'Dialogue and Guidance' - a Policy Intervention for Improved OHS Among Workplaces With WEA Violations

Danish Labor Inspectorate4,500 enrolled

Overview

With the aim to inspire and motivate workplaces in their work to prevent and reduce occupational health and safety hazards, the Danish Working Environment Authority (WEA) developed the intervention 'Dialogue and Guidance' aimed at workplaces receiving notices (prohibition notice, immediate improvement notice and notice with time limit) from WEA during inspections. At present, WEA gives dialogue and guidance as standard practice during WEA inspections to all workplaces receiving a notice with the purpose to help workplaces resolve the occupational health and safety problem that led to the notice. In the intervention 'Dialogue and Guidance' the experimental groups are receiving additional dialogue and guidance at a subsequent meeting (over the telephone or physical presence) that takes place after the inspection and after the deadline for appealing the notice has expired. The control group is receiving dialogue and guidance during inspection as usual. The aim of this RCT study is to evaluate the policy-developed intervention with additional 'Dialogue and Guidance' in regards to the effect on motivation and priority of occupational health and safety work at the workplace after 6 months follow-up and for WEA notices by next WEA inspection (approx. follow-up by 12-18 months). Study is risk assessed and approved under Danish Data Protection Agency via the National Research Centre for the Working Environment's umbrella approval.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Enrollment

4,500

Conditions

Occupational Diseases

Interventions

Treatment as usualBEHAVIORAL

The workplace receives dialogue and guidance during the WEA workplace inspection as per WEA standard practice.

Dialogue and guidance over telephoneBEHAVIORAL

In addition to receiving dialogue and guidance during WEA workplace inspection as standard practice by the WEA, the "Dialogue and guidance over telephone" receives up to 2 hours of supplemental dialogue and guidance after WEA inspection with the WEA inspector. This is conducted over the telephone.

Dialogue and guidance at physical meetingBEHAVIORAL

In addition to receiving dialogue and guidance during WEA workplace inspection as standard practice by the WEA, the "Dialogue and guidance at physical meeting" receives up to 2 hours of supplemental dialogue and guidance after WEA inspection with the WEA inspector. This is conducted as a physical meeting.

Eligibility

Sex: ALL

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Subjects under inspection are workplaces, and respondents of the questionnaires are the workplace manager and a work environment representative or shop steward. Inclusion Criteria: • Workplaces (production units) who receives a WEA notice during WEA inspection through the period of intervention. The following WEA notices are included: * Immediate improvement notice * Notice with time limit (material) Exclusion Criteria: * Companies with 0-1 employees. * Production units from the construction industry met on temporary worksites (such as construction sites) that have more than one employee and does not have a certified occupational health and safety management system. * Companies receiving notices only about issues in the formal/procedural aspects of the work environment (such as flaws in the workplace risk assessment) and no other notices. * Companies receiving more than four reactions from WEA at the inspection (as these receive a competency notice and are not included in the study). * Companies that receive a prohibition notice by the WEA inspector due to severity of work environment violations. * A WEA improvement notice is not eligible for inclusion in the study if the workplace has entered into a collaborative agreement with WEA on improvement of the issue, or if they have received a competency notice on the WEA issue. * Companies receiving WEA inspections in relation to initiatives targeting social dumping

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

WEA notices - specific

Change from baseline WEA inspection in number of WEA notices of the same specific type (topic-code specific) at next WEA inspection (approx. 12-18 months after). WEA notices included for study: 1. prohibition notice (+ topic-code) 2. immediate notice (+ topic-code) 3. notice with time limit (+ topic-code) Register data provided by the Danish Labour Authority (Intervention is hypothesized to lead to fewer notices)

Time frame: Through study completion, approx. 12-18 months

WEA notices - all

Change from baseline WEA inspection in number of received WEA notices at next WEA inspection (approx. 12-18 months after). WEA notices included for study: 1. prohibition notice (all) 2. immediate notice (all) 3. notice with time limit (all) Register data provided by the Danish Labour Authority (Intervention is hypothesized to lead to fewer notices)

Time frame: Through study completion, approx. 12-18 months

OHS problem solution

Comparison of item score between intervention groups and comparison group on the following: • One single item on if they solved the OHS problem that led to WEA notice (response categories: yes, no, partially). (Intervention is hypothesized to lead to higher rates of having solved the OHS problems in question)