Organizational culture attributes

Underutilized People - This includes underutilization of mental, creative, and physical skills and abilities, where non-Lean environments only recognize underutilization of physical attributes. Some of the more common causes for this waste include - poor workflow, organizational culture, inadequate hiring practices, poor or non-existent training, and high employee turnover. 

The key is to develop attributes within the culture that keep hazards and associated risk visible. The strong organizational culture maintains a memory of the nature and scope of the hazards and associated risks. Refer to Appendix C, D, and E for further insights on culture traits, questions to ask, and potential impact. 

An organization s safety culture can also help to attract better qualified employees. Competition for the best qualified candidates has extended past salary requirements and into benefits and organizational culture. Job seekers in today s market have begun to focus more attention on nonmonetary attributes of potential jobs. For instance, benefits packages have become valuable compensation tools to attract and retain employees. An organization s safety culture can accomplish the same result. A strong focus and commitment to safety demonstrates that a company values its employees. 

We can define the attributes of a healthy organizational culture and safety climate and specify how to measure them (to be discussed in chapter 3). 

Are there traditions and systems for the detection and blame-free exploration of biases and errors, and for sharing lessons learned These cultural attributes and practices are fostered by a strong transformational leadership style (see chapters 4 and 5) and reflected in high scores on the OCDI s four organizational dimensions (procedural justice, perceived organizational support, leader-member exchange, leadership credibility). 

A Total Safety Culture, then, requires us to balance how we measure and manage both organizational performance and individual behavior. The challenge is to accurately attribute change in safety performance. Is it due to individual behavior, groups, or the system Individuals should only be held directly responsible for their own safety performance teams should be held accountable for outcomes directly related to their team performance. 

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