ASSESSMENT OF PRACTICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF SAFETY CULTURE IN DIRE TANNERY

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