| Abstract: | The purpose of the study was to assess practical implementation of safety
culture in Dire Tannery PLC beginning from September 2007 to March
2012. Although the concept of safety culture has continued to attract more
attention in the field of organizational management, the practical
implementation of safety culture in different business firms in various
contexts remains unsystematic, sporadic, fragmented and underspecified.
In any organizations, safety management system has to be in place to
provide healthy and safe working environment for employees in line with
acceptable indicators for organizational safety culture. In specific terms,
the study aimed to examine Dire Tannery Factory’s practical safety
culture design and implementation; to identify causes of workplace
accidents and injuries or illnesses in the Company; to investigate the
major types of accidents and injuries; and to explore types of
compensation package provided for injured employees in the Tannery
.This study also used descriptive sample survey, semi-structured
interviews and formal interviews using structured questionnaire,
interview guide in order to collect quantitative and qualitative data from a
sample of 120 respondents and about ten informants. The sample was
selected and drawn from 450 target population through multi-stage
stratified simple random sampling. The quantitative data were analyzed
using descriptive statistical techniques, while the qualitative data were
analyzed using content analysis. The employees were found to work in
occupational hazardous environment which emanated from the nature of
work and then resulted in body injuries and other types of illnesses. In the
Factory, there was low level and weak Safety Culture Policy which was
sometimes implemented. However, it was not properly communicated to
the employees and even they were not aware of its presence. There was
also provision of medical cost compensation for those injured employees.
It can therefore be concluded that there is poor practical implementation
of Safety Culture Policy in the Company. Finally, it is recommended that
Dire Tannery should carefully design based on internationally acceptable
standards and properly implement Comprehensive Safety Culture in all
Departments |
