Tahap kesedaran staf UTM terhadap keselamatan pekerjaan di makmal dan bengkel kejuruteraan

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the level of awareness among UTM staff towards work safety at the workplace. The respondents comprised of 271 academic and non-academic staff who work in faculties that use high risk equipment or substances, namely the Faculty of Science, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, and the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Natural Resources. Questionnaires were used as the main instrument for obtaining data for this study. The data were analyzed descriptively based on frequency, percentage and mean in order to determine the level of awareness of the respondents towards work safety. To examine the relationship between demographic factors and respondents’ awareness towards work safety, the Pearson Correlation was used. The results showed that UTM staff had a high level of awareness of work safety based on their overall mean score of 3.95. Aspects of the staff’s level of awareness towards work safety that were studied were policy, procedure, tool and equipment, training program, Department of Safety and Health and commitment as well as environment. Further evaluation showed that the dominant factors that influenced the level of awareness of UTM staff with regards to work safety were training program and policy. Findings also showed that demographic factors did not influence the level of awareness because the factors that were analyzed recorded a level of relationship of <0.20 and 0.20 – 0.40 only. This indicates a weak correlation. Finally, this study concludes that in order to raise the level of awareness towards work safety, the University’s administration should increase the number of training programmes, work safety awareness campaigns, offer continuous or periodic work safety programmes and enforce the use of safety equipment by staff involved in high risk tasks.