Linking safety climate perception to types of behavior.

BACKGROUND: Certain behavior types can drive the emergence of an unsafe act at the workplace which may be reflected by workers' perceptions toward safety climate.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between workers' safety climate perceptions (NOSACQ-50 questionnaire) and their behavior types (based on DISC personality traits: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness).

METHODS: NOSACQ-50 and DISC assessment questionnaires were distributed on employees of four different companies (N = 755) working at hazardous workplaces in different occupational fields: fertilizer, coal mining, and oil & gas.

RESULTS: Four of the 48 correlation coefficients were statistically significant in which the strongest correlation was found between safety commitment and Influence (I) trait in public self (r = -0.119, p < 0.01). There were two groups of DISC's profile that have a lower perception toward safety climate. The first group was indicated by high scores on Influence (I) trait in public self (17.2% of respondents), and the latter was characterized by low scores on Dominance (D) trait and high scores on Conscientiousness (C) trait in private self (2.8% of respondents).

CONCLUSIONS: Lower perception toward safety climate was found to be correlated with two groups of DISC's profile. Workers characterized with these two profiles are considered to have priority needs for training or to be assigned to less a hazardous workplace.