Page 1 of 22
Archives of Business Research – Vol. 9, No. 7
Publication Date: July 25, 2021
DOI:10.14738/abr.97.10312. Lumintang, G. G., Kindangen, P., Adolfina, & Lengkong, V. P. K. (2021). Determinant of Safety and Workplace Safety in Work
Environment Pt. Perusahaan Listrik Negara (Persero) Suluttenggo Area. Archives of Business Research, 9(7). 1-22.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Determinant of Safety and Workplace Safety in Work
Environment Pt. Perusahaan Listrik Negara (Persero)
Suluttenggo Area
Genita G. Lumintang
Paulus Kindangen
Adolfina
Victor P. K. Lengkong
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of organizational
characteristics, and individual characteristics on physical environment component,
psychosocial component, and behavior component toward workplace safety and
health in PT. PLN (Persero) Suluttenggo area. The object of this research is
permanent employees or outsourcing employees in PT. PLN (Persero) Suluttenggo
Area. Research Design used in this research is survey research, in which the sample
collected by distributing questionnaires to 50 permanent employees and
outsourcing employees that already worked as work partner of PT. PLN (Persero)
Suluttenggo Area. As for the analysis instrument is using partial least squares (PLS).
The result shows that organizational characteristic has a positive influence on the
components of work environment, either physically or psychosocially; and on
behavior as well as the workplace health and safety. On the other hand, individual
characteristic doesn’t have an influence. The result of this research also shows that
only the individual behavior that has a positive influence on workplace health and
safety, while physical work environment does not, meanwhile psychosocial
component has a negative influence on workplace health and safety.
Keywords: organizational characteristic; individual characteristic; work-environment;
workplace, health and safety
INTRODUCTION
The role of Human Resource Management is very important, so that the International Labor
Organization (ILO) considered that it must be cleared on how workers should be treated and
how to protect workers from any accident and illness caused by their job. Apart from the
improvement on protecting workers, ILO suggests to create improvement in handling
psychological problem caused by the changing work environment. According to ILO, there’s
more that 1.8 million death is caused by work happened every year in Asia and Pacific are alone.
Even more, two per three of these deaths happened in Asia. On the global scale, more than 2.78
million people die every year caused by illness or accident at work. Besides that, there’s around
374 million of injury and non-fatal illness caused by work every year, which as caused so many
absents. (ILO, 2019).
Page 2 of 22
2
Archives of Business Research (ABR) Vol. 9, Issue 7, July-2021
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
On global scale, workplace health and safety are an important agenda of ILO. International
Labor Organization Conference in 2003 discuss about the standard of workplace health and
safety as a part of an integrated approach and finally approve the global strategy of workplace
health and safety that appeals to be conducted the action that “clear and centralized” in
reducing the number of deaths, injuries, and illness caused by work. ILO appeals on the effort
to improve the safety of workers. Global strategy on workplace health and safety consists of the
creation of strong safety culture and safety work in every company and introduction of
systematic approach on the management of workplace health and safety. A systematic
approach on management of workplace health and safety in corporation scale is already
developed in “International Labor Organization Occupational Safety and Health Management
Systems (ILO-OSH-MS-, 2001)”. International Labor Organization Standard Occupational Safety
and Health Management Systems in an international standard published by the United Nations
that organize the practice of workplace safety and health management system nationally or
organizationally.
Indonesia specifically, the workplace health and safety aspect is still becoming a serious
attention because the workplace accident level is still very high with an increasing trend. Based
on the workplace accident chart data, between the year 2001-2007, there’s a high workplace
accident with increasing trend in a few years (Source: (BPJS) TK in (Safety Magazine 2018).
