The Role of Safety Culture in Empowering Safety Behavior at Rail Transport Industry in Malaysia: A Review of Literature

The awareness on safety culture and behavioral safety is in higher demand to reduce occupational incidents. For instance, safety culture is an essential element that could influence employees’ occupational behavior. The increasing number of passengers over the past few decades is evidence of the rapid regional development facilitated by the expansion of the railway industry. It has been implemented to alleviate congestion on highways and airways, as well as to promote global efforts to cut the emissions and employ sustainable energy.  However, the inadequacies in the railway industry's safety culture implementation led to a number of events, including train derailments and collisions, which has contributed to an increase in the rate of occupational accidents. Therefore, the objective of this study is to review the literature on the safety culture as a role in empowering the behavior of railway employees towards safety performance. Thus, the quantitative research design will be conducted through close-ended questionnaire. The sample of this study consist on employees that working in Malaysian rail transport industry. Therefore, SmartPLS will be used to test the model. Moreover, the findings expected to acknowledge an extensive literature review to propose a conceptual framework. It will be accomplished through integrating safety culture into the perceptions of workers, which is expected to influence their safety behavior at workplace. Thus, the Malaysia rail transport industry and related party can use this study as recommendations to improve their safety culture practices. &nbsp

Determination of Occupational Health and Safety Risks in Solar Energy

Solar energy systems (photovoltaics, solar thermal, solar power) provide significant environmental benefits in comparison to the conventional energy sources, thus contributing to the sustainable development of human activities. However, sometimes, the wide scale deployment faces potential negative health and safety implications. To cope with these problems this paper presents an overview of an occupational health assessment of solar energy. The analysis provides the potential burdens to the workers’ health and safety working in solar energy, which includes hazard identification like toxic materials, general job site safety risks and other less focused risks in solar energy such as psychosocial hazards. Keywords: solar energy, occupational safety, healt

Implementation of a psychomotor vigilance test to investigate the effects of driving fatigue on oil and gas truck drivers’ performance

IntroductionDriving fatigue has been shown to increase the risk of accidents and potentially fatal crashes. Fatigue is a serious risk that some drivers do not take seriously. Previous studies investigated the effects of driving fatigue in the Malaysian oil and gas transportation industry by employing survey questionnaires. However, they did not explain the behavior of fatigue. Besides, these results required validation by a more reliable method that can describe how fatigue occurs.MethodsThus, in this study, we used the Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT-192) and a short survey to address driving fatigue behavior and identify the influences of driving fatigue on driving performance in real life (on the road) with actual oil and gas tanker drivers. The total participants in the experimental study were 58 drivers.ResultsFor the analysis, a Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test, Z value and Spearman’s rho were used to measure the significant difference between the pre and post-tests of PVT and the correlation between the fatigue variables and driving performance.DiscussionDuring the experiment’s first and second days, this study’s results indicated that driving fatigue gradually escalated. Likewise, there was a negative correlation based on the test of the relationship between the PVT data and the driving performance survey data. Additionally, the drivers suffer from accumulative fatigue, which requires more effort from the transportation company management to promote the drivers awareness of fatigue consequences

Occupational health and safety practices in the petrochemical industries of Malaysia

The petrochemical industry in Malaysia has been growing rapidly in recent years. The development of this highly hazardous industry largely depends on high health and safety standards. Since the early 1990s, health and safety legislation introduced in the country, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994 (OSHA) and the Control of Industrial Major Accident Hazards (CIMAH) Regulations 1996 have aimed in improving standards across a number of occupational sectors. A mixed-method research design was used to explore occupational health and safety practices in the petrochemical industry in Malaysia. Special emphasis was placed on safety culture and the impact of psychosocial risks on occupational health and safety (OHS) outcomes. Qualitative research was based on policy reviews and interviews with officials, company managers, and key experts. The qualitative study of the research explored actual occupational health and safety (OHS) practices at the organisational level in the petrochemical industries. Information 'about OHS legislation and policies are given from the very beginning when companies submitted a proposal to the government to establish their installation plant. Review of the companies OHS policies has found they are committed to adopt aspects of the operations in strict compliance with all OHS regulations and their operation is closely monitored by Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH). Nineteen interviews with key staff working in four petrochemical companies, ranging from the senior operation manager, engineers, occupational health doctors, nurses and operation supervisors, were conducted using the semi-structured interview method. Questions focused on companies' OHS policy, safety communication strategies, safety monitoring and initiatives to promote health and safety. The study identified different views between top and middle management on safety implementation, safety training and safety priorities. Lack of sufficient and updated OSH training was also reported by middle management. On the other hand, safety infrastructures did exist in the form of plant health clinics with occupational health doctors and nurses' services and internal fire and emergency teams. Incentive schemes in the form of bonuses and salary increments for achieved targets accident free hours were also found in some of the companies. The third part of the research was a quantitative study aimed to explore OHS practices among the workers and safety culture and using questionnaire as its instrument. This questionnaire was constructed base on the UK, HSE Safety Climate Assessment Tool Kit (1999) with only minor alterations. This study has found that the safety culture in the organisation was a combination effect of work environment, individual attitude and perception about safety and the management commitments. The study has also found that psychosocial hazards and work environment are the two strong factors contribute to the workers wellbeing in the petrochemical industries in Malaysia. The entire research findings pictured the standings of Malaysian OHS standards and its actual practices at the ground level. It provides an overall justification on the current practices of OHS in Malaysia from the perspectives of the stakeholders and the end users as the target groups (i.e. management and workers). The thesis hence contributes significantly to the literature in the OHS field, and can therefore be taken as a reference by policy makers and stakeholders in order to maintain stronger OHS areas and rectify their weaknesses.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Validation of “Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales” and “Changes in Psychological Distress during COVID-19” among University Students in Malaysia

