Work relations ship with safety climate: An example of municipality

Problems of municipal employees regarding job security and the work they do to the point that it may be possible to reduce it by improving the perception of security climate, the municipal employees who are within the scope of the research, said, it is aimed to determine whether there is a relationship between the security climate perceptions and practices and the decent work of employees and the framework of this relationship. In the first part of the research, the generally accepted concepts related to the subject were evaluated, in the second part, the safety climate and decent work relationship, and in the third part, the results of some analyses regarding the OSH culture, safety climate, suitable work for the employee, in other words, decent work, of the employees in a municipality, which is a local government unit, were evaluated. The research was conducted on 520 municipal employees in a municipality unit, without making any distinction between legal status such as worker, civil servant, etc., and the surveys taken from 500 people were evaluated. The surveys taken from 20 people were not evaluated because they did not meet the necessary compliance and the data are stored. After the preliminary information was provided to the research management staff and employees and the necessary permissions were obtained, the safety climate and decent work scale survey form was distributed to the municipality personnel one by one and the relevant survey was filled out. Each of the subscales of the safety climate and decent work scale survey is connected to each other in a way that it forms a whole and has found a positive and meaningful application area within the conceptual framework. The factors revealed by the values of the employees regarding the concept of job safety climate and decent work; age, gender, educational status, duty at the workplace, whether near-miss incidents have occurred or not, working hours at the workplace, the unit to which the job is performed, the unit worked, work accident history were found to be related as a result of the analyses between them. Adopting a safety culture and establishing a positive safety climate among municipal employees plays a significant role in reducing the risk of workplace accidents. When employees apply safe working methods, it directly reduces workplace-related risks, and it is observed that accidents are more often caused by environmental factors. Transforming the safety climate from merely a policy to a culture enhances employees' trust in the workplace and encourages safe behaviors. In this regard, the sensitivity of managers to safety issues and their role as role models for employees is of critical importance. To increase the effectiveness of occupational safety activities, active participation of both managers and employees in the process, regular safety training, conducting root cause analyses of workplace accidents, and sharing the results with employees are essential. The analyses conducted within the scope of this study reveal a positive and significant relationship between safety climate and decent work. This finding indicates that a positive safety climate in the workplace is associated with employees having more humane and appropriate working conditions. Additionally, the study examined the relationships between employees' demographic characteristics and their perceptions of the safety climate. There was no statistically significant difference found between age, gender, marital status, education level, tenure, job title, and work unit with regard to safety climate perception. Moreover, it was observed that the occurrence of work accidents and near-miss incidents had no significant effect on safety climate perceptions. These results suggest that safety climate perceptions are shaped more by organizational approaches rather than individual experiences. As a result of the results obtained within the framework of the study, it shows that the safety climate is very important in creating a healthy and safe working environment. In line with these results, it can be said that the establishment of a positive safety climate in the municipality will positively affect the humane work relationship of the employees and can reduce work accidents and increase productivity.