Supervisor vs. employee safety perceptions and association with future injury in US limited-service restaurant workers

Objectives: Many studies have found management commitment to safety to be an important construct of safety climate. This study examined the association between supervisor and employee (shared and individual) perceptions of management commitment to safety and the rate of future injuries in limited-service restaurant workers.

Methods: A total of 453 participants (34 supervisors/managers and 419 employees) from 34 limited-service restaurants participated in a prospective cohort study. Employees' and managers' perceptions of management commitment to safety and demographic variables were collected at the baseline. The survey questions were made available in three languages: English, Spanish, and Portuguese. For the following 12 weeks, participants reported their injury experience and weekly work hours. A multivariate negative binomial generalized estimating equation model with compound symmetry covariance structure was used to assess the association between the rate of self-reported injuries and measures of safety perceptions.

Results: There were no significant relationships between supervisor and either individual or shared employee perceptions of management commitment to safety. Only individual employee perceptions were significantly associated with future employee injury experience but not supervisor safety perceptions or shared employee perceptions.

Conclusion: Individual employee perception of management commitment to safety is a significant predictor for future injuries in restaurant environments. A study focusing on employee perceptions would be more predictive of injury outcomes than supervisor/manager perceptions.