Perception vs. Reality: What Workers Really Think About Safety
EcoOnline’s latest workplace safety survey reveals a dangerous disconnect between how safe employees feel and the risks they face.
- By David Kopf
- Jul 28, 2025
A new safety report from software provider EcoOnline highlights a critical and potentially dangerous disconnect 81 percent of North American workers say they feel safe on the job, though nearly half—46 percent—report firsthand or secondhand experience with a workplace injury or illness. This “perception gap” was the lead finding in How Safe & Sustainable Is Your Workplace? a wide-ranging survey of more than 1,000 frontline employees in the U.S. and Canada.
The report was the focus of an expo hall Flash Session at last week’s ASSP Safety 2025 held at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla. Presented by Xavier Braham, Solutions Expert with EcoOnline, the session focused on the top five insights with safety professionals uncovered in the report. After his presentation, Braham sat down with Occupational Health & Safety to dive deeper into the data and what it means for safety managers trying to close the gap between how workers feel and the risks they face.
“When half of the people who say they feel safe are still experiencing incidents, there’s something we’re not capturing,” Braham said. “A lot of that comes down to what’s not being reported—small things that build up over time until something more serious happens.”
Stress, Fatigue, and the Silent Hazards of Lone Work
One area where that disconnect becomes even more dangerous is among lone workers. According to the survey, one in three employees works alone at least part of the time. Yet only 45 percent of those lone workers say their employers take their safety seriously, which is a significant drop compared to the general population.
Stress and fatigue, rather than slips or falls, were the top concerns among these workers. In fact, more than half of all incidents reported in the survey were tied to stress. In Canada, that number rose to 68 percent.
“Being at work alone is stressful by itself,” Braham noted. “Add in high-risk tasks and no one to back you up, and it compounds fast.”
Mental health and psychosocial safety emerged as cross-cutting issues, especially among younger workers aged 18 to 34. “That generation expects employers to support their well-being,” Braham said. “But older workers might see it differently, and that makes engagement tricky across a multigenerational workforce.”
Digital Tools Lag Behind Worker Expectations
Another key insight: digital safety tools remain underused despite strong demand. While 70 percent of workers said they would feel safer with more digital support (and 81 percent of younger workers agreed), only 27 percent said their employers currently provide them with digital health and safety tools.
Braham emphasized that training is the one area where digitization seems to be catching on, with most workers saying their safety training includes e-learning. But tools for real-time risk awareness, incident reporting, or chemical safety remain mostly manual.
“One stat that really stuck with me: 44 percent of respondents reported chemical exposure,” Braham said. “But when that happens, they’re still running to the office to find a binder. It should be on their phone in seconds.”
That kind of delay, he added, creates both risk and frustration. “When workers ask for digital access and don’t get it, it leads to disengagement,” he said. “And disengagement is where safety incidents start.”
Bridging the Gap: What Safety Leaders Can Do
The EcoOnline report ends with a set of practical recommendations that safety managers can act on:
- Digitize incident reporting and chemical safety access
- Include mental health in risk assessments
- Standardize lone worker protocols
- Involve workers in safety planning, not just implementation
According to Braham, even the most well-intentioned policies can fail without bottom-up engagement. “You can’t write safety rules in a vacuum. The companies that succeed are the ones who bring workers in early and make them part of the process.”
To explore the full How Safe & Sustainable Is Your Workplace? report and get more detailed findings, visit https://www.ecoonline.com