Ten (10) core principles shape a “culture of safety.” Each may need a specific plan to develop, improve, or maintain while the others develop.
Safety Culture – The shared values, actions, and behaviors that demonstrate a commitment to safety over competing goals and demands.
1. Leadership is Clearly Committed to Safety
Since nearly all safety culture models explicitly mentioned leadership commitment to safety, the importance of leadership in fostering a strong safety culture was evident. Leaders across all layers of an organization must model safety-first attitudes and behaviors. Employees learn what the accepted practices are in an organization by following the examples set by their leaders.
2. Open and Effective Communication Exists Across the Organization
Employees must feel comfortable communicating with their supervisors about safety issues and with their peers when they see unsafe behaviors. If the organization is not communicating the importance of safety and encouraging its employees to speak up about safety, then safety risks are more likely to develop and less likely to be addressed before an accident occurs.
3. Employees Feel Personally Responsible for Safety
Employees who feel personally responsible for safety take more ownership of safety procedures and are more likely to speak up when they see other employees behaving unsafely. Personal responsibility empowers employees and helps the organization proactively identify and correct risks.
4. The Organization Practices Continuous Learning
A strong safety culture requires a learning-oriented environment that continuously searches for opportunities to improve safety and implements them. Organizations must be able to learn from accidents when they do happen and be willing to make changes that can prevent incidents in the future.
5. The Work Environment is Safety Conscious
Maintaining a strong safety culture also requires constant vigilance and an elevated awareness of the importance of safety. Employees should be encouraged to raise safety concerns and allowed to raise concerns through reporting systems and procedures.
6. Reporting Systems are Clearly Defined and Not Used to Punish Employees
Organizations must ensure that reporting systems and lines of accountability are in place, so safety issues can be promptly identified, thoroughly evaluated, promptly addressed, and corrected commensurate with their significance.
7. Decisions Demonstrate that Safety is Prioritized Over Competing Demands
Organizations with a strong safety culture differ from others because their decision-making processes emphasize that safety is prioritized over competing demands. Organizations with a strong safety culture will consistently choose safety over performance when faced with cutting corners to increase performance.
8. Employees and the Organization Work to Foster Mutual Trust
One of the cornerstones of any positive organizational culture is trust. Trust among managers, labor representatives, government regulators, and inspectors can go a long way to
support safety by facilitating open and honest communication and minimizing fears of reprisal. Employees who have developed a relationship of trust with their supervisors may feel more willing to raise safety concerns in novel situations when unsure how the organization might respond.
9. The Organization Responds to Safety Concerns Fairly and Consistently
Above and beyond having effective reporting procedures and processes in place, the organization must respond to safety concerns in a manner that employees perceive as fair, just, and consistent. Employees should feel free to raise safety concerns without fear of retaliation.
10. Safety Efforts are Supported by Training and Resources
Those who manage and operate the system must have up-to-date knowledge about the human, technical, organizational, and environmental factors that determine the system’s safety as a whole, and they must have the tools and equipment to perform their jobs as safely as possible. In addition, the organization must ensure that the personnel, procedures, and other resources needed to ensure safety are available. Understaffing safety-critical positions or not having formal, written procedures for ensuring safety can be just as detrimental as a lack of physical equipment.
Source: FRA’s “Safety Culture: A Significant Influence on Safety“
