Identifying key safety climate factors influencing construction workers in Hong Kong

Abstract

Safety climate is often being studied in the construction industry and different safety climate scales have been used for investigation. The current Hong Kong construction industry is facing the issues of an ageing workforce and labour shortage. Hence, ethnic minority workers are hired to fill in these gaps. This study compares the similarities and differences between local Cantonese workers and workers of other ethnicities on safety climate and its impacts on workers’ risk- taking behaviours. A mixed-method approach was adopted. Firstly, questionnaire surveys were conducted and obtained 445 valid surveys from Cantonese, Nepalese and Filipino workers from two large contractors, Company A and Company B. These data were used for factor analysis, correlation analysis, and hierarchical regression modelling. Subsequently, 70 semi-structured interviews were conducted for exploring the risk-taking behaviours of workers from different ethnicities. Three safety climate factors were significantly identified from factor analysis, including supervisor’s poor safety leadership, inappropriate safety procedures, and limited communication. The survey results indicate that Cantonese workers’ scores are significantly and positively higher in supervisor’s safety leadership and appropriate safety procedures in general. Cantonese workers were also found to exercise significantly lesser risk-taking behaviours. However, it is interesting to find from the personal interviews that Cantonese workers have a higher acceptance level towards risk-taking behaviours as part of their norms at work. Nepalese and Filipino workers reported that they participated in risk-taking behaviours frequently even though they were unwilling to do so. The influence of supervisors’ safety leadership on risk-taking behaviours was found to be significantly moderated by ethnicity in Company B. Supervisor’s safety leadership was significantly associated with risk-taking behaviours of Nepalese and Filipino workers, but not with Cantonese workers. It showed that ethnic minority workers are mostly willing to comply with their supervisor’s orders than Cantonese workers (Loosemore & Lee 2002). The impact of safety procedures on workers' risk-taking behaviours was also found to be significantly moderated by the ethnicity of workers in Company A. This, to a certain extent, echoed the findings from a number of previous studies that Cantonese workers were more likely to avoid safety rules when there was a mismatch with the actual site safety practices (Ju and Rowlinson 2014). In comparison, Nepalese and Filipino workers were more willing to follow the safety rules (Cigularov et al., 2013). The influence of communication on risk-taking behaviours was found to be significantly moderated by ethnicity in Company B. It was further supported by the interview findings that Nepalese and Filipino workers suffered from communication barriers with their supervisor and their Cantonese co-workers. In sum, the study found that different ethnic groups of workers have different perceptions of safety climate and risk-taking behaviours. A thorough understanding of the similarities and differences between local Cantonese and ethnic minority workers’ safety climate and risk-taking behaviours is useful in developing an appropriate safety management system for an organization with a unique composition of workers of different ethnicities. Based on the findings, recommendations on organizational safety policies, procedures and work practices are made.