ESENER-PSR 2009 - European Agency for Safety and Health at Work

1.2.2 Considerations in terms of the contents of the study
There are several reasons why to choose the “establishment” as unit of enquiry for a survey
like the ESENER which has a thematic focus on health and safety risks and practices:
While in multi-site companies rough guidelines about the management of health and
safety issues (such as the rules on whether or not to carry out risk assessments or the set
up of health and safety action plans) are often decided at the central level, the local units
probably often have the possibility to decide over some details of these regulations on
their own.
Even where the general guidelines or collective agreements are equally valid for all
establishments belonging to the same company, there may be significant differences in
the practical application of these guidelines. These differences may result from differing
styles of leadership and working cultures within the various establishments or from
different types of work carried out in the various sites. The regulations valid for the mainly
administrative staff in the national headquarters of a bank or a supermarket chain for
example are likely to differ significantly from those applied in the various branch offices or
local super markets all over the country. Taking the company as unit of enquiry would
imply the risk of a significant bias in large multi-site companies since answers would
mainly be oriented at the situation in the headquarters and/or would rather refer to policy
(i.e. what is supposed to be the case) than to practice. By using an establishment sample
instead, survey results are based much more on the local experience and they are
interpretable against the background of the specific constraints imposed by the activity
carried out in these local units.
Some questions of the ESENER questionnaires concern (at least indirectly) the
practicalities of management-employee relations in OPSH issues. Although often a certain
common philosophy may be identifiable within the various units of a multi-site company,
the relationship between management and employees and the general climate often differ
widely from establishment to establishment. For this reason, questions concerning that
relationship can hardly be answered adequately by respondents in the headquarters.
1.2.3 Practical implications
The decision between “company” or “establishment” as unit of enquiry has no implications for
so called “single-site companies”, i.e. for companies whose activities are confined to one
geographical place and do not have any legally dependent branch offices, production sites,
sales units or the like either at the same location or anywhere else in the country. For singlesite
companies, the terms establishment and company can be used interchangeably. For
multi-site companies, however, the choice of the unit of enquiry has implications.
In some of the countries that had to be covered by the survey, the need to build samples at
establishment level posed a series of difficulties. Interviewing at establishment level not only
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