Safety climate in university laboratories. Part I: model development and practical application

Safety climate assessment has become a regular practice for most organisations. However, it is often limited to questionnaires, providing only qualitative information. The indicator-based approach takes precedence over decision-making, and practical risk assessment tools are often quantitative. This paper not only proposes a model for the calculation of a single safety climate factor, but also suggests a practical application of the proposed method and its integration into a safety management tool for university laboratories. An exploratory and a confirmatory factor analysis were performed on the results of the survey of 993 respondents from different universities. The relative weights of the variables in the final 3-factor safety climate model were obtained. The method of calculating the safety climate factors was tested in the university and demonstrated its convenience for university laboratories. The results indicate that factors as complex as safety climate should be studied and treated as a blend of individual and group values. This method makes it possible to include a complex safety climate factor in the risk assessment by using a control banding approach for its evaluation.