The
‘Culture’ of an organization can be defined as ‘the way we do things around
here’. Culture is both the first and last line of defense against injury and
loss. More specifically, safety culture ensures that employees follow
designated processes and systems, and when those processes fail and those
systems break (and they always do), a good culture will assert itself to drive
the proper response. Here are some important characteristics to note:
·
Culture
is defined as a shared set of common values, experiences, beliefs, and
characteristics
·
Culture
is learned by observation, experience, and example, it is not taught
·
Culture
is a living entity – it requires investment or it will rot
·
Culture
is messy
·
The
culture of safety is those values and beliefs that are commonly shared in work
place operations – It
is heavily influenced by factors outside the workplace
The Need for Cultural Change
Many
organizations endeavor to improve workplace safety performance through both
task and hardware approaches.
Typically,
in the past, these have focused on physical design and its relationship to
employee performance and so engineers and ergonomists have dominated the safety
arena. More recently they have been joined by sociologists and psychologists
who try to explain accident involvement and poor safety performance in terms of
attitudes, safety climate and/ or organizational culture. The first of these
approaches involves attempting to change employee attitudes and reduce
accidents through the use of publicity campaigns, safety training or
disciplinary actions. It can be recognized as the 'traditional' approach to
improving safety performance. Other approaches tend to adopt the method of
workplace survey (that is, interview and questionnaire techniques) with the aim
of diagnosing problems.
So,
the challenge to continually improve safety performance remains a key activity
for many organizations. Indeed, managers and safety directors responsible for
improving safety performance has contacted us asking for help because they
believe that they have reached some sort of plateau. They have felt unable to
drive down the level of accidents any further by the use of traditional means.
Now, a growing body of evidence suggests that a shift in focus from traditional
approaches to a behavior-based approach to safety improvement can further
improve workplace safety performance and will reduce the number and the
severity of occupational accidents.
High Cost of Ineffective Safety Management
Failure to manage safety effectively in the workplace is evident
and the penalties are high. Each year, there will be lost to business through
occupational accidents and illness.
· 2 accidental deaths in the
workplace
· 2,500 reportable injuries
· 9,000 work injuries
· 250,000 thousand 'near
misses'
ü 7 out of 10 occupational accidents (and cases
of ill-health) could easily have been prevented
ü Over 2,000 lives a year
could have been saved if health and safety laws were followed by employers and
employees.
·
Time and costs due to repair of plant and equipment
·
Increased insurance premiums
·
Fines/ legal costs
·
Medical expenses
·
The 'never quite the same again' implications, and/or long-term
physical and psychological health problems.
Organizational Safety Profiling
Safety culture indicates that different levels of an
organizational hierarchy have different influences on the safety culture. These
levels need to be differentiated. In this text an organization is considered as
having four levels:
1. Executive and senior management
2. Middle managers
3. Supervisors
4. The workforce teams (These can be plant designers, the plant
operators, maintenance engineers, technicians and contractors, and so on, who
are assumed to work under a supervisor)
The expert suggests that organizational culture arises from shared
beliefs. These beliefs driving an organization’s collective behaviors are not
always overt but in reality, are buried beneath observable supportive layers of
values, attitudes and artifacts. It is suggested that beliefs and hence culture
can only be assessed and interpreted indirectly through observing human
behaviors.
Behavior is determined by its consequences.
Specifically, this means that people will tend to repeat those
behaviors that produce 'positive' consequences, and not repeat those that
result in either no positive, or 'negative', consequences. In addition, they
will also tend not to repeat behaviors that produce no consequences at all. In
other words, people learn to behave in ways that produce rewards, and avoid
behaving in ways that either produces no rewards or even punishment. This may
appear to be simply applied common sense. By providing a theoretical structure,
we enable managers to make more effective use of the techniques.
Only your mindset can change your belief!!
Typically,
many companies wait for 'something to happen' before they take action. Usually
this occurs when a situation reaches an unacceptable level. Figure 4
illustrates this concept. When accidents (or production problems, or quality
issues) are at a very low level management tends to be relaxed and their
attention is focused on some other 'alligator which is trying to sink their
canoe' Essentially, 'their eye is not on the safety all'.
For
much of the time accident levels remain at an acceptable rate which is 'comfortable'
for management. Thus, it is known as the 'happiness zone', wherein managers
adopt a recording and monitoring role. However, as the rate of injury or events
rise to an unacceptable level or 'something happens’, the attention of
management is triggered and this results in some form of action.
This
behavior takes various forms, but is normally typified by much shouting,
banging fists on tables, and exhortations such as, 'we can't go on like this -
things have got to improve around here!' However, in time, accidents start to
happen again and the cycle re-starts. Within this traditional approach, safety
improvement is a 'boom or bust' activity because only a few people are charged
with the responsibility for safety.
Behavior
Approach - Mindset & Risks
In the
behavior-based approach to continuous safety improvement, many more people take
responsibility or safety and 'keep their eye on the ball', every day, every
shift. Shop-floor personnel take turns to act so observers within their own
work group and continually measure safety performance through the use of a
checklist which is regularly updated to take into account the changes that
might take place in the work environment.
In
these ways the approach stays alive and is not allowed to become stale or jaded.
Neither can it be labeled as a 'flavor of the month ‘campaign. To
summarize, in the behavioral approach the emphasis is on the encouragement of
safe behavior, not the changing of attitudes or the use of discipline.
How can we help?
We at TSM TheSafetyMaster Private Limited offer the following
services to enhance the Safety Culture in the industries:
1.
Safety perception survey
2.
BBS Training Capsules
3.
BBS-SCT Implementation Process
4. Risk assurance Program
Contact us at info@thesafetymaster.com or call us to
7665231743 to know more on Behavior Based Safety training
and certification subject of altering employee attitudes towards safety and in
turn take care of present liabilities that persist owing to unsafe behaviors.
