Agreement of Safety Climate: Does it Affect Employees' and Managers' Health and Work Performance?

Abstract

To investigate whether agreement and disagreement between teams and their managers on safety climate relates to their health and work performance. Questionnaire ratings of 47 managers and 211 employees on safety climate and self-rated health, stress, work ability, and work performance were analyzed using polynomial regression with response surface analyses. Teams' stress was lower when there was agreement between the team and the manager on safety climate, and their work performance was lower when the manager rated safety climate higher than the team did. Managers' health, but not their work performance, was higher for managers who were in agreement with their teams. Agreement between managers and teams on safety climate was related to both employee and manager health outcomes. Disagreement (managers' ratings higher than teams') was negatively related to employee work performance.