Referring on the data from BPJS Ketenagakerjaan at 2019, there is 114,000 cases of workplace
accident, in 2020 there’s an increase between January until October with the amount of 177,000
cases of workplace accident. Workplace accident is not only causing deaths, material and moral
losses, and environment damage but also affecting productivity and public welfare. It could be
said that the attention on workplace health and safety generally in Indonesia need to be taken
seriously. This shows that there’s a lot of rules that violated either by the organization or the
management but also the violation done by individual or the workers themselves, even more,
there’s still need to be a lot of improvement in workplace health and safety procedures,
especially to the employee with the high-risk job.
In work environment of the central office of PT. PLN (Persero) that targeting zero defect, the
data shows that there’s an unsatisfactory result of workplace health and safety management
until the late of 2019. Workplace accident occurred in 2019 is up to 61 cases of partners of PLN
and 11 cases of permanent workers of PLN. From the total of that, 27 people die (fatality), with
the detail of 20 from distribution department, 2 from transmission, and 5 from construction
department(https://web.pln.co.id/statics/uploads/2020/07/PLN_AR_2019_OJK_Med_26062
0).
Based on the table below, it is showed that workplace accident in PT. PLN (Persero) Suluttenggo
Area in the recent three years between 2018 to 2020, there’s still a workplace accident occurred
by the violation of standard operation procedure, working in unhealthy condition and worker
who doesn’t have workplace health and safety training certificate, and poor work coordination.
This means that there’s still workplace accidents occurred in the workplace environment of PT.
PLN (Persero) Suluttenggo Area.
Page 3 of 22
3
Lumintang, G. G., Kindangen, P., Adolfina, & Lengkong, V. P. K. (2021). Determinant of Safety and Workplace Safety in Work Environment Pt.
Perusahaan Listrik Negara (Persero) Suluttenggo Area. Archives of Business Research, 9(7). 1-22.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/abr.97.10312
Table 1.1: Accidents, Cause, Workplace Injury Location
Date Accidents
Cause
Location
Victims
Loss
Unsafe Act
Unsafe
Conditio
n
Employ
ee
Power
Exper
ts
Civilia
ns
9/25/20
20
Stung by a
high
voltage
JTM 20 kV
while
taking out
Fuse Cut
Out
Working
not
according
to SOP and
not using
personal
protection
equipment
(PPE)
ULP
Molibagu
UP3
Kotamoba
gu
1
person
minor
injury
6/8/202
0
Stung by a
high
voltage
JTM 20 kV
and fall
Using
bad
equipme
nt
ULP
Bangkir
UP3 Toli- Toli
1
person
major
injury
9/25/20
19
Pass out
while
working
Working
with
unhealthy
condition
ULP
Modayag
UP3
Kotamoba
gu
1
person
died
4/20/20
19
Stung by
the voltage
SUTM 20
kV while
repairing
jumper CO
Working
not
according
to SOP
because
not
installing
Grounding
when start
working
Jumper
CO wire
touched
JTM with
high
voltage
ULP
Banggai
UP3
Luwuk
1 died
1/29/20
18
High
Voltage
Induction
20 kV
while
changing
the LBS
Workers
doesn’t
have
working
statement
and
doesn’t
have
certificate
on health
and safety
procedure
s
UP2D
Suluttengg
o
1
major
injury
3031,3
kWh not
distribut
ed
3/21/20
18
Stung by a
high
voltage 20
kV while
doing
Safety
Briefing
not
conducted
well and
ULP
Molibagu
UP3
Kotamoba
gu
1
person
died
20.178
kWh not
distribut
ed
Page 4 of 22
4
Archives of Business Research (ABR) Vol. 9, Issue 7, July-2021
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
network
rehabilitati
on SUTM in
which JTM
still in high
voltage
without a
good
coordinati
on, and
Grounding
Stick
already
taken off
before the
job
finished
Source: PT. PLN (Persero) Wilayah Suluttenggo, 2020.
Based on the study of previous researches, those researches are more focused on the physical
environment, and not focusing on the relations to the psychosocial environment and behaviour
that mediating the individual or organizational role on workplace safety and health quality,
even though the workplace safety and health is not only determined by the physical work
environment but psychosocial factor and behaviour also take on an important role regarding
workplace safety and health. Physical working environment that not supported by the
psychosocial component and employee behaviour, in the end will make the workplace safety
and health program not run optimally. This is must be supported by the organizational
characteristic and individual characteristic or otherwise, and this is becoming the research
problem in this dissertation.
