Safety climate of Canadian electrical contractors

This study was conducted within the electrical high voltage contracting industry in Ontario, Canada to investigate any correlations that might exist between the safety climate of workers and injury experience and goal setting. Contracting members were randomly selected, and a quantitative survey based on Dov Zohar's 2000 Safety Climate Scales was conducted with 564 surveys returned from 26 companies. Safety climate was not found to be correlated to self-reports of injury nor to WSIB lost-time or no-lost-time injury statistics. Conversely safety climate was strongly and positively correlated with organizations setting safety goals (0.59 p=.002) and in particular very strongly correlated when setting a goal of zero injuries (0.74 p=.000). Organizations setting safety goals was very strongly correlated to setting a goal of zero (0.76 p=.000), and moderately and inversely correlated to self-reports of injury (-0.47 p=.014). It was concluded that there are strong correlations between setting safety goals and setting a goal of zero and firms in Ontario's electrical contracting industry are recommended to establish safety goals.