Occupant complacency in workplace fire evacuations

Article


Gold, D., Thomas, D., Vincer, N. and Pitkin, M. 2024. Occupant complacency in workplace fire evacuations. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 11 (1). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03665-3
TypeArticle
TitleOccupant complacency in workplace fire evacuations
AuthorsGold, D., Thomas, D., Vincer, N. and Pitkin, M.
Abstract

This study explored occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations. It is targeted at those responsible for fire safety management and fire safety practitioners with a contribution to prevent or mitigate the risk of injury or death arising out of a delayed evacuation at work. It seeks to define occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations, identify its antecedents and explore effective measures to mitigate or control the antecedents of occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations. Research was conducted using a survey instrument by contacting safety, health and fire safety professionals globally through convenience sampling and several international safety, health and fire safety-related institutions. This included demographics of the respondents, the confirmation of a definition of complacency, and means of dealing with complacency as defined by the questionnaire including priority strategies. The research team then sought to identify the antecedents of occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations using raw data from a previous study. This study addresses the hypothesis that if there is a clear definition of occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations and control measures are developed, tested and implemented, the risks of injury and death related to occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations could be prevented or mitigated. Analysis of survey findings clarified a number of key strategies to avoid evacuation complacency including but not limited to underscoring the importance of leadership involvement within a safety culture; training and education, awareness raising and communications to avoid occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations; evacuation drills; procedures, and the role of fire wardens. Based on information from a published report that explored individual attitudes, perceptions and experiences as well as perceived vulnerability that shape antecedents of occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations and individual behaviours when an evacuation alarm is initiated, the authors identified and filled a gap in the report, by suggesting a working definition of occupant complacency during workplace fire evacuations and control measures to prevent or mitigate this behaviour.

Sustainable Development Goals8 Decent work and economic growth
Middlesex University ThemeSustainability
PublisherSpringer Nature
JournalHumanities and Social Sciences Communications
ISSN
Electronic2662-9992
Publication dates
Online04 Sep 2024
Print04 Sep 2024
Publication process dates
Submitted12 May 2023
Accepted21 Aug 2024
Deposited05 Sep 2024
Output statusPublished
Publisher's version
License
File Access Level
Open
Copyright Statement

© The Author(s) 2024
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03665-3
Web of Science identifierWOS:001304507700003
Related Output
Is supplemented byhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-024-03665-3#Sec21
LanguageEnglish
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