THEORETICAL REVIEW
Workplace Safety and Health
Ridley, John (1983) cited by Boby Shiantosia (2000, p.6), define workplace health and safety is
a condition in working in which the work is safe and healthy for the worker, company,
community, and environment around the factory or the working area. Jackson (1999, p. 222),
explained that workplace health and safety showed by the physiological-physical and
psychological conditions of workers caused by work environment provided by the company.
Workplace safety and health is a protection to someone physical welfare from injuries related
to job. Health referred to physical general condition, mental and emotional stability in general
(Mathis & Jackson, 2006:245). Healthy individual is anyone who’s free from disease, injuries,
mental and emotional problems that could disturb normal human activities in general. Loss
Causation Model Theory by Frank Bird from International Loss Control Institute (ILCI) in 1972
stated that management factor is the cause of the occurrence of workplace accidents.
Concept of Behavior
Organizational Behavior is a field of study that explores the influence owned by the individual,
group, and structure toward the behavior in an organization, in order to apply the science to
improve the effectiveness of an organization (Robbins & Judge, 2008:1). Organizational
behavior studied or examined behavior, performance, and individual good action or group, and
structure inside an organization, but organizational behavior not only about how organization
behave but also how individual in the arrangement of a group and structure. The study of
human behavior is related to psychological study especially social psychology that combined
Page 5 of 22
5
Lumintang, G. G., Kindangen, P., Adolfina, & Lengkong, V. P. K. (2021). Determinant of Safety and Workplace Safety in Work Environment Pt.
Perusahaan Listrik Negara (Persero) Suluttenggo Area. Archives of Business Research, 9(7). 1-22.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/abr.97.10312
the concept of psychology and sociology that studies the relationship and the influence between
people and nature environment or social environment.
Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) Model used to study human behavior. A research in social
psychology shows that a person behavior intention to certain behavior is a determinant factor
whether the individual agree or disagree in doing that behavior (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1975).
Theory of Reasoned Action explains that confidence can influence attitude and social norms
that will change the form of behavior intention combined or happened offhand in individual
certain behavior. Attribution Theory explains that when individual examines person behavior,
that individual tries to determine whether that behavior caused internally or externally
(Robbins & Judge, 2008). Behavior caused internally is a behavior that believed happened
under the control of an individual, in other words, not controlled by other things.
Psychosocial
Psychosocial is a condition that happened to individual that including the psychic and social
aspect or otherwise. Psychosocial points to the dynamic relationship between psychic and
social factor, that interacted and affected to one another (Chaplin, 2011). Psychosocial based
on Erik Erikson is a relationship between a person mental and emotional health with the social
condition. The term of psychosocial is a combination between psychological and social. In
conclusion, the development of psychosocial term is a development that related to individual
emotion or mentality in relation to other individual. So, the development of psychosocial is a
personal change and development related to social relationship (Erik Erikson, 1963).
The term psychosocial means allude the social relations that include the psychological factors
(Chaplin, 2011). Psychosocial danger is a non-physical danger occurred from the interaction of
job description aspects, work design, organization, and workplace management as well as the
social environment that could potentially cause physical disturbance, social, and psychological
(Eka Setya Nova, 2019). Psychosocial problems based on Nanda (2012), are: grieve, despair,
anxiety, helplessness, unhealthy act risk, bodily disturbance, ineffective coping, ineffective
family coping, post-trauma syndrome, ineffective figure appearance, and situational HDR.
