This study examines how employee engagement relates to occupational safety outcomes and under what conditions engagement translates into safer work. Using a time-lagged, multi-source, multilevel design across 162 work teams in manufacturing, energy, logistics, and healthcare, we surveyed employees on engagement and job demands/resources (T1) and, six months later, on safety compliance and safety participation (T2). Team-level safety climate was derived from aggregated perceptions, and monthly administrative records supplied near-miss, recordable (TRIR), and lost-time (LTIR) injury rates over 12 months. Multilevel structural equation modelling showed that T1 engagement positively predicted T2 safety compliance and participation; at the team level, mean engagement strengthened safety climate, which in turn elevated both forms of safety behaviour. Indirect effects (engagement → climate → behaviour) accounted for roughly one-third to one-half of the total association. Negative binomial panel models linked higher compliance and participation—and stronger safety climate—to lower TRIR and LTIR, with mediation analyses indicating that behavioural pathways explained most of the engagement–injury relationship. Moderation tests supported Job Demands–Resources logic: job resources and psychological safety amplified the engagement → participation path, whereas high demands attenuated both compliance and participation effects. Findings position engagement as a safety resource whose benefits depend on context; when paired with supportive climate, adequate resources, and leader behaviours that enable voice, engagement reliably improves safety performance. Practical implications include integrating engagement into ISO 45001 cycles, prioritising safety participation and near-miss learning, balancing workload with guardrails, and developing supervisors as climate multipliers.
Stephen Anang Ankamah-Lomotey (Mon,) studied this question.