SAFETY CULTURE |
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What is a ‘Safety Culture’ anyway? On the surface, a ‘Safety Culture’ doesn’t sound like something to court controversy. So, why do so many people have widely different opinions on it?
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hat is a safety culture and what is its value to organisations? In this first of a three-part series of discussions, Russell Keir, Vice Chair of the Railway Group at the Institution of Safety and Health (IOSH) together with the RSSB’s Paul Leach, take a less than scientific view of the subject to stoke the fires, invite opinion and identify challenges, controversial or otherwise, on what a safety culture is or should be. We started by doing what many other people do to find out more about a safety culture and searched the internet. Having read and considered a number of definitions, the definition provided by the Health and Safety Laboratory (HSL) seemed appropriate: ‘Safety culture is a combination of the attitudes, values, and perceptions that influence how something is actually done in the workplace, rather than how it should be done.’ The definition added: ‘Poor safety culture has contributed to many major incidents and personal injuries and can be just as influential on safety outcomes as an organisation’s safety management system itself’. Safety culture – it’s easy, isn’t it? The simple answer is yes – or is it? The point is that safety culture is a complex concept and many things will influence its evolution. There can be both positive and negative influences. Over time, a culture may develop out of the decisions that proved to be successful or unsuccessful, and the reasoning or perceived reasoning behind them becomes embedded into ‘the way we do things around here’ and ‘what people do when no one is looking’. Hopefully, these reflect the positive influences, but this is not always the case. A culture will evolve whether it is managed or not. However, the key question to consider is, ‘is it a safe culture?’ How do we know it is? and, how can we influence its propagation? For an organisation to have a ‘safe culture’, it needs to decide what ‘safe’ looks like and share that vision with everyone in the organisation. This should set the ‘safety’ expectations.
However, organisations need to go further and ensure that their leaders, managers, and staff have a fundamental understanding of how to think about safety risk, the role they play and be able and willing to make informed decisions, and not necessarily continue doing what they have always done. Most people understand that safety management is about having arrangements in place to control health and safety risks. However, is the reasoning for having these arrangements clear and fully understood (throughout the organisation)? More importantly, do staff believe these arrangements will keep them safe and will they comply with them? These are the thoughts that should trigger consideration of how good the safety culture is. Knowledge of what is meant to happen in an organisation must be reflected in what actually goes on. But how is this achieved? How are poor safety behaviours and organisational processes and practices identified, understood and corrected to prevent poor custom and practice becoming the norm? Conversely, and importantly, how are good behaviours and organisational practices recognised and communicated? And to what extent do organisations explicitly or implicitly accept behaviours that may be associated with a poorer safety culture? Safety culture – guidance in the rail industry The rail industry is no exception in producing guidance and tools to improve understanding of what a safety culture is and what can be done to improve it. The Office of Rail & Road (ORR) has published its strategic risk chapter on ‘Leadership & Culture’ on its website. It reports: ‘A positive culture is a key ‘enabler’, as it can further reduce the likelihood of a dangerous occurrence and make compliance with health and safety legislation much more likely as it promotes a willingness to think and do things in a healthy and safe way.’ The document goes on to discuss where it expects the industry to improve its safety culture, by promoting a learning approach to create and maintain an effective culture,
Russell Keir
Paul Leach
where the leaders regularly review health and safety performance and are able to take prompt action to prevent accidents and occupational ill health. The ORR also promotes the use of its Risk Management Maturity Model (RM3) as a tool for assessing an organisation’s ability to successfully manage health and safety risks, identify areas for improvement and provide a Rail Professional