Objectives: This study assessed the reliability and validity of the DASS-21 self-reported measure in the context of COVID-19 on anxiety, stress, and depression. Through this Study, the psychological effect of COVID-19 on anxiety, tension, and depression amongst samples of students enrolled in 201 Malaysian private universities was assessed. Methods: The data were collected from university students through an online survey because of Malaysian Government Movement Control Order (MCO) restrictions. Two separate intervals were used for data collection (i.e., May and September 2020), as this period was associated with the pandemic. For scale validation, convergent, discriminant, and nomological validity criteria were used. Results: The outcome of a CFA model for DASS-21 yielded factor loading that is very significant. Therefore, the measure of the root means square error approximation (RMSEA) and the comparative fit index (CFI) are acceptable values that were produced, demonstrating a good fit for the data. Conclusions: This study was conducted in the Malaysian context to validate depression, anxiety, and stress among university students using the DASS-21 scale. Our findings support the reliability of using DASS-21 in the Malaysian cultural context. Lastly, we testified to the presence of depression, anxiety, and stress among university students through descriptive statistics and provided empirical evidence in this regard. Our results suggested that there was a significant presence of DASS among university students

Turnaround maintenance workers cultural values and conflict management style preference: Moderating role of temperament

The general argument is that individuals choose those conflict styles that fit their cultural values. The concept of culture fit elucidates why organizational practices are effective with regards to employees work-related performance if these practices fit the cultural values of the workforce. Mismatch of organizational practices with employees’ cultural values may result in dissatisfaction and demotivation to perform well. This present study determined the link between plant turnaround maintenance (TAM) workers culture values, and their preference for a specific method for managing conflict. The research methodology is based on questionnaire survey focusing on plant TAM employees during execution phase. Data was gathered from TAM workers in 13 petrochemical plants in east and west Malaysia. Stated hypotheses were tested using SmartPLS software. Results shows all five cultural dimensions positively predicted integrating, obliging, compromising and avoiding, and negatively predicted dominating conflict management styles. The study concludes that employees will generally favor conflict styles that are consistent with their cultural values. Compared to previous findings, the current results revealed both culture and temperament as predictors of conflict management styles, providing a comprehensive evidence of the predictors of conflict management style preference

Turnaround maintenance workers cultural values and conflict management style preference: Moderating role of temperament

The general argument is that individuals choose those conflict styles that fit their cultural values. The concept of culture fit elucidates why organizational practices are effective with regards to employees work-related performance if these practices fit the cultural values of the workforce. Mismatch of organizational practices with employees’ cultural values may result in dissatisfaction and demotivation to perform well. This present study determined the link between plant turnaround maintenance (TAM) workers culture values, and their preference for a specific method for managing conflict. The research methodology is based on questionnaire survey focusing on plant TAM employees during execution phase. Data was gathered from TAM workers in 13 petrochemical plants in east and west Malaysia. Stated hypotheses were tested using SmartPLS software. Results shows all five cultural dimensions positively predicted integrating, obliging, compromising and avoiding, and negatively predicted dominating conflict management styles. The study concludes that employees will generally favor conflict styles that are consistent with their cultural values. Compared to previous findings, the current results revealed both culture and temperament as predictors of conflict management styles, providing a comprehensive evidence of the predictors of conflict management style preference

