Occupational injury risk in a blue collar, small business industry: Implications for prevention

Conflicting perceptions of risk in OHS generate barriers to occupational injury prevention. Occupational injury prevention strategies that fail to address workplace risk perceptions are likely to be ineffective. In this study, we ask whether employers' and employees' have conflicting risk perceptions that may produce barriers to injury prevention in workplaces and we explore underlying understandings of risk in OHS that produce conflicting risk judgements. A novel research methodology was utilised to compare and contrast risk judgements of employers and employees in a blue collar, small business industry. Participants were asked to rate ten OHS risks and the risk rating scores of the two groups were compared. They were also asked to explain their risk judgements and their responses were contrasted by a method of qualitative data analysis. Significant differences between the risk rating scores of employers and employees were found for four OHS risks. The focus of conflicting risk judgements was a distinction between risks with an immediate injury effect and those with a delayed disease effect. Employers tended to rate the former significantly higher than employees. Employees tended to rate the latter significantly higher than employers. Three themes emerged to explain underlying understandings of risk in OHS that produce conflicting risk judgements. Implications of these understandings for occupational injury prevention strategies in an Australian blue collar, small business industry are explored and a new approach is proposed.