Further, Damvad and Expert Group (2011), stated the indicator which are psychosocial work
environment, demands, and the balance of work reward and leadership. The psychosocial
indicator consists of: freedom to choose individual work assignment; framework enable the
release equal to what individual wants; dan freedom to arrange off days. The demands indicator
consists of: work in high speed; high responsibility jobs; and high cognitive demands. The
indicator of balance of work reward and leadership consists of: the explication of future
prospect of the job; trust and respect from the supervisor; work predictability; and work
rewards.
RESEARCH METHOD
Survey research conducted to dig and answer research question. The purpose of survey is also
to examine the relationship between independent variable and dependent variable. Reviewed
from its type, this research is an explanatory research that explains the relationship between
research variables. The population of this research is employees working in high-risk job in PT.
PLN (Persero) Suluttenggo Area. Survey filled by using Google Form. 60 questionnaires
Page 6 of 22
6
Archives of Business Research (ABR) Vol. 9, Issue 7, July-2021
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
distributed to 60 employees that considered to have a high-rick job and then asked to be
surveyed and asked to fill the questionnaires related to Workplace Safety and Health.
From the filled questionnaires, it is obtained 51 samples by using Krejcie and Morgan Table
with the level of error 5% and only 50 samples processed because one the sample is not filled
completely. Sampling technique used is purposive sampling in which the samples chosen by
certain criteria (Sugiyono, 2008).
Purposive sampling also called non-probability sampling. The main purpose of purposive
sampling is to create sample that logically can represent the population. The purposive
sampling criteria used in this research, are: workers who have a high-risk job, either as the
employees of PLN or their partners who already work for 5 years or above.
The conceptual framework used as a basic guideline in creating hypothesis in this research is
as follows:
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework/Research model
Page 7 of 22
7
Lumintang, G. G., Kindangen, P., Adolfina, & Lengkong, V. P. K. (2021). Determinant of Safety and Workplace Safety in Work Environment Pt.
Perusahaan Listrik Negara (Persero) Suluttenggo Area. Archives of Business Research, 9(7). 1-22.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/abr.97.10312
RESEARCH RESULT
Figure2: Result Processed Data of Smart PLS
Source: Data Processed, 2020
Page 9 of 22
9
Lumintang, G. G., Kindangen, P., Adolfina, & Lengkong, V. P. K. (2021). Determinant of Safety and Workplace Safety in Work Environment Pt.
Perusahaan Listrik Negara (Persero) Suluttenggo Area. Archives of Business Research, 9(7). 1-22.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/abr.97.10312
The table above, it is showed that there’s 5 hypothesis which are rejected and 6 hypothesis
which are accepted.
Relationship between Organizational Characteristics and Components of the Physical
Work Environment
The results of the research in hypothesis 1 indicate that organizational characteristics have a
positive and significant effect on the components of the physical work environment, accepted.
This proves that whether the physical work environment is good or not is determined by the
characteristics of the organization where the employees work. The existence of an organization
determines the conditions of the physical work environment, such as relating to the operational
activities of a company, business scale, complexity, formalization, centralization, number of
group members, group member budget, length of operation, age of the work group, and
leadership.
The results of this study are consistent with Gerloff's statement with the 3-P model of the main
characteristics of the organization (purposes, people, and plans), to support the creation of a
work environment, especially the company's physical work environment. Objectives and
planning in the form of organizational policies can be directed at the creation of an adequate
and conducive physical work environment in accordance with occupational safety and health
guidelines.
The importance of work environment conditions where employees work will have an impact
on the level of productivity of a job (Christian Addai Manu, 2015), results can be achieved as
expected by management (Mike, 2010; Shikdar, 2002; Christian Addai Manu, 2015). Therefore,
the management of PT. PLN (Persero) Suluttenggo Region must provide a good and safe
physical work environment so that worker productivity increases. This is in accordance with
the understanding that organizational characteristics are the factors of the individual work
environment that encourage work performance (Gibson, 1996; in Sugito and Nurjanah, 2004).
In fact, the employees of PT. PLN (Persero) Suluttenggo Region feels comfortable working
because of the availability of an adequate and conducive physical work environment that
supports their productivity.
