Culture For Aspect In Safety Management Systems

Introduction to safety culture

Describe about the Culture for Aspect in Safety Management Systems.

In the organizational context, culture simply means the normal way of doing things around. It includes the employees’ values, beliefs, practices and their attitude. Every successful organization has standard methods used by its employees in the realization of the organizational goals. These methods become normal over time making them the organization’s culture.

Safety on the other hand is a state of feeling whereby potential causes of harm to employees or products are maintained at acceptable levels. It is worth noting that these potential causes cannot be completely removed. Although from the two definitions safety culture would simply mean normal way of doing things in a manner that reduces the risks of injuries, there is no generally accepted meaning. The term first gained prominence when it was used in the report of Chernobyl nuclear accident[1]. Since then different industry professionals and academia have come up with different meanings. According to the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority, it is a combination of perceptions, values, norms, attitudes, and behavioral patterns within an organization concerned with the reduction of the employees exposure to risky and hazardous conditions.

Work related injuries have brought enourmous costs to different organisations. There has therefore been efforts by different industry players to reduce workplace risks. For instance the government has formulated laws and many companies have come up with health and safety policies for their employees. While all these efforts are important they cannot assure safety. There is need for companies to establish a safety culture where employees are well trained to understand the hazards and risks involved in their work and continuously strive to identify and overcome them[2].

Positive safety culture has many benefits to both the organization and its employees. The management and the workforce interact freely in trying to identify and mitigating risks.  This is because they all feel responsible for safety[3]. They include:

Low employee turnover. Employee turnover is the rate at which employees leave their current employment. Positive safety culture gives employees a sense of security in the workplace therefore no need of finding another employment.

Increased productivity. Positive safety culture encourages employees to be responsible for safety. Employees feel free to discuss safety issues with management. This makes them feel valued and further motivates the m to increase their productivity. It also reduces absenteeism due to injuries which lead to reduced working time.

Advantages of a positive safety culture in an organization

Reduced incident rates. Incidences of injuries to employees and general public are costly to organizations in many ways. The organization incurs legal fees, increased insurance premium, medical expenses and the costs of compensation. As Knapfel puts it “For every dollar invested towards safety and risk management saves approximately $3 in claims and overheads according to industry experts”.

Improved public image. Strong safety culture reduces incidents of injuries to the employees and the general public. In the aviation industry, customers like the companies with lower injury incidents. It also brings an image of valued and protected employees. Customers generally like dealing with organizations that value their employees.

There is no single safety culture model that fits into all organizations because it changes over time[4]. But a strong effective safety culture posses the following hallmarks.

Visible management commitment and involvement. Senior management should show commitment by providing motivation, leadership and necessary resources to employees[5]. Management should also constantly review their areas of responsibility and ensure due processes are observed.

High level communication of the safety culture. Clear ways of communication between different levels of the organization should be adopted. Communication can be through informal conversations, emails, toolbox talks, posters, health and safety policy statements or any other clear method the organization choose to adopt[6].

Commitment to safety being equal to commitment to productivity. More commitment should be shown towards safety just as productivity. This is because as already discussed, safety of the employees and the public greatly influence the productivity of an organization.

Stability of the workforce. A stable and mature workforce is an indicator of positive safety culture. Employees tend to stay longer where they feel they are safe.

Regular health and safety trainings and awareness programs. Employees should be made aware of the risks they face as a result of the organization’s operations[7]. Regular training on health and safety matters will help raise their awareness. Different risks come up every day. Regular effective trainings will therefore help them cope with any event.

Existence and compliance with formal health and safety policies and procedures. Written procedures should be helpful in reducing risks. They should therefore be complied with and audited regularly to identify any lapses and for continual improvement.

Personal responsibility and accountability to safety. Everyone within the organization should feel responsible for their safety and that of other employees[8]. They should also be accountable for their safety actions. However, just culture where human errors are understood should also exist.

Key elements of a positive safety culture

Involvement and motivation of the workforce. The employees should be involved in the formulation of safety procedures. Feedback should be taken from employees regarding the existing ones and necessary action taken. Employees should be motivated in order to feel proud of working in the organization

Organizational learning. The organization should show willingness to adapt by using accident history as a learning experience. Reported incidents should be acted upon to help prevent future reoccurrence.

Challenges faced in the development of a safety culture

Implementation of a positive safety culture within an organization may face several challenges both internal and external. They include:

Uncommitted management. Management may continually make decisions that appear to put productivity and cost above safety. Some managers fail to see the many indirect benefits a safety culture brings to an organization therefore will only concentrate on productivity [9].

