Assessment of workplace safety climate among power sector employees: A comparative study of cross-culture employer in Pakistan

Abstract

Pakistan’s power sector has undergone extensive reforms to improve its technical and monetary performance over the last two decades. However, despite its fast-growing and hazardous nature, safety research remains limited in this context. This study aims to address this gap by assessing the level of safety climate in the power sector and comparing the safety climate in plants operated by multinational companies (MNCs) and local companies (LCs).To this end, five power plants operating in the southern part of the Punjab region (in Pakistan) were included in this study. The Nordic Occupational Safety Climate Questionnaire (NOSACQ-50), an analytical tool comprising of 50 items across seven dimensions, was used to determine the level of safety climate. An independent T-Test was then applied to compare the means in two different setups to draw a conclusion about overall safety climate differences. In MNCs, overall management/leadership perception improved; however, workers in both setups responded similarly in many cases. The lowest observed score in both setups was related to worker’s prioritization of safety and risk non-acceptance. The study highlights the importance of a company’s policies, procedures, and leadership commitments in creating a stronger safety climate by instilling trust in workers. The study further demonstrates that cross-cultural and strong policies devised by multinational companies help to improve the overall safety climate andconcludes that promoting an efficient and positive safety climate in the power sector is a long journey and that can only be achieved if all workers and leaders take on an active role.