which are outside their normal latitude of acceptance. The further the message is from their latitude of acceptance the more likely it is to be distorted
Affecting Attitude Change
Attitudes have three components and attitude change will need a change in one or more of them
- Beliefs (Change in beliefs needs argument or information based persuasion)
- Affects (Change in this needs an emotional appeal)
- Action tendencies?
Attitudes are formed along three dimensions
- Centrality
- Consistency
- Intensity
If the attitude is high in all of these it will be very hard to change, it will require a persuader who is highly credible in recognised expertise and is not seen as trying to influence. Influencing (May be ethical or unethical) Direct influencing is convincing others to accept ideas or advice and modify their behaviour or beliefs without using power – where power is the ability to control their outcomes Indirect influencing is changing a persons beliefs in ways that are only secondary to the content of the message, they receive Persuading therefore does not depend on having the power to reward or punish or the authority over the person
The characteristics of persuasive messages are
- Comprehensive ( i.e. message full content & explanation)
- No clear link between number of messages & effectiveness
- Repetition beyond 4. repeat is negative – (Boredom)
- Receivers respond by evaluating centrally or heuristically (learning through Investigation) temporary increate
- Guilt makes people respond more readily
- Persuaders should list both sides of the argument (one vs. Two Sided argument) temporary increate
- Short quotations (exemplars) from interested people
- Framing the issue in Health & Safety or Legal etc (safety statement) temporary increate
Gaining Commitment
- Commitment to relationships that express their own goals
- Match the targets beliefs values, and identity to the influence object.
- Extent of public support they have given
- Amount of influence’s investment
- How responsible the individual feels personally for the situation
- Degree of match to the influence’s beliefs & goals
- Amount of adversity involved to maintain the commitment
Gaining Compliance Strategies
To enforce an obligation: Explaining reasons, persisting despite, resistance exerting strong pressure, & persisting despite resistance, Influencer’s perception of targets ethics can promote use of altruistic (For the good of) arguments
- Influencers power (Managers use of punishment Vs altruism or reasoning)
- Influencers culture (Use of punishment, authority, moral pressure/ modelling)
- Influencer’s ethics (can promote use of pro-social strategies)
Gaining compliance is convincing others to do what is asked Compliance gaining strategies are influenced by: the influencer’s goals, power, culture and ethical beliefs
High power managers tend to use punishment strategies Low power managers tend to use altruism or rationale basis, the higher the pressure on the target person the more they will comply outwardly, the higher it is on the group the more cohesive they will be
Holding Compliance
Compliance in behaviour alone does not last long – perhaps only as long as the person is being watched. Strong pressure may only cause reactance – the target may feel the influencer has exceeded their rights. Warm supportive methods by the influencer to the target, ensures compliance and the perception of a competent boss. Influence only lasts when the attitude is also changed
Adopting Innovations
Adapting to the new (innovations) the person goes through 4 and possibly 5 stages:
- Knowledge ( awareness/understanding of innovation)
- Persuasion ( forming favourable attitudes towards it )
- Decision ( choosing to try the innovation)
- Adoption ( taking it into regular/normal behaviour)
- Confirmation (seek reinforcement of adoption decision)
Within adoption –“new ideas” have 5 characteristics which make people more likely to adopt them:
- Relative advantage ( benefit themselves/others – more easily persuaded)
- Compatibility (Less disruption – more favourable attitude towards it)
- Complexity (Simple ideas are more favourably received)
- Trial - ability (people are risk averse they prefer low risk small trials)
- Observe-ability (If visible, people want to try it to be seen as innovative
Reward
Since the influence of someone who is liked is greater than someone who has the power to reward or punish. The personal characteristics of liking someone may be Sincerity, competence, intelligence, energy, attractiveness Careful because a small gain or loss of reward has more effect on attraction than a constant level – removing a small part of the reward will have disproportion negative effects to what is removed.
Networking
Networks continuously cultivate their influence targets
- Commitment to relationships that express their own goals
- Match the targets beliefs values, and identity to the influence object.
- Extent of public support they have given
- Amount of influence’s investment
- How responsible the individual feels personally for the situation
- Degree of match to the influence’s beliefs & goals
- Amount of adversity involved to maintain the commitment
Conclusion
The above document pays credence too many forms of safety and how it’s implemented within the different organizations, from the four areas looked at, only the GE plant pays enough emphases on what a health and safety is about.
The farming industry is a self regulated industry with few employees working on many farms and in most cases in Ireland are small family businesses with land holdings of less than 200 acres, the experience and the culture on these farms would be generational father to son, sons learning the trade from the farther and safety is of minimal importance if understood at all.
The construction industry has gone through many changes over the years since the bad old days of the 1980s Ireland is a more prosperous place and attracts many foreign workers with differing views on safety and all have a unique cultural experience to add, the HSA made it mandatory for workers in this industry to attend a safe pass course before employment can be had in this industry.
Appendices
Figure 1.1 – Fatal Injuries by economic sector
Economic Sector |
2002 |
2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
2006 |
2007 |
A - Agriculture, hunting and forestry |
14 |
20 |
13 |
18 |
18 |
10 |
B - Fishing |
3 |
0 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
9 |
C - Mining and quarrying |
3 |
1 |
0 |
6 |
2 |
2 |
D - Manufacturing |
7 |
7 |
3 |
7 |
4 |
4 |
E - Electricity / gas / water |
1 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
F - Construction |
21 |
20 |
16 |
23 |
12 |
15 |
G - Wholesale/retail trade; repair of goods |
1 |
4 |
4 |
8 |
3 |
1 |
H - Hotels and restaurants |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
I - Transport, storage and communication |
7 |
9 |
6 |
5 |
4 |
9 |
J - Financial intermediation |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
K – Real estate, renting, business |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
L - Public Admin / Defence |
3 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
1 |
4 |
M - Education |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
N - Health / social work |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
O - Other community, social and personal services |
1 |
4 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
Total |
61 |
68 |
50 |
74 |
50 |
59 |
