Does employee safety influence customer satisfaction? Evidence from the electric utility industry.

Problem: Research on workplace safety has not examined implications for business performance outcomes such as customer satisfaction.

Method: In a U.S. electric utility company, we surveyed 821 employees in 20 work groups, and also had access to archival safety data and the results of a customer satisfaction survey (n=341).

Results: In geographically-based work units where there were more employee injuries (based on archival records), customers were less satisfied with the service they received. Safety climate, mediated by safety citizenship behaviors (SCBs), added to the predictive power of the group-level model, but these two constructs exerted their influence independently from actual injuries. In combination, two safety-related predictor paths (injuries and climate/SCB) explained 53% of the variance in customer satisfaction.

Discussion: Results offer preliminary evidence that workplace safety influences customer satisfaction, suggesting that there are likely spillover effects between the safety environment and the service environment. Additional research will be needed to assess the specific mechanisms that convert employee injuries into palpable results for customers.

Impact On Industry: Better safety climate and reductions in employee injuries have the potential to offer payoffs in terms of what customers experience.