Improving workplace safety climate through a dairy farm supervisor e-learning program

Introduction: Ensuring the health and well-being of dairy farmers is increasingly challenging as dairy farms expand herd sizes to improve efficiency and sustainability, and where effective leadership is essential for managing a growing and often multicultural workforce. Workplace safety climate surveys are widely recognized as tools for assessing workplace safety culture. This study aimed to develop, implement, and evaluate an e-learning safety leadership and management training program for front-line dairy farm supervisors, hypothesizing that it would positively impact supervisor and work-group safety climate.

Methods: A 12-module e-learning program was developed, covering topics such as injury prevention, hazard recognition, supervisor and worker safety roles, modeling safe behavior, safety communication, safety meetings, workplace conflicts, and fostering a safety culture. Changes before and after training were assessed using a 24-item, 8-factor safety climate survey. Research-to-practice and knowledge-transfer-and-exchange strategies were integrated throughout the study, including collaboration with dairy extension specialists in program design and farm recruitment.

Results: A total of 65 out of 103 enrolled supervisors from 28 of 35 participating farms fully completed the program, along with pre- and post-training safety climate surveys. An average of four to five of their workers under their direct supervision also participated, with 313 completing the pre-training survey and 238 the post-training survey. Significant improvements were observed in most safety climate scores, particularly in the 14-item supervisor safety climate scale and the 10-item work-group safety climate scale. Significant gains were found in supervisors’ prioritization of safety, worker empowerment, and conflict resolution. No significant change was detected in supervisors’ encouragement of workers to report safety incidents, as baseline scores were already high.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that e-learning-based safety leadership training can enhance the safety climate among dairy farm supervisors and workers. Further research is needed to evaluate the long-term and salutogenic effectiveness and sustainability of such training.