Abstract:
There are different factors that affect workers’ safety at their workplace, and among that the
work environment is the critical factor that could affect the safety of workers. As workers play a
vital role in contributing to the success or failure of an organization, it is important to make sure
that the workplace environment is suitable for them to stay in and work comfortably. Therefore,
the purpose of this study was to assess the work environment and worker’s safety at Mugher
cement factory of Ethiopia. In order to achieve the objective of this study, questionnaire was
developed based on Likert scale. The questionnaire was distributed to 320 respondents who were
selected by simple random sampling technique. Data were gathered from 273 respondents (237
workers and 36 management staffs) with response rate of 85.31%. The collected data were then
analyzed using descriptive statistics with mean score by SPSS v29 (Statistical Package for Social
Science) software. Moreover, correlation and regression analysis were carried out to assess the
relation between the work environment factors and worker’s safety and to determine the extent at
which these work environment factors affect the safety of workers respectively. The descriptive
analysis revealed that the safety management system, working condition, and workplace design
were the identified work environment factors that affect the safety of workers. It was also
revealed that the management staffs responded opposite to workers’ responses on the same items
probably for the sake of factory’s image. The correlation and regression analysis was carried out
only on worker’s response not including management’s response. The correlation analysis
revealed that positive relationship between dependent and independent variables. Safety
management system was highly correlated with safety of workers while working condition,
danger sign, welfare factors and workplace design were moderately correlated. The regression
analysis results 67.6% of variability in worker’s safety was predicted by these five work
environment factors. This result shows the selected factors (independent varibles) have
significant effect on workers safety. Therefore, it could be concluded that the work environment
of Mugher cement factory affects safety of workers. Based on the findings, the conceptual model
was developed to improve the work environment of the company. Finally implementing the
developed conceptual model was recommended.
