1. S AFETY S ILENCE : T HE C ONCEPTUALIZATION AND M EASUREMENT OF A N EW C ONSTRUCT Archana Manapragada & Valentina Bruk-Lee This research project was supported by a NIOSH pilot grant from the Sunshine Education and Research Center at the University of South Florida

2. S AFETY -R ELATED C OMMUNICATION IN THE W ORKPLACE Important for creating and maintaining a safe work environment Upward communication about safety issues allows organizations to detect, correct, and prevent unsafe practices or detrimental safety outcomes Constructs that capture safety-related communication: Safety communication Accident/Incident reporting Near-miss reporting

3. S AFETY S ILENCE M OTIVES Safety silence – the act of not speaking about safety issues witnessed in the workplace Safety silence motives capture various reasons that employees may not speak up about workplace safety issues

4. O VERVIEW Study 1: Qualitative Study Study 2: Scale Development and Refinement Study 3: Validation Study

5. W HY D IDN ’ T YOU S PEAK U P ? “[My coworkers] may feel like I’m just reporting everything.” “I felt upper management would brush me aside.” “I didn’t feel like it was life-threatening.” “[I was] just in a hurry. No time to go through the chain of command.”

6. S AFETY S ILENCE M OTIVES Relationship-based safety silence - not speaking up about safety issues because of how it may affect relationships within the workplace Climate-based safety silence - staying silent in relation to safety issues based on the organizational climate (i.e., organizational norms, managerial actions and support, communication channels within the organization, etc.). Issue-based safety silence - the result of an evaluation of the actual event (i.e., severity of the issue, the outcome, how many people it affects, etc.). Job-based safety silence - staying silent in relation to safety issues because of one’s job (i.e., job design, job characteristics, job duties, etc.).

7. P RACTICAL I MPLICATIONS Can be used to detect some of the barriers in fostering a work environment that promotes the communication of safety issues Can be used to develop more targeted safety interventions Climate-based silence: Changes at the supervisor or organizational level Job-based safety silence: Organizations can focus on how jobs are being designed Relationship-based safety silence: Implementation of an anonymous reporting processes Issue-based safety silence: Well-organized procedures or policies for reporting safety issues