II.4- Characteristics of identifiable good safety culture in
an organism:
In recent years, companies have begun to recognize the
important contribution that an effective safety culture can make to the control
of their ongoing operational costs and efficiency of their ongoing operations.
Many organizations have realized that this provides the perfect opportunity for
them to streamline their operational processes and optimize the associated
management and control systems. Hence, more than ever before, all levels of
line management need to possess a much greater knowledge of how to develop and
implement high quality safety management systems. There is also a need to know
how to manage safety on a day to day basis throughout their areas of
responsibility.
The safety practitioner's role is now that of a high-level
internal consultant who offers independent advice to senior management on
development of the organization's safety policies and their short, medium and
long term strategic objectives for creating and maintaining a positive safety
culture. Modern safety practitioners must be as familiar with all aspects of
managements as those practitioners from other disciplines (such as human
resources, production, finance, commercial, etc.) that comprise the senior
management team.
Some characteristics of identifiable good safety culture in an
organism can be understood according to Cooper, (2001) in the following
headings: immediate, intermediate and ultimate.
Ø Immediate
The first pointer to look for is the quality of safety
leadership demonstrated by the organisation's chief Executive officer (CEO) and
senior management team. The regular active monitoring and review of line
management's implementation of these strategic plans by the senior management
team demonstrates the most important aspect of good safety leadership. The
findings of these reviews should be communicated to every person in the
organization on regular basis. Hence informations about the ongoing progress
being made readily available to all employees.
The status accorded to the safety practitioner by the CEO of
an organisation indicates the level of safety culture. Thus, if the safety
practitioner has direct, independent and unimpeded access to the CEO, it can be
said that the organisation actively recognizes the important contribution that
the safety function offers to all aspects of its business.
The presence and quality of the organisation's risk control
systems also indicates its level of safety culture. If risk assessment have
been conducted and recorded, on all the organisation's activities and the
appropriate control measures fully implemented, it is probably that safety is
being actively controlled at the operational level.
Ø Intermediate:
The presence and quality of the organisation's safety
management information system is the next visible characteristic of a positive
safety culture. It provides the means by which the organisation can evaluate
its ongoing safety activities as well as providing the knowledge required to
facilitate error correction, problem-solving, decision-making and forward
planning.
Regular planning and conduction of safety management audits
throughout the whole organisation is another indicator of a positive safety
culture within an organisation.
Ø Ultimate level:
It is concerned with the wining of people's heart and minds to
the organisation's safety principles through:
ü the development of high quality safety training
programs,
ü seeking and acting upon employees' points of view
ü empowering them to become actively involved with safety
issues on a daily basis.
In fact, the extent to which an organisation actually changes
its systems and management practices to support the safety training provided
will also provide a useful indicator of a positive safety culture.
We can say that the most important indicator of a positive
safety culture is the extent to which employees are actively involved in safety
on a daily basis. Thus where safety issues are identified and acted upon by all
the employees as part of their normal working day, the organisation can be said
to have won over people's hearts and minds to the safety cause and therefore,
has a living, breathing, proactive and safety culture.
According to Phil. Hughes et al, (2007) some other important
indicators of a health and safety culture could be obtained by exploring the
numbers of accidents, near misses, the perception of a blame culture, frequency
of high staff turnover, cases of insufficient resources and the lack of
compliance with relevant health and safety law and the safety rules and
procedures of the organization, poor selection procedures and management of
contractors, poor level of communication, cooperation and control, absence or
presence of a weak health and safety management structure (SAFETY COMMITTEE),
poor levels of health and safety competence, high insurance premiums and
occupational ill-health cases occurring within the organisation.
Thus an organisation with a high accident incidence rate is
likely to have a negative or poor health and safety culture.
Furthermore, Reason (1997) has also identified four
characteristics that go to make up such a safety culture.
These are:
· a reporting culture in which people are
willing to report errors and near misses.
· a just culture; culture of `no blame' where an
atmosphere of trust is present and people are encouraged or even rewarded for
providing essential safety-related information - but also where it is a clear
line between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.
· a flexible culture which can take different
forms but is characterized as shifting from the conventional hierarchical mode
to a flatter professional structure
· a learning culture, the willingness and the
competence to draw the right conclusions from its safety information system,
and the will to implement major reforms when the need is indicated.
A good safety culture, however, is believed to positively
impact upon an organisation's quality, reliability, competiveness and
profitability. In fact, reliability has been reported to improve by a factor of
three, and sometimes by as much as a factor of ten, when quality improvements
are initiated. These improvements are related to the use of better monitoring
and feedback systems. Safety culture may affect people's way of thinking and
lead to the development of safety features. It positively impacts on employees'
commitment and loyalty to the organisation, resulting in greater job
satisfaction, productivity and reduced absenteeism. Profitability is achieved
by minimizing loss and adding the capital value.
Research has highlighted some confusion and inconsistency in
the literature over the use of the terms `safety climate' and `safety culture'.
The review has provided a useful framework for approaching these terms, based
upon the work done by Cooper (2000). The term safety culture can be used to
refer to the behavioral aspects (i.e. `what people do'), and the situational
aspects of the company (i.e. `what the organisation has'). The term safety
climate should be used to refer to psychological characteristics of employees
(i.e. `how people feel'), corresponding to the values, attitudes, and
perceptions of employees with regard to safety within an organism. There have
been some evolutions in the concept of safety culture.
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