Insufficient resources. Many small organizations don’t have enough resources to promote safety culture. Implementation of safety practices requires significant resources for training and awareness. Due to their limited resources they give priority to productivity.

Rapidly changing workforce. In this era of globalization and increased competition, organizations regularly poach experienced employees from their competitors. The cost of training the replacements of the poached workforce on safety matters may seem too costly to the organization.

Resistance to change by the employees[10]. Health and safety management is an ever changing topic as new risks arise every day. Creation of a strong and sustainable safety culture is therefore a continuous process. If any employee is not committed then the program may fail.

Lack of employees’ motivation. Employees who do not feel appreciated as a result of the management over focusing on productivity lose motivation. Unmotivated employees fail to embrace the safety culture.

Assessing safety culture

As already seen, safety culture is very important in that in greatly determines the success of any organization through risk management. Safety culture assessment therefore involves the establishment of the current level of safety culture within an organization and formulating ways of making improvements. Information is acquired through the use of questionnaires, interviews, charts and surveys.  Questions used in the assessment should be a combination of both positive and negative and should avoid biased. A repeat of safety culture assessment should only be conducted once action has been taken regarding findings of the previous one[11].

Several models of safety culture have been developed over the years. However the major ones are:

Challenges faced in the development of a safety culture

Accident causation models. It illustrates that continuous breach successive system defenses eventually cause accident. Such breaches may not be discovered at the time but can eventually be triggered by other factors to cause an accident.

Safety triad models. It focuses on the resulting interaction between individual’s perceptions, behavior and the general safety culture environment.

Component models. It involves in-depth explanation of the various components of a safety culture.

Safety culture maturity models. Describes the movement through various stages of safety culture as opposed to its components. It concentrates more on the development of the safety culture which occurs over time.

Integrating safety culture into management systems.

There are a number of management systems focusing on workplace safety. Integrating all these systems reduces duplication as most of them share the same implementation process. Some of the safety management systems include:

OHSAS 18001:2007-Occupational Health and Safety Management.

It is an international standard that was developed to provide a framework through which organizations’ health and safety systems could be verified. Over the last few years it has been integrated with the ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management Systems and ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems. It uses PDCA to enable organizations establish, implement and maintain their occupational health and safety policies. This involves planning by establishing the required processes and objectives, doing by implementing the system, checking by monitoring and evaluating against the requirements and acting to continually improve it.

Advantages of an effective OHSAS management system

Reduce costs and liabilities thereby increasing profits.

Increases levels of trust between management and employees.

Creates a platform for continuous improvement.

Provides a clear approach in dealing with health and safety issues within the organization.

AS/NZS 4801:2001

It was prepared by the Joint Standards Australia/Standards New Zealand Committee SF-001, Occupational Health and Safety Management to supersede both AS 4801:2000, Occupational health and safety management systems and NZS 4801(Int):1999, Occupational health and safety management systems. It combines the best elements of both systemss being used in Australia and New Zealand.

ISO 45001

This is a new standard that is expected out in October 2016. The standard uses BS 18001 as a blueprint and is expected to be aligned with the Quality Management Systems and the Environmental Management Systems. This is an attempt to integrate the 3 systems.

Safety culture is an ongoing process that should never strop[12]. The following are ways in which it can be improved:

Obtaining of the top management’s commitment. Make the top management understand the importance of a safety culture within the organization because they are the ones responsible for availing funds.

Continuous assessment of the existing culture. The existing culture should be regularly assessed and the findings communicated. This will ensure continuous improvement.

Improve communication mechanisms. Communication is vital for the success of any program within the organization. Encourage two- way open communication whereby employees’ input is also sought in the development of a safety system.

Create a common understanding of safety goals. Everyone needs to understand their role in the achievement of the safety culture and work towards it. Top management needs to provide leadership in working toward the attainment of the goals.

From the discussion, culture is thus an essential element of any safety management system. It plays an important role in the success of an organization and it can actually be measured using different assessment criteria[13]. An organization may adopt a safety management system which may only serve to assure the public of its commitment to adhere to health and safety requirements. However, the internal employees may find it too technical due to the processes involved like documentation. Safety procedures therefore need to be engraved into their daily activities until it become normal and translates into a culture within the organization. Safety culture develops over time and it may take long before employees view it as a norm. Safety culture cannot also be uniform across all organizations. Some organizations are too large while others are small. Some sub cultures may develop within the bigger organizations.