Social media connectivity and its effect on job stress among office employees in oil and gas sector Malaysia

The modern era with technological advancement removed physical activities. Most of the people seem busy in their androids. Especially, office workers perform duties online throughout the working hours, along with online work activities employees have developed their interest in leisure activities on social media websites. Statistically, 81% of the Malaysian population are social media users in 2020, whereas 17% spend more than 9 hours on social media websites (Statista, 2020; Yougov, 2019). The purpose of the study is to identify the effect of social media addictiveness and social media activities related to the job on job stress among office employees. A simple random sampling technique is used to collect data. Data is collected through a questionnaire survey from 253 office employees working in the oil and gas industry, Malaysia. The reliability of the questionnaire was found through Cronbach alpha. Pearson Bivariate Correlation analysis is used to identify associations among social media addictiveness and social media activities related to job and job stress among office employees. The results indicated that social media addictiveness enhances job stress by 52% at 1% level of significance, whereas social media activities reduce job stress by 12% at 5% level of significance and social media addictiveness. It is concluded that job stress among office employees can be reduced by discouraging social media addictiveness. Although social media activities related to jobs decrease job stress, it can be harmful to the reputation of the employer and can create problems for the employee in the long term. Alternative methods should be used to release job stress, such as social support within the workplace and physical interaction among employees. This study is useful for the organizations related to office employees to identify the employees with social addiction, provide them training about safety in surfing online websites, enhance physical interaction and create social support for the employees within the organization. Employees may adopt the right channel to release their stress despite social media that is actually enhancing stress. Further, this study is valuable for the forthcoming researchers to enhance research in this area

Fatigue among traffic police officers in metropolitan city: exploring factors of noise exposure and work stressors

Introduction: Police work has been recognised worldwide as a very stressful job. Those especially in road traffic control department encounter an additional possible cause of fatigue which is noise exposure that rarely being explored. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among traffic police officers in Kuala Lumpur to assess their level of fatigue and its risk factors including noise exposure, work stressors and individual factors. A total of 171 traffic police officers in Kuala Lumpur participated in this study. A set of questionnaires on socio-demographics, work characteristics, perception regarding noise pollution, PSQ and CIS were distributed to 200 traffic police officers in Kuala Lumpur. Five locations with heavy traffic volume in Kuala Lumpur were selected for ambient noise measurement, three times a day during peak hour by SLM. Results: The mean age, job tenure and BMI of respondents was 30.49±7.12yo, 4.73±4.62 years and 24.83 respectively. Most of them were Malay (81.9%), married (60.8%), and secondary school graduated (84.8%). The traffic noise exposure levels ranged between 69.50 dB(A) to 82.80 dB(A) (mean = 76.77±4.39 dB(A). Almost 20% of respondents reported to have fatigue level that puts them at risk for subsequent work disability. After considering several potential factors, lower educational levels (β=-3.67, p <0.01) and doing part time job (β=0.16, p=0.03) was found significant in predicting more fatigue. Conclusion: In sum, findings provide baseline data on the main factors of fatigue among this young and normal weight police group which will help in prioritizing the intervention strategies

Fatigue among traffic police officers in metropolitan city: exploring factors of noise exposure and work stressors

Introduction: Police work has been recognised worldwide as a very stressful job. Those especially in road traffic control department encounter an additional possible cause of fatigue which is noise exposure that rarely being explored. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among traffic police officers in Kuala Lumpur to assess their level of fatigue and its risk factors including noise exposure, work stressors and individual factors. A total of 171 traffic police officers in Kuala Lumpur participated in this study. A set of questionnaires on socio-demographics, work characteristics, perception regarding noise pollution, PSQ and CIS were distributed to 200 traffic police officers in Kuala Lumpur. Five locations with heavy traffic volume in Kuala Lumpur were selected for ambient noise measurement, three times a day during peak hour by SLM. Results: The mean age, job tenure and BMI of respondents was 30.49±7.12yo, 4.73±4.62 years and 24.83 respectively. Most of them were Malay (81.9%), married (60.8%), and secondary school graduated (84.8%). The traffic noise exposure levels ranged between 69.50 dB(A) to 82.80 dB(A) (mean = 76.77±4.39 dB(A). Almost 20% of respondents reported to have fatigue level that puts them at risk for subsequent work disability. After considering several potential factors, lower educational levels (β=-3.67, p<0.01) and doing part time job (β=0.16, p=0.03) was found significant in predicting more fatigue. Conclusion: In sum, findings provide baseline data on the main factors of fatigue among this young and normal weight police group which will help in prioritizing the intervention strategies