The analysis of the factors that affect occupational safety climate in terms of employee and employer: A sample of construction sector

Preventing work-related accidents and ensuring employees being well physically, mentally and socially are related to ensuring occupational safety in the workplace. In order to prevent occupational accidents, it is necessary to determine how the employees perceive the safety climate in the organization and the employers' approach to safety and the factors that affected them are. Within the scope of this study, the factors affecting the occupational safety climate in terms of workers and employers working in the construction sector were tried to be put forward by using a mixed method. In the quantitative research, which is the first stage of the mixed method, survey method has been applied to the workers working in the construction sector in Aydın. According to the results no significiant difference was found between safety climate and marital status, education and age variables. On the other hand, a meaningful difference was found between safety climate and term of office, working positions of the employees, working in shifts, whether having a work accident, the number of people in the place of work and the working status of the employees. After determining the factors affecting the safety climate for the workers via quantitative research, the qualitative part of the study was completed by interviewing the employers with semi-structured questionnaires in order to reveal the reasons of these factors from the employer perspective. As a result of interviews with employers, it was found that the size of the organization, the level of education of the workers, the situation of whether having an occupational accident, the supervision by the authorized people affect the perceptions of the workers about the safety climate. The study was concluded by emphasizing the necessity of creating a positive security culture in the light of the findings obtained from the employees and employers, and by presenting the tasks and suggestions of different actors in this respect.