The influence of employees’ competency on safety behavior

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of competency among the employees working in the petrochemical industry on their safety behavior while performing the jobs at the workplace. Problem: Safety intervention programs currently practice by many organizations fails to address safety issues and thus fail to minimize the number of accidents and injuries. Past research shows human behavior is the major contributor to occupational safety incidents, however, serious studies on human behavior in relation to safety behavior were not given much attention as much as the urgency to prevent injuries at the workplace. Practical/managerial implication: This paper provides a new approach to promote safety behavior by focusing on employees’ competency as a change agent to minimize injuries at the workplace. Scope / limitation: The scope of this paper is confined to the employees’ competency and thus the discussion is limited to this variable only in relationship to individual safety behavior. Results: The result shows strong correlation that employees’ competency is paramount to the success of the industries in term of productivity and avoiding injuries at workplace. A competent worker who has knowledge, skill, ability, and clear motive is a valuable asset for the company but more importantly working safely is the ultimate goal of a safe worker. Conclusion: Competency is a powerful tool to influence safety behavior among employees. This can be achieved either by employing safe workers or engaging employees to attend aggressive competency training while providing constant feedback on their safety performance.