It's safe to say? The development, implementation and measurement of a multi-faceted intervention to improve safety voice behaviours amongst shop floor workers in aircraft manufacture

Organisational learning is vital for improving safety performance. In order to continually enhance their arrangements for safe working, organisations must capture, analyse and act upon information regarding the adequacy and effectiveness of their existing risk control measures. One vital source of information in this regard is employee safety voice, which has been defined as “as any individual communication directed at improving safety conditions.” However, research suggests that under-reporting of safety concerns is common.

This mixed methods study aimed to a) explore the factors which influenced safety voice behaviours amongst shop floor employees in a large aircraft manufacturing organisation; and b) to measure the impact of a multi-faceted intervention that was designed using the Behaviour Change Wheel to increase employees’ willingness to express their safety voice. The study involved pre-intervention interviews and a survey that informed the design of the intervention and post-intervention interviews to evaluate the learning and impact from it.

Taken together, the findings of this research suggest that safety voice is a complex behaviour shaped by a range of individual, group, organisational and hazard factors. In particular, the study identified the importance of supervisors in facilitating safety voice and the presence of perceived in-groups and out-groups which shaped employees’ safety voice behaviours and the strategies used to express it. The intervention found that providing physical opportunities to facilitate safety voice and supervisor feedback were important elements in improving safety voice. The implications for wider industry are discussed in the context of social theory. Recommendations for future research include taking a systems approach to understanding behaviours within complex social structures.