Differences in occupational health and safety efforts between adopters and non-adopters of certified occupational health and safety management systems

This study compared adopters vs non-adopters of certified occupational health and safety management systems (COHSMSs) using cross-sectional survey data from >4k Danish workplaces.

Five scales for process-related OHS efforts and seven scales for content-related OHS activities was used to score performance.

Process-related OHS efforts are efforts to monitor workplaces and identify hazards and include things like integration of OHSM into other business functions, management commitment, OHS policy, planning and resourcing of OHS, responsibility and accountability, procedures and documentation, risk management and more. [** We can probably call much of this "safety work".]

Content-related OHS efforts include the tangible control measures implemented following hazard identification and risk assessment. This includes “concrete and practical control measures”. [** This is probably more "safety of work".]

The authors provide background on the topic. They note:

·????????Published evidence is inconclusive whether or not implementing a COHSMS improves OHS outcomes in companies.

·????????Some data shows reduced fines and reduced safety violations from the inspectorate and reduced accident rates.?Other data highlights no effect on accident outcomes.

·????????Data is inconsistent whether, systematically, the adoption of a COHSMs results in both better process-related efforts (which would be expected) and better content-related performance.

·????????One study found improved performance of COHSMs from Iranian data but another Spanish study argued that certification may involve a considerable degree of “window dressing”.

On the above, window dressing “implies that companies adopt programmes to appear legitimate in the eyes of customers, regulators, and competitors” and “It has furthermore been argued that such adoption of COHSMSs purely for legitimacy reasons leads to a decoupling of COHSMSs from the central decisions and strategies in the adopting companies … resulting in very small, if any at all, effects on the actual OHS practices in the companies” (p7). [FYI I’ve summarised that Spanish study in the past and have provided the link below.]

Results

Based on this sample it was found that adopters of COHSMSs “have significantly higher scores on 10 of the 12 scales” (p4). Adopters tended to perform particularly well on process-related efforts (managing the system and artefacts), as expected.

However, adopters also tended to perform better for the integration of OHS into business activities which according to the authors indicates “that the certification process helps the workplaces to integrate the OHS efforts into the management system” (p5).

Results indicate that for ten of the twelve subscales (shown below), adopters of COHSMSs performed better than the non-adopters.

Further, adopters scored better on integrating OHS efforts into other business activities and scored higher than non-adopters on “ ‘prioritisation of OHS activities’ (‘commitment’ mechanism) and ‘organisation of OHS’ (‘organisational learning’ mechanism)”.

Adopters were better able to translate policies and procedures into practical OHS efforts according to this data. Moreover, as opposed to other data which found that certified systems struggled with complex phenomena like psychosocial hazards, this data suggests that adopters “give higher priority to psychosocial prevention efforts, as well as more specific efforts aimed at reducing conflicts and bullying in the workplace and efforts to reduce threats and emotional demands at work” (p7).

Interestingly, while most adopters had high performance on both process and content-related OHS efforts, there was a small fraction of low performers in the certification group that “perform as badly as the poorest performers among the non-adopters” (p7).

While the data shouldn’t concretely shed light on the reasons why, the authors provide some thoughts. One reason could be that audit verification systems aren’t always able to identify and remedy all bad performers. Another reason could be the prior idea of window dressing, where “ceremonial reasons” largely drive the adoption of a certified system (i.e. legitimisation in the eyes of customers, regulators and competitors rather than deep and meaningful change and hazard control). This effect can result in a decoupling between process and content efforts.

They note that even considering the methodological limitations of the cross-sectional design of this study, the window dressing explanation doesn’t appear to be a primary factor since most adopters perform considerably better than non-adopters.

Nevertheless, the data does suggest some tendency of decoupling between process and practice in a small number of companies, where there’s a low OHS management effort and making up paperwork replaces tangible prevention efforts.

Thus in a small number of cases, there may be a “decoupling between the certificate and practice in this small group of companies, and an element of window dressing to look legitimate is a likely explanation for a least some of this behaviour” (p8).

Further, against the bureaucratisation argument, this data suggests most adopters perform better in both process and content efforts and thus, bureaucratisation “does generally not seem to be a problem” (p8).?Again, decoupling and bureaucratisation may account for the small percentage of certified poor performers although for the majority it may not be a demonstrable issue.

For the majority of adopters, excessive decoupling and bureaucratisation may not be a major issue but they do add the caveat that “the problem can arise if the adopting company does not possess the capabilities to run a systematic organization to begin with and/or focuses more on signals to external stakeholders than the internal outcomes of the management system” (p8).

Limitations were covered, including the cross-sectional design which means firm conclusions can’t be drawn on the direction of causality between performance and adoption of certified systems.

Link in comments.

Authors: Madsen, C. U., Thorsen, S. V., Hasle, P., Laursen, L. L., & Dyreborg, J. (2022). Safety Science, 152, 105794.