Psychosocial Safety Climate and Occupational Health

Abstract

Psychosocial safety climate (PSC) is a facet-specific organizational climate that relates to employee psychological safety and health. Since the proposal of PSC over 10 years ago, PSC has received significant attention from researchers interested in the effect of the meso-level organizational context and its relationship with occupational health and safety. The theory of PSC is an emergent phenomenon which proposes that organizations differ in terms of their prioritization of psychological aspects of individual's well-being over productivity imperatives. Empirical evidence relating to PSC theory has largely supported the notion that PSC is a lead indicator of workplace psychological health and safety, largely through its influence on the job design and socio-relational aspects of the work environment. To date, more than 62 research outputs, including books, journal articles, book chapters, and industry reports, have been published in relation to PSC theory and its negative relationship with occupational health issues using qualitative, quantitative, and meta-analytic research designs. However despite substantial evidence outlining the preeminent role of PSC as a predictor of psychosocial workplace factors, several questions remain to be answered. This chapter summarizes the propositions of PSC theory and empirical evidence relating to PSC to date. It provides an overview about what is known in the PSC literature and suggests further areas for exploration to expand on our understanding of the influence of meso-level PSC measured at the organizational and group level as a cause of the workplace conditions that affect workplace psychological health.

Benchmarks for Evidence-Based Risk Assessment with the Swedish Version of the 4-Item Psychosocial Safety Climate Scale

“…Thus, a parsimonious version of the scale, PSC-4, has been introduced, consisting of one item from each of the theoretically based four domains described above [9,25]. The results using three time-lagged Australian samples demonstrated satisfactory predictive validity and reliability of the PSC-4 [25], but more studies in different organizational and cultural contexts are needed for further empirical testing of the ultrashort measure [10].…”

“…The PSC manifests the true priorities of an organization and emphasizes the senior management’s commitment and priority given to employees’ psychological well-being and security [ 9 ]. Thus, in organizations with high PSC, the managers give a higher priority to work conditions that protect and enhance employee psychological health instead of solely focusing on productivity [ 10 ]. According to the theory, PSC is regarded as an upstream organizational factor predicting work-related psychosocial risks, e.g., demands and resources [ 9 ], and is therefore referred to as the “cause of the causes” of work stress [ 11 , 12 ].…”

“…This implies that, instead of focusing on individual causes (“blaming the victim”), the provisions specifically clarify the obligations of employers to systematically evaluate and address problematic issues in the work environment in an active dialogue with both the employees and the health and safety representatives. Thus, the Swedish provisions are in line with the theory of PSC, which similarly focuses on the responsibility of organizations and senior managements (rather than of the individual employees) to prevent stress at work by designing psychologically safe workplaces [ 10 ].…”

Reducing Psychosocial Risk Factors and Improving Employee Well-Being in Emergency Departments: A Realist Evaluation

“…PSC concerns an organizational climate referring to prioritization and commitment of all parties within the organization ((top) management, employees, health and safety representatives) to employee well-being (Dollard et al, 2012). Although, up till now, the effects of climate factors on the success of intervention projects has received little research attention, a more favorable PSC has been related to better job factors and employee wellbeing (Loh et al, 2020). Furthermore, in a pilot study by Dollard (2012) regarding a participative intervention, it was found that in teams with a more favorable PSC, employees attended more workshop sessions, rated the quality of these workshops higher (e.g., ability to discuss issues openly, ability to determine actions to address stress factors) and indicated more progress in the intervention project (e.g., "to what extent are actions from your workgroup action plans being addressed").…”

Psychosocial safety climate as a predictor of work engagement, creativity, innovation, and work performance: A case study of software engineers

“…We aim to contribute to the literature in three ways. First, we extend the PSC theoretical framework (Dollard and Bakker, 2010 ; Zadow and Dollard, 2016 ; Zadow et al, 2019 ; Loh et al, 2020 ; Dollard and Bailey, 2021 ) to examine the impact of a psychologically healthy work climate (i.e., high PSC) on workplace creativity and innovation. An extensive review has highlighted the role of contextual individual psychosocial work design factors such as job control, coworker support, customer trust, and positive leadership in promoting employees' innovation and creativity (Brattström et al, 2012 ; Zhou and Hoever, 2014 , 2022 ).…”