Understanding the role of emotion in the performance of employees in safety critical industries
The emotion and safety at work project aims to improve workplace safety by investigating the role of emotion in influencing employee safety behaviour in high-risk contexts. The ultimate goal of the project is the identification, development, and implementation of emotion-based interventions that organisation could apply to improve employee safety performance.
Many fatal accidents have occurred as employees failed to follow safety procedures or carried out the procedures inadequately. The project aims to provide a better understanding of the psychological pathways that underpin employee compliance behaviour in the safety critical context. Specifically, the study explores the previously unexamined role of emotion in shaping employee safety behaviour. Adopting an emotional-regulation framework, the present study examines how the environmental cues, such as climate, leadership, job demands, risk and hazards levels jointly influenced employees cognition and emotion, which subsequently influence how employees respond to safety rules and procedures. It is expected that the project will result in identification of effective emotion-based interventions, the implementation of which serve to help employees to manage their stress and performance in high-risk environments.
PPRG contact: Dr Xiaowen Hu