Promoting a positive culture A guide to health and safety culture www.iosh.co.uk/positiveculture Information guide IOSH publishes a range of Promoting a positive culture – a This guide refers to UK law, statistics free technical guidance. Our guide to health and safety culture and examples. The general principles This guide provides an overview of the and advice apply outside the UK, guidance literature is designed principles of a positive safety culture but if you’re reading this in a non- to support and inform and looks at improving safety culture UK context, you should be aware of and behaviour through leadership and possible differences and may need to members and motivate and worker involvement. It provides some use data from your own country. influence health and safety indicators of a positive safety culture and outlines ways of improving safety If you have any comments or questions stakeholders. culture, as well as describing some about this guide, please contact of the elements needed to develop a Research and Information Services at positive culture. IOSH: - t +44 (0)116 257 3100 The guide includes case studies as - [email protected] examples of how safety cultures can be improved and what can be achieved PDF versions of this and other guides with a positive safety culture. are available at www.iosh.co.uk/ freeguides. Our materials are reviewed at least once every three years. This document was last reviewed and revised in May 2015. Contents 1 Overview 02 2 Towards a positive health and safety culture 03 3 IOSH guidance 09 References 11 Further reading 12 Figures 1 Health and safety risk management 02 2 Safety Culture Maturity® model 05 3 Safety culture change process 08 Case studies 1 Using the Health and Safety Climate Survey Tool 06 2 CHEP – a win–win situation 07 3 Partnership working to improve health and safety culture 09 4 Health and safety training and communicating information 10 1 Overview It’s now generally recognised that The challenge is how to have a positive Although many of the references in health and safety management should influence on an organisation’s health this guide concentrate on ‘safety’ embrace – in a holistic way – the and safety culture. It’s hard to change rather than ‘health’ cultures, the interactions between the working the attitudes and beliefs of a workforce lessons are equally applicable to issues environment, equipment, systems and by direct persuasion, but by acting of workplace health. Indeed, because procedures, and the people in the safely workers can start to think safely.3 the links between poor workplace organisation. This belief has led to the development practices and resulting ill health can be of ‘behavioural safety’ approaches. less clear and enforceable than those Effective risk management depends Remember that culture often develops relating to poor safety conditions and partly on the behaviour of individuals slowly, and that fundamental change resulting injuries, the cultural issues in an organisation. A significant requires time. linked to work-related health are number of accidents can be traced to arguably even more important than unsafe behaviours. Poorly designed Health and safety professionals must those affecting workplace safety. equipment or operations, poor systems aim to apply current thinking in a and poor working conditions can all practical way to achieve healthier and encourage unsafe behaviours, but safer working environments. This IOSH these behaviours are not inevitable. guide offers some pointers to healthier An organisation’s attitudes and values and safer working by describing some regarding safe working are important aspects of a good health and safety factors that influence its approach culture and suggesting some steps that to work and ultimately its health you and your organisation can take to and safety performance. Put another improve it. way, it’s not enough to provide safe equipment, systems and procedures if the culture doesn’t encourage healthy and safe working. Safety culture has been defined1 as consisting of shared values (what is important) and beliefs (how things work) that interact with an organisation’s structure and control Working Systems systems to produce behavioural environment Management standards (the way we do things round Plant and systems and here). A poor health and safety culture equipment procedures is likely to lead to weaknesses due to integrity problems at the person–work interface – perhaps because of poor training or communication. People and organisation A poor culture encourages an Culture and atmosphere where not complying with competence safe working practices is acceptable, and it doesn’t help the organisation to take effective action to solve health and safety problems. Quite often, organisations that have a poor safety culture can have the same underlying attitude to all process and procedures. This can result in poor product quality Figure 1: Health and safety risk management: managing the risks and financial control as well as poor associated with interactions between the working environment, the health and safety.2 management systems, the organisation and its people 02 2 Towards a positive health and safety culture A culture is a way of doing things that that are too low to be used as a basis have done the same as the person is shared, taught or copied. Everyone in for an improvement plan. involved in the incident, this may a particular culture tends to do things indicate that it’s not appropriate to in a similar way, which they would A prerequisite for a positive safety allocate blame. It may be better to look consider to be the norm. Therefore, an culture is good information. In order for at redesigning a process or giving staff organisation’s safety culture consists the information to flow, the workforce more training. On the other hand, if of its shared working practices, its needs to be willing to participate and the test group decides that they’d have tendency to accept or tolerate risk, be prepared to report their mistakes, done things differently, you may need how it controls hazards and how it near misses and accidents. to consider whether what happened deals with accidents and near misses.3,4 was a deliberate or negligent act, Safety culture can also be described This willingness will depend on how and whether some sort of blame or as a combination of how people feel the organisation investigates incidents punishment is appropriate. about safety (the safety climate), what and how it handles blame. A blame they actually do and the policies and culture – one that looks to blame and One way of identifying where you may procedures the organisation has.5 punish people when things go wrong – need to improve your organisation’s will encourage very little reporting. On health and safety culture is to A positive safety culture has three key the other hand, a completely no-blame assess your current safety climate.* elements:6 culture – one that allows all mistakes Safety climate surveys describe an - working practices and rules for or errors to go unpunished, including organisation’s culture using factors effectively controlling hazards those that are reckless or negligent such as: - a positive attitude towards risk – is not really feasible either, and - the degree of leadership in health management and compliance with probably won’t be acceptable to the and safety and the commitment to the control processes organisation or to individual workers. healthy and safe working that is - the capacity to learn from demonstrated by senior managers accidents, near misses and safety Therefore, the best safety culture (eg visibility and close contact with performance indicators and bring will be based on a fair allocation of the ‘shop floor’) about continual improvement. responsibility.7 In this kind of culture, - how much employees know and all but the most reckless health communicate about health and An organisation can develop standard and safety failures can be reported safety, how committed they are, safe working practices that comply with without fear of retribution. You and how reliably they attend health the law and best practice. It can also should encourage or even reward and safety training sessions create a positive attitude to compliance reporting. For this to happen, you’ll - the extent to which different levels by making sure that senior managers need to draw a clear line between of the workforce are involved in lead from the front on this. But for acceptable and unacceptable, reckless the health and safety improvement these two elements to work effectively, behaviour. It’s important that if you do process the organisation needs to learn from have to attribute blame, this doesn’t - the responsibility which employees what’s happening in the workplace. undermine the reporting culture. show for their own and other Only by being aware of and analysing In order to be transparent about people’s health and safety accidents and near misses is it possible attributing blame, some organisations - the degree of tolerance of risk- to develop suitable improvements to use a substitution test8 to help decide taking behaviour safe working practices. whether an incident was due to - how well good health and safety unacceptable or reckless behaviour. performance is measured and Organisations also need credible and reinforced honest safety inspections and reports In a substitution test, a small group - the arrangements for periodic so that managers know where they of employees who weren’t involved reviews of health and safety culture need to concentrate their efforts. It’s in the incident are given information and for implementing improvement important to include near misses in this about the incident and what led up to plans. analysis, as many organisations have it, and are asked to discuss it. If this levels of reported injuries and ill health group of people decide that they’d * The distinction between ‘climate’ and ‘culture’ is significant.