How to Create a Positive Safety Culture

Using these criteria as a guide, try to define how you would ideally see these existing within your area of responsibility. How would each apply, and what evidence would you expect to see? You may want to write the criteria down and then make notes on each topic. Try not to stray into thinking about the current state of affairs at this stage - your aim here is to picture how things would look, ideally. You need this in order to define and understand what your ultimate goals are.

Find Out Where You Are

The next step is to fully understand the current culture, both in your area of responsibility and throughout the organization. How do people currently feel about safety? What factors affect their choices and beliefs? How do they perceive the organization’s current attitude to Health and Safety? According to the IOSH, the following factors should be investigated to get a full picture of the existing safety culture: [3]

• employees’ knowledge of, and commitment to, Health and Safety
• extent of employee involvement in Health and Safety improvement processes
• responsibility for Health and Safety shown by employees
• employee tolerance of risk-taking behavior
• measurement and reinforcement of good Health and Safety practice
• level of commitment to Health and Safety demonstrated by senior team and leadership
• plans in place for periodic reviews and improvement of Health and Safety culture

Some of this information can be collected through observation of current practices and employee surveys. If you are not directly responsible for Health and Safety, then, depending on the size of your organization, you will also need to speak to your Health and Safety department or officer. Once you understand exactly where your organization currently stands with regard to Health and Safety, you can begin to identify things you can do to help move towards an ideal safety culture.

Get Everyone Committed

Successful change requires commitment from all levels of the company - especially its leadership. It is vital that the organization’s management not only make it clear that they support a positive safety culture but that they are clearly seen to do so in their everyday activities. If possible, discuss this across your organization’s leadership in coordination with the Health and Safety department/officer. Try to identify ways in which you, and other leaders and managers, can change your own behaviors to demonstrate a commitment to safety.

Trust between employees, managers and leaders is essential to genuine cultural change. If employees believe that management are only paying lip service to Health and Safety, they are unlikely to change their own attitudes and any behavioral changes will probably be short-lived. Offering full training in all aspects of an employee’s role and ensuring that all necessary safety equipment is provided and well maintained is a fundamental building block for a safe working environment.

It is also worth looking at how Health and Safety training could be incorporated into the induction process for new employees, if this is not already the case. The need for a positive safety culture and the potential consequences of not having one should be clearly communicated to all employees. However, to build trust and engage all employees, leaders and managers also need regular consultations with ‘shop floor’ staff. These consultations should be at the heart of a solid, committed program of ongoing improvement.

Capture Near Misses

Such an ongoing improvement program will require a system of workplace analysis and hazard prevention, which all staff must be encouraged to actively take part in. Central to this must be a rigorous system for reporting near misses. The greatest indicator of where safety improvements can be made, near misses are often not reported by staff for fear of repercussions. This is why it is vital that the organization has a fair responsibility culture, where no blame is attributed for near misses except when behavior is clearly negligent or risky. This should give people the confidence to report their own near misses, knowing that they will be appreciated for drawing attention to the potential risk rather than chastised for any errors they may have made.

Once a robust near miss reporting system has been established, all reports must be followed up, as must any and all safety recommendations. Employees will quickly stop bothering to make reports or suggestions if they seem to just disappear into a black hole. As a leader, you have to ensure that the information is acted upon, and then report back to all employees on what has happened with each incident. This could be part of the regular consultations between leadership and employees or distributed by regular email communication, for example. The important thing is that action is seen to be taken on everything that is reported.

Don’t Undermine Yourself

Alongside these positive actions, it’s important to make sure that there are no underlying, contradictory messages conveyed to staff. For example, if the organization’s leadership is known to be highly focused on the bottom line and safety measures are viewed as a cost, employees may be dissuaded from fully committing to the program under the belief that safety is secondary to profit. Make sure safety is seen as an investment rather than a cost to the company and that everyone knows management supports this approach. As part of this, build safety considerations into the planning of workflow, so as to avoid the need for shortcuts to meet deadlines.

Reward Success

In the right environment, people should feel encouraged not only to report their own near misses but to actively stop other people when they witness unsafe behavior. However, many people will feel an instinctive discomfort or reticence to do this, so consider rewarding these actions to truly encourage them and overcome any instinctive discomfort or reticence. As part of this, make sure to reinforce the ‘fair blame’ culture, so that people don’t feel they are likely to cause trouble for colleagues by flagging up any incidents.

Finally, make sure to celebrate successes when safety improvements show tangible results. Congratulate people whose suggestions lead to policy changes and toast improved safety figures as a company-wide achievement. A sustainable shift to a positive safety culture will only happen when people believe that Health and Safety is a real priority for a business that is supported from the top as being more important than profit.