Safety in the Workplace: Part 2 - Creating a Culture of Safety
Last week we spoke about who in the organization is responsible for safety, and the importance of creating a safe workplace. So what can you do to make your workplace more safe? Even if your organization does everything it can to protect workers and provide a safe working environment, an unsafe organizational culture can undermine your efforts.
How do unsafe work cultures arise?
An unsafe work culture may not come out of malicious intent. There are a great many factors that can come into play. For example, employees may be afraid of the consequences of reporting unsafe work, they may not know how to report concerns, or they may believe the risks are normal.
Before beginning the process of creating a safe work environment and changing attitudes, there are a few key questions that employers and owners should ask themselves:
Legal duties: What standards and responsibilities does your jurisdiction outline for workplace safety?
Risks and mitigants: What hazards are present in your workplace, and what measures can be taken to mitigate these risks? More on this can be found in our post on the Hierarchy of Hazard Control
Causes of incidents: What are the primary sources of injury and illness in your workplace? What unsafe actions or environments lead to these accidents?
Attitudes and culture: What is the current state of policies in your workplace and what attitude do employees and managers have towards them?
Changing attitudes to save lives
Improving safety culture can be difficult. Many companies experience normalization around rule breaking and cutting corners. Workers and management may have become complacent with how things are, or people view tasks as low risk and do not take as much care. Beyond that, inadequate training or “unwritten rules” can also come into play.
Creating a culture of safety can greatly lower the risk of workplace accidents by undoing this risk normalisation and ensuring the proper emphasis is put on safety and training. In one study, there was a clear correlation between workers' perception of workplace safety and fewer workplace injuries. This means that workplaces that supported safety culture were less likely to experience incidents.
Workplace safety culture
Workplace culture is influenced by a great many things, including organizational values and policies, work environment, and those who make up the company (both the employees and management). Even if policies and procedures change, there is no guarantee that the work culture will follow.
Four of the greatest factors in creating a culture of workplace safety are:
Commitment to safety both at the top and the bottom of the organization
Discipline for those who do not follow the expectations
Prevention to avoid future accidents and issues
Participation in safety activities and incident prevention from all levels of organization
When going about changing safety culture, it is important to ensure that everyone is aware of how their actions influence the safety of themselves and others. When someone does make a mistake, focusing on the error instead of the person ensures that workers know that this is about safety, not punishment. Plus, they will be more likely to report concerns or issues in the future if they do not fear retribution.
How employers can promote safety in the workplace
Resistance to change can be found throughout the organization. The best safety cultures arise out of an overarching commitment, and so it is important for the employer to recognize the impacts that they themselves can have on their organization’s culture.
Some other ways that an employer can promote workplace safety includes:
Ensuring job descriptions and training includes all appropriate safety responsibilities and procedures
Provide a written Health and Safety policy, and ensure that both supervisors and workers are aware of any hazards that may be present
Establish a Health and Safety committee consisting of people from all levels of the organization, and ensure that the entire company knows who is a part of it
When changing negative attitudes, showing that the employer cares about safety is incredibly important. Engagement from the top level helps encourage workers to change and to participate in a culture of safety.
Safety in the workplace is important for so many reasons: employee health, organizational financials, and perception of the business, to name a few. When going about improving safety in the workplace, considering the culture around safety is going to play a big part in making any necessary changes and improvements.