Recognizing and Anticipating Stress Related Complacent Behavior in the Manufacturing Industries

Abstract

Numerous safety studies suggest that stress complacency related accidents in manufacturing industries continue to cause injuries or fatalities because of the absence of emotional resources for leaders, who are unable to prevent accidents when these conditions exist. Leaders of the manufactory industries may not have the appropriate emotional measures which are significant to recognize employees’ underlying complacent behavior. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to evaluate the relationship between leaders’ emotional intelligence resources and their ability to recognize stressful employees thus, prevent injuries and fatalities in the workplace. The research questions address key traits of emotional intelligence regarding emotional perceptions and control which are needed to make the leaders more effective at recognizing and responding to stress complacency related incidents. Specifically, this study includes a method of inquiry in the form of a survey designed to measure 140 leaders’ emotional intelligence competencies in 3 Western Virginia food and beverage manufactories. Structural equation modeling was used to determine the multivariate relationships among leaders’ skills and safety prevention. Leaders’ emotional intelligence results indicated a negative effect on stress identification in either upper or middle leadership groups preventing them from exercising safe prevention error with their employees. Promoting leaders’ emotional intelligence engagement may potentially contribute to social change helping the food and beverage organizations to protect their employees from getting hurt, promoting strong safety cultures, maintaining a positive impact on families and workers and thereby, increasing community resilience.