Safety risks associated with helping others

• Original research on the safety risks associated with helping – appears to be very little, if any, research in the area.
• A number of significant findings, clearly showing safety risks associated with helping.
• Development of scales to measure safety risks from helping which could allow the area to explored in other research.
• Results which are applicable across a wide range of industries, with potential to improve safety.

Two studies investigated the safety risks associated with engaging in helping type organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). A model is outlined which postulates that the job context in which OCBs are performed has important safety implications. Study 1 sampled 222 employees, and Study 2 sampled 79 employees, engaged in jobs that had a degree of safety risk. Both studies found evidence that helping co-workers can result in safety risks for both the helper and helped employee. Evidence was found to support four mechanisms through which helping can lead to safety issues, labelled the forgetting, unknown, unexpected and the time pressure mechanisms. Study 1 also found evidence that poor communication about helping could be particularly responsible for safety issues. Study 2 investigated the factors which might explain employees’ failure to communicate helping efforts and the safety risks resulting from helping efforts. Results suggest that work related time pressure restricts communication about helping, while a desire not to seem ungrateful restricts communication about helping attempts which have lead to safety risks. Implications of the findings for promoting employee citizenship behavior and safety are outlined.