Question

in your opinion how easy is to establish a positive saftey culture in an organisation which has ineffective, mediocre or a negative saftey culture

Answer 1

The concept of safety culture is confined by the mindsets, attitudes, behaviours of workers, supervisors, managers, and owners toward safety in the workplace. A positive safety culture in the workplace is absolutely a vital part of a successful and effective health and safety program.

The challenges faced while establishing a positive safety culture depens upon the work culture of team in organisation.

It can be managed by the following factors:

1.Communicate

A great way to increase safety communication while building a positive culture is to hold weekly or monthly safety talks. Increase worker buy-in by having them lead the talks. Make safety policies readily available electronically or on paper, and use your intranet to communicate safe practices, expectations, and best practices when it comes to safety in your workplace.

2. Provide Training

Training employees demonstrates your commitment to safety. Trained employees also embrace safety culture more readily because they are aware of hazards and the effect that they can have on maintaining workplace safety. Review key messages from training sessions often to reinforce learning.

3. Involve Workers

Building and maintaining safety culture starts from the ground up. Another way to build strong employee buy-in is to involve them in the process. Ask them what they would like the reporting process to look like, or get their feedback on current communication methods.

4. Develop and Implement a Positive Reporting Process

Reward employees who report safety hazards or concerns. A positive safety culture will be much easier to build and maintain when employees feel comfortable reporting concerns and believe that the reporting process is positive.

5.Lead by Example

Lead by example by following all safety policies and encouraging employees to do the same. If management commits to safety, employees will follow suit. Employee buy-in is crucial to a positive safety culture. Workers won’t buy-in to safety if they don’t see policies and procedures being followed by their superiors. Safety is more than talking the talk; its walking the walk.

6. Put your JHSC into Action

Having a trained and active JHSC is a great way to show safety culture in action. It demonstrates a commitment between workers and managers to safe work and maintaining a positive safety culture.

7.Practice checklist

Maintaining checklist on regular basis can track the progress of safety precautions practised at site.

8.Sustaining the Effort to Build a Safety Culture

1) Establish and maintain a safety scoreboard focused on leading safety metrics. These are activity measures of the safety process and the measures of support for safety that build safety culture. Effective scoreboards include trailing measures, are kept current, and are simple to read and understand. 2) Use a risk assessment matrix to determine priorities for safety actions and interventions. 3) Design ways to institutionalize or systematize these culture development strategies. 4) Consider a system to maintain focus on the important goals, establish accountability and provide regular ongoing dialogue for improvement