Safety Amnesty

Shifting the safety culture requires this fear factor to be addressed, exposed, and removed. This is easier said than done and will test management s skills and abilities to the limit. Without a change to modify many aspects of how safety was viewed, measured, and reacted to in the past, the fear factor will still exist, and change in the safety culture may be impossible. Safety amnesty must be declared and maintained. This is the first challenge in shifting the safety cnlture. 

An agreed truce and consequent trust must be established between management and employees. Managers must understand and trust employees in safety matters, and employees must be able to trust management, especially when it comes to the safety amnesty declared. 

Declaration of safety amnesty (no-blame culture) A safe space... 

The biggest challenge to both leadership and employees is the declaration of safety amnesty, where employees feel free and confident to report and discuss safety issues no matter how sensitive they may be, without the fear of being victimized. Employees need to report near-miss incidents and other unsafe situations without repercussion so that these can be rectified. A mutual trust must be developed between management and employees, and joint communication safety committees are vital for this purpose. 

Without safety amnesty no safety management system can be fuUy effective, and changing a safety culture will be almost impossible. Safety cultures can only be nurtured in a safe space. 

An employee submitted a near-miss incident report about a piece of the roof that was blown off by the wind and landed on the walkway used by employees on their way to the canteen. Previously this would not have been reported unless someone had been injured. The event was reported and immediate action taken. This safety action seldom happened before. It is therefore a change of attitude brought about by the knowledge that the employee did not have to put his name on the report and would not be singled out or intimidated by his or her peers for submitting the report. When it comes to reporting, safety amnesty eliminates a great deal of the partidpa-tion-in-safety fear factor. 

For a safety culture change intervention to be successful, there must be a climate of trust between employees and management. This includes declaring a truce and moving the focus away from injury blame fixing and fault finding to a safe space where injuries can be reported without fear of reprimand—a space where employees safety concerns can be freely expressed. This amnesty is the only way to create a climate in which old embedded safety habits and beliefs can change. 

Part of the commitment from the executive leadership team to improve safety culture would be to declare amnesty. This would mean that the playing fields would be leveled and the fault-finding attitude of the past would be set aside. Understanding of the cause and effect of accidental loss will enable line managers to identify all of the accident s causes and not stop the investigation once an unsafe behavior is encountered. Most accidents will have a component where an employee s behavior or actions are questionable, but the focus should now fall on how the system can improve in the future to stop this happening. 

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