What Does It Take to Build a Strong Safety Culture?

Changing perceptions and attitudes lays the foundation for changes in beliefs and values.

Perceptions: Changing employees’ perceptions about safety will not change their behaviors. But if it there is consistency and follow-through, it can set the stage for a change in attitudes. Ways to change perceptions include:

• Posters
• Flyers
• Employees attending safety meetings and trainings
• Having regular safety meetings
• Introducing a safety topic at every meeting

Attitudes: Attitudes about safety can change when there is consistent communication through all levels of an organization that reflect the priority the company places on safety. Attitudes can change when:

• Employees receive feedback for their actions.
• Employees receive recognition and/or rewards for being on safety committees, making safety suggestions, conducting inspections, etc. It is very important not to offer rewards that discourage reporting of hazards and injuries.
• Management demonstrates its safety priorities and commitment by spending the needed time and money.
• The company shows that it will not forget about safety when there is a rush to get a product out the door.
• Management listens to employees’ safety concerns and suggestions and follows through.
• Metrics track positive movement, such as percent of safety inspections completed, improvements in housekeeping, attendance at safety meetings, etc. This is more proactive than tracking injuries.
• Positive enforcement dominates negative enforcement, but reprimand policies are enforced.

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Beliefs: Beliefs change through behavior, when employees participate. When they take active roles in the safety effort they are part of the success. If employees get involved, it can start to change their beliefs, setting the stage for changing values. Employees can become active participants by:

• Sitting on committees
• Performing inspections
• Delivering training
• Evaluating and controlling hazards

Values: Changing values requires sustained commitment to soliciting employee involvement and sharing successes. People have to see the commitment last for a few years before it becomes part of the values of company and the employees.

A company can have a good safety program if it has safe conditions and good enforcement, but still not have a good safety culture. That’s because making a workplace safer can’t be done without involving employees.

Employee-driven safety strives to instill a good safety culture and good, safe behavior. With employee-driven safety and a strong safety culture it is possible to optimize risk reduction with low cost and high benefits.

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How Do You Measure Success?

• Do the metrics improve? Improving injury rates is the ultimate goal of employee-driven safety, but it’s long process. As companies start to pay more attention to safety, their rates often go up as find out about hazards they didn’t know about before. Proactive metrics measure shorter-term results.
• What do safety culture surveys tell you? Employees and management often have very different perceptions of the safety culture.
• What do your eyes, ears, and gut tell you? It’s hard to quantify, but it has to do with what you see, what you hear, what you feel, and what happens when someone is or is not doing right thing.