When and why does safety compliance lead to one’s well-being

Employee safety compliance has been a critical issue in the workplace for centuries, but it has taken on increased significance as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the importance of employee safety, prior research has focused on the predictors of employee safety compliance. In this paper, we shift the focus of safety compliance research beyond the accident-based consequences of such compliance and examine how complying with safety measures affects how employees feel about their impact on others, and their subsequent well-being. Specifically, drawing from work on prosocial impact and self-determination theory, we predict that complying with safety measures will boost employees’ feelings of having a prosocial impact in their work, leading to higher well-being. Moreover, we expect the prosocial-impact driven effects of safety compliance on employee well-being to be particularly strong when employees’ compliance is not driven by external pressure (i.e., controlled motivation). Results from an experience-sampling study of independent delivery drivers in South Korea, operating in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, suggest complying with safety measures during the workday elicits higher perceptions of prosocial impact, which generates increased psychological vitality and job satisfaction and reduced emotional exhaustion in the evening. However, this effect was not significant when delivery drivers felt compelled to comply with safety measures for controlled reasons. By highlighting some benefits of safety compliance for frontline workers, these findings meaningfully extend our understanding of the effects of safety compliance on employee well-being, and the boundaries of these effects.