Sicurezza e disabilità nell'impresa: formazione e prevenzione. La strategia formativa della personalizzazione per una cultura della sicurezza inclusiva in azienda.

Analysing the existing literature on this subject a serious gap emerges: ever since the obligation for companies to employ people with disability was introduced in Italy (by Law no. 482/68, later revoked by Law no. 68/99), no studies on the management of these workers’ security & safety have been carried out. In other countries, although research on the same subject is limited and incomplete, the issue seems to draw more attention. The crucial point in managing workplace security & safety, with specific reference to our subject, is the lack of a unitary and interdisciplinary approach to both disability and security & safety. In an ever-changing technological scenario, and with new aspects to security & safety continuously emerging – such as privacy – employers and security & safety managers are often unprepared to employ a worker with disability due to both organizational and structural problems. This investigation is divided into two different studies. The aim of the former is to identify the critical points in the ‘disability-workplace safety & security’ relation. In particular, it intends to examine how companies meet their accessibility, information, training, risk assessment and emergency management obligations. To this end, a quantity-quality survey has been designed and administered to both workers with disability and company managers. 118 questionnaires were collected and analysed. Another step in the research included administering 4 semi-structured interviews to workers with disability who contacted us spontaneously for information and made themselves available for further investigations. This allowed us to deal more thoroughly with some issues that emerged from the questionnaires as particularly interesting. The second study’s aim is to check whether the customization of the training for workers with disability and security & safety managers is functional to the promotion of security & safety culture in the workplace as applied specifically to disability issues. A customized training course for 4 workers with disability and 3 security & safety managers was developed. A careful company analysis was performed, considering documents such as social accounting, risk assessment form and security policy document, and using tools like semi-structured interviews and entrance tests to identify the training needs. The evaluation of the training’s results was carried out both ex post, using exit tests and semi-structured interviews, and in itinere, to monitor and – if necessary – fine-tune the course, by using classroom journals and discussions.