Employees’ awareness, perceptions and participation in occupational safety services at Manyara Sugar Company, Tanzania: A cross-sectional survey

Resumo

Occupational safety services protect workers only when employees know about them, value them and take part in them. This study assessed employees’ awareness of, perceptions of and participation in occupational safety services at Manyara Sugar Company, and identified the factors associated with participation and the challenges that limit it. Guided by the Theory of Planned Behaviour and complemented by institutional theory, the study used a cross-sectional survey of 120 employees selected from different departments and job positions by stratified and simple random sampling. Data were collected with a structured questionnaire and analysed using descriptive statistics, the Relative Importance Index (RII), chi-square tests and multiple linear regression. Employees rated their understanding of the proper use of personal protective equipment (PPE) highest (RII = 0.817), followed by understanding of occupational hazards (RII = 0.793) and safety procedures (RII = 0.790). They were least sure of where to obtain safety information (RII = 0.721). Perceptions were positive, with the importance of the services in protecting employees rated highest (RII = 0.840), but only 62.5% agreed that PPE was adequate. High participation was most common in following safety procedures (63.3%), using PPE (60.0%) and attending training (50.0%), and least common in workplace safety inspections (31.7%) and suggesting improvements (33.3%). In the regression model, safety training, management commitment, safety knowledge and awareness, PPE availability, safety communication, safety supervision and employee involvement in safety decisions were each positively associated with participation, although verification of several regression statistics is still in progress (Section 4.2). The main challenges reported were inadequate PPE (79.2% agreement), infrequent training (76.7%), heavy workload (74.2%) and poor communication (73.3%). The study concludes that employees comply with established safety requirements more readily than they take part in activities that call for initiative, and that the barriers are mainly organisational. The company is advised to improve PPE supply, increase the frequency and tailoring of training, strengthen safety communication and create routine channels for employee involvement. Because the design is cross-sectional and the data are self-reported, the associations reported should not be read as causal.