Good safety culture

 An organisation with a good safety culture is one which has managed to successfully institutionalise safety as a fundamental value of the organisation, with personnel at every level in the organisation sharing a common commitment to safety. 

One of the key elements is effective support from the top levels of the organisation, for safety. It is necessary for senior management to demonstrate their commitment to safety in practical terms, not just verbally or only as long as safety is a no-cost item. 

It is all very well for an organisation to commit to putting in place, for example, a safety reporting and investigation scheme but if such a scheme is not resourced properly, or if safety recommendations are not acted upon, it will be ineffective. 

It is also important that such commitment to safety is long-term, and that safety initiatives are not the first items to be cut in terms of financial support when the organisation is looking for cost savings. 

Safety management within an organisation should be addressed with as much commitment as financial management tends to be.  

A good safety culture needs to be nurtured, and is not something which can be put in place overnight, or with a training course alone. It can be improved in the short term by putting staff through a training course dealing with the elements of safety culture.

 However, the improvement will only be sustained if the types of behaviours conducive to safety are rewarded and poor safety behaviour is not condoned, or even punished (in the extreme cases). This relies on staff at all levels within the organisation, especially middle management and supervisory levels,

 (i) recognising what good and bad safety behaviour is,

 (ii) good safety behaviour being encouraged, and 

(iii) poor safety behaviour being discouraged. 

Sometimes the opposite occurs in that staff are rewarded for cutting corners in order to meet commercial deadlines and, in a few cases, punished for complying with procedures (e.g. refusing to sign off work which they have not had the opportunity to check). This is characteristic of a poor safety culture. A good safety culture is based on what actually goes on within an organisation on a day-to-day basis, and not on rhetoric or superficial, short term safety initiatives.

Key Elements Contributing Towards a Good Safety Culture

  1. Support from the top 
  2. A formal safety policy statement
  3. Awareness of the safety policy statements and buy-in from all levels within the organisation 
  4. Practical support to enable the workforce to do their jobs safely, e.g. in terms of training, planning, resources, workable procedures, etc.
  5.  A just culture and open reporting
  6.  A learning culture and willingness to change when necessary
  7.  Corporate and personal integrity in supporting the safety policy principles in the face or potentially conflicting commercial demands

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