Introduction: At the moment, in Sweden, there is a noticeable upswing of interest for workplace safety culture among companies. These are companies with dangerous work environments but that have already come a long way in improving their workplace safety and ergonomics standards by following the national legislations, using regular and systematic audits of the workplaces, and using modern equipment and technology for safety. This study was conducted in collaboration with a large steel manufacturing company in Sweden which employs about 1000 people. The company aims to improve the safety culture within the organization, not in order to get future payback in monetary terms, but actually to strive towards their company social responsibility (CSR) goal: that nobody should have to get injured on the job. The present study is an initial exploration of the company to provide the basic understanding of the work environment setting where the company implements change. Research is still needed to better understand different safety cultures.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate what the safety culture and risk-taking is like at the company, according to employees. 

Methods: The study had a qualitative and descriptive study design. Ten focus group interviews were conducted for data collection, consisting of about 6–8 employees each. The participants were employees from production. The interviews lasted 75 min and were digitally recorded and thereafter verbatim transcribed. Descriptive data was also collected from all participants by allowing them to fill out a short questionnaire. The participants were recruited from the company’s five main mills to get a representative sample, and it was randomized which shift teams that were asked to participate. Three discussion themes were used during the sessions: 1. What do you think of the safety at your workplace? 2. How is safety performed at your workplace? 3. What can become better with the safety at your workplace? During the interviews, emphasis was put on follow-up questions and asking the participants to explain more and to use own examples. The focus group sessions were conducted by a doctoral student, supported by an assistant taking additional notes.

Results: The results are right now being analyzed, but will be presented at the conference as an oral presentation. One preliminary result is that an important incitement for the employees to risk their safety, for example by not using the appropriate tools, is to quickly get the production running again if a stop occurs.