The Importance of Organizational Climate in Healthy Workplaces: Considerations for Disability Management

Abstract

Abstract Background: In 2013, the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) released national, comprehensive guidelines for psychological health in the workplace. Nevertheless, follow-up surveys report poor uptake of the guidelines, particularly within the manufacturing sector, despite recent Workplace Safety and Insurance Tribunal (WSAIT) decisions that place greater responsibilities on employers to protect employees from psychological injury. Hence, this program of research has focused on the context of the work environment with a goal to better understand and inform current application of healthy workplace practices and policies. The overarching premise is that the full potential of a healthy workplace is optimised when set within a specific climate that values the health of workers. Therefore, Phase 1 reported the development of a workplace scale measuring a domain-specific climate for healthy practices in the workplace. Phase 2, reported here, tests the differential influence of culture, leadership and social climate on workers’ perceptions of healthy workplace practices and occupational bond. Method: Self-reported measures of culture, leadership social climate, healthy workplace practices and occupational bond from 162 participants were analysed to test the organisation’s culture, climate, leadership and practices as internal processes that influence the development of a healthy workplace Results: Adequately powered (N = 162), the mediational analyses demonstrated the significance of the proximal work environment of climate over the distal influence of culture and leadership. The key results demonstrate that the proximal environment has a significant influence on how workers perceive their workplaces. This has implications for the implementation of the guidelines for healthy workplaces.