Organizations typically go through several phases in developing and strengthening safety culture. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) identifies three (3) stages:
- Safety is compliance driven and is based mainly on rules and regulations.
- At this stage, safety is seen as a technical issue, whereby compliance with externally imposed rules and regulations is considered adequate for safety.
- Good safety performance becomes an organizational goal and is dealt with primarily in terms of safety targets or goals.
- Safety is seen as a continuing process of improvement to which everyone can contribute.
In the first stage, improvements are often gained primarily by improving the engineered safeguards and introducing basic systems and procedures to control hazards. These improvements are often driven by the need to meet regulatory requirements and are usually achieved through management edict, using professional safety staff to deliver improvements. Staff tends to believe that safety is the responsibility of management and is largely imposed upon them by others.
The second stage of development involves using a SMS framework. The organization will have developed a safety-related vision or mission statement with clarity about its values and goals and established clear processes and procedures for achieving them. At this stage, individual employees will notice that work is better planned, with prior consideration of safety hazards and rules and procedures to govern what can and cannot be done that are systematically documented. However, in many organizations, this stage of safety is still often ‘imposed’ on the individual worker with little involvement or consultation and is administered and monitored by safety professionals. Although this phase of improvement can raise consciousness about the need to work in a safe environment, it does not itself gain commitment to and identification with safety at the individual and team levels.
The third stage of development is the idea that many organizations strive to attain. Achieving it is a continuing process. It requires a safety-related vision and values that are fully shared. A large proportion of the individual employees in the organization need to be sufficiently committed that they are personally and actively involved in enhancing safety. Contractors and others who influence safety will also be fully involved. Everyone will clearly understand requirements and aspirations and, individually or particularly through teams, will show a commitment to achieving and sustaining enhancements to safety in all that they do.
At this stage, safety is “in the bloodstream” of the organization.
- Poor conditions and practices are viewed by all to be unacceptable and are openly challenged.
- Events and incidents, whether related to industrial safety, or environmental issues, are seen not as part of normal working life but as exceptional and unacceptable occurrences that are avoidable.
- At this point, a learning organization has been created with a self-sustaining safety culture
Adapted from:
KEY PRACTICAL ISSUES IN STRENGTHENING SAFETY CULTURE
A report by the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group