Relationship between Organizational Characteristics and Psychosocial Components
The results of the research in hypothesis 2 indicate that organizational characteristics have a
positive and significant effect on the psychological component, accepted. This proves that
whether the psychosocial condition of employees is good or not is determined by the
characteristics of the organization. The existence of the organization determines the
psychosocial condition, as in relation to Gerloff's statement that the creation of a psychosocial
environment in the company is related to aspects of the organizational plan (system, structure,
design, strategy, and process) to move the human element in achieving goals with comfortable
conditions, avoiding various incidents. or an unwanted work accident.
The results of the study confirm that company management is obliged to pay attention to the
psychosocial environment in addition to the physical environment, so that employees work
optimally, such as climate and organizational culture, work demands, work control, leadership
empowerment and support and collaboration of colleagues (Tuvesson Hanna and Eklund Mona
Page 10 of 22
10
Archives of Business Research (ABR) Vol. 9, Issue 7, July-2021
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
(2014) This requires the management of PT PLN (Persero) for the Suluttenggo Region to
determine a work plan so that psychosocial impacts on employees while working can be
avoided from non-physical hazards that arise, such as aspects of the job description, work
design and organization and management.
The results are consistent with the statement that organizational characteristics such as
organizational climate, organizational culture, peer relations, and superior-subordinate /
supervisory relationships shape employees' perceptions of the psychosocial environment
(Octaviyani, 2010), work design and management, and social and organizational contexts (Leka
and Jain, 2010; Bergh et al., 2014; Linn Iren Vestly Bergh, et al., 2015). Workplace conditions
and the context of the social environment have the potential to cause physical, social and
psychological disorders (Eka Setya Nova, 2019), which has the potential to cause psychological
and physical harm and affect organizational performance (Leka and Jain, 2010; Bergh et al.,
2014; Linn Iren. Vestly Bergh, et al., 2015).
Relationship between Organizational Characteristics and Behavior Components
The results of the research in hypothesis 3 indicate that organizational characteristics have a
positive and significant effect on the behavioral components, accepted. This proves that
whether employee behavior is good or not is determined by organizational characteristics, such
as the policies of the employing organization. The research results are consistent and prove the
Theory of Reason Action developed by Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) that a person's performance
regarding certain behaviors is determined by the goals to carry out the behavior, and these
goals are determined by subjective attitudes and norms (Davis et al., 1989: 18). Organization is
a form of goals and norms that are set to influence employee behavior. The results of this study
are also in accordance with the statements of Armstrong & Murlis (2007) and Christian Addai
Manu (2015) that an employee
Relationship between individual characteristics and components of the physical work
environment
The results of the research in hypothesis 4 indicate that individual characteristics have a
positive and significant effect on the components of the physical work environment, it is
rejected. This proves that whether the physical work environment is good or not is not
determined by individual characteristics. The results of this study are inconsistent with the
statement that the individual characteristics of the workers themselves determine whether or
not the work environment is good among staff (Tuvesson, and Eklund, 2014). This confirms
that the physical work environment is something that is under the authority of company
management, and this is in line with the statement of Foldspang et al., (2014), that the work
environment is a condition in the company where employees work, which must be prepared by
the management concerned. A work environment that does not provide good protection for
employees to do work will provide room for the creation of work accidents (Foldspang et al.,
(2014). This is the statement of Hughes (2007) that workers believe the quality of the work
environment affects employee attitudes and increases their productivity (Hughes, 2007;
Christian Addai Manu, 2015). Comfortable and ergonomic office design motivates employees
and improves their performance substantially (Hameed and Amjad, 2009), otherwise the work
environment is unsafe and unsanitary in terms of poor ventilation, poor lighting. inappropriate,
Page 22 of 22
22
Archives of Business Research (ABR) Vol. 9, Issue 7, July-2021
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Causation: Safety (First published in 2012) by the Safety Institute of Australia Ltd, Tullamarine, Victoria,
Australia.