Safety culture in focus: comparing employee perceptions across small and medium-sized manufacturing SMEs in South Africa

Despite progressive occupational health and safety (OHS) laws, South Africa experiences high work-place injury rates, particularly in the manufacturing sector. Compliance with health and safety standards is notably poor among small and medium manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) due to limited time and financial resources, a problem exacerbated in resource-constrained small-size manufacturing enterprises. Understanding employees’ perspectives on safety culture factors is essential to promoting a stronger safety culture within South African-based manufacturing SMEs. Therefore, this study sought to measure South African-based manufacturing SME employees’ perceptions of safety culture factors and to determine whether small-sized and medium-sized manufacturing enterprise employees differ concerning their perceptions of these safety culture factors. Data were collected from 487 South African-based manufacturing SME employees. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, reliability assessment and an independent samples t-test. Results indicate that employees’ perceptions of safety culture factors at their workplace are generally favourable. However, employees in small-sized manufacturing enterprises reported significantly less favourable perceptions of management commitment to safety, safety training, compliance and safety policies than those in medium-sized manufacturing enterprises. Improving safety culture in small-sized manufacturing enterprises requires enhancing management commitment, communication with feedback, as well as implementing cost-effective training, safety incentives and clear policies, and improving safety compliance. Strengthening these safety culture areas within small-sized manufacturing enterprises can improve safety performance, even with resource constraints.