Creating A Safety Culture

Creating a Safety Culture
Creating a workplace that values and embraces safety programs is unfortunately not a commodity to be purchased, but rather an atmosphere to be encouraged by plant managers. Without the buy-in of everyone from upper management down, implementing an effective safety culture is difficult. Managers must develop relationships with the environment, health and safety practitioners in the plant, and help each individual understand the role machine and process safety plays in their plant.

Specifically, companies need four critical components if they are going to be successful in establishing a safety culture – credibility, commitment, accountability and rigor. If employees don't believe it's a credible program, i.e., if they believe it's a marketing ploy or simply nice words, then it will surely fail. What builds that credibility is continual senior management commitment driven and adopted throughout the organization. Most companies have some management commitment in words and deeds, but it must result in action and funding. Without this, a safety program cannot survive.

A safety program also won't survive without accountability and ownership within the organization. In a successful safety culture, everyone is a stakeholder.

Lastly, rigor is key, because it reinforces the credibility of the program, meaning it becomes more "real" because it has a well-defined structure, i.e., documentation, training, milestones in the process, key success metrics, etc. If a manufacturer has all four components along with buy-in throughout the organization, then safety becomes a core value. Without buy-in throughout the organization, it is difficult to maintain a safety culture and to view employees as critical assets in the organization – no matter how a risk assessment is conducted.

Keys for Creating a Safety Culture

Following are seven keys to an effective safety culture:

1. The entire workforce relentlessly pursues the identification and remediation of hazards. Correcting hazards as quickly as possible and maintaining good communications around hazards will not only create a safer workplace, it will improve your employees’ engagement. Frontline employees who believe management takes care of hazards are more willing to participate fully in safety initiatives.

2. Employees at all levels are equally comfortable stopping each other when at-risk behavior is observed and recognizing each other when safe behavior is observed. While good constructive feedback is important for improvement, positive reinforcement for safe behavior is essential for building safe habits.  The more actively involved all levels of the organization are in delivering positive reinforcement for behaviors consistent with the desired culture, the stronger the culture will be.

3. No one is blamed for near misses or incidents. Instead, systemic causes are pursued. Often when people engage in at-risk behaviors that lead to incidents, there are organizational systems and practices that inadvertently encourage those at-risk practices. It is important to uncover those and establish accountability for making the changes to the systems and practices to encourage safe behavior.

4. The fear of discipline which drives under-reporting and stifles involvement has been driven out of the culture. Discipline has a place, but most safety issues can be effectively dealt with without discipline, which has side effects that work against building a culture of safety.  When discipline is used disproportionately in relation to positive consequences it leads to lower morale, reduced trust, lower productivity, less teamwork and lack of engagement.  Equally disturbing is that it suppresses reporting incidents which cripples the organizations ability to learn from mistakes and become more proactive.

5. The workforce is characterized by good relationships at all levels. Trust is an essential component for an effective safety culture.  As noted above, mistakes and errors, while unfortunate, provide invaluable learning.  Employees who have good working relationships with management are more likely to speak openly and honestly about what is working, what is not and what still needs to change.  They are also more engaged in other aspects of safety.

6. Safety is integrated into day-to-day work. It is not treated as something separate to be discussed during a weekly safety meeting or only at shift change.  Safety should be part of every conversation and considered in every decision.

7. Successes are celebrated along the way. Pride shouldn’t be focused solely on a company’s safety record, but also in what is being done every day, all day to achieve that record. Once you have defined the ideal safety culture for your organization, the science of behavior analysis can be used to develop behaviors consistent with that culture.  Targeted positive reinforcement of desired behaviors leads to rapid change and the effects multiply quickly as all employees begin to not only display desired cultural behaviors, but to reinforce those behaviors in others.

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