Safety culture elements

Assess the safety culture elements in Estonian SMEs. Describe the manager s attitudes, knowledge level and concerns in this regards. 

An important safety culture element is communi-cation and consultations. Often the OH S knowledge and expertise that a company applies comes from consultants retained (Jarvis etal. 2008). Effective communication mechanisms within the organisation are critical to engage staff in safety activities, to gain cooperation and support, and to maintain positive safety culture. At the same time, clear and constructive safety coimnunication and cooperation with OPs can improve knowledge and understanding that prevents at-risk behaviour as well as enhance safe culture. 

Since the questionnaire was still in a formative stage of development and factor analysis work had focussed only on the general section, it was not possible to determine a final model from the factor analyses but eight safety culture elements were proposed to refiect the results of the factor analyses and the themes derived from the literatme and interviews. The eight elements were Commitment, Involvement, Reporting and Learning, Teamwork, Communication, Risk Awareness, Trust and Responsibility. The first five of these elements had strong support from the factor analyses, while the last three had support from the literature and seemed to fit items from the occupation-specific sections of the questionnaire. 

Transport Safety Victoria. 2014. Safety culture elements and sub-elements organizational safety culture appraisal tool. Transport Safety Victoria. http //www.transportsafety. vic.gov.au/rail-safety/safety-improvement/organisational-safety-culture-appraisal-tool/ using-oscat/safety-culture-elements, downloaded February 28, 2014. 

Therefore, awareness that influences willingness, and leadership, but also new forms of communication and cooperation and a possible shift in corporate (safety) culture, are all crucial elements for ISP. Good and successful examples set by companies seen as peers may also strongly stimulate industry. Indeed, the production of the same pesticide produced by Union Carbide in Bhopal using a batch process was accomplished by DuPont using an inherently safer continuous flow process. 

Different metrics may be used to describe past performance, predict future performance, and encourage behavioral change. They are a means to evaluate the overall system performance and to develop a path toward superior process safety performance. This is accomplished by identifying where the current performance falls within a spectrum of excellent-to-poor performance. Such information will allow executives and site management to develop plans to address the specific improvement opportunities that could lead to measurable improvement in process safety. Good process safety metrics reinforce a process safety culture that promotes the belief that process safety incidents are preventable, that improvement is continuous, and that policies and procedures are necessary and will be followed. Continuous improvement is necessary and any improvement program will be based on measurable elements. Therefore, to continuously improve performance, organizations must develop and implement effective process safety metrics. 

Yang Shuqian, discussion on coal mine safety culture construction elements [J]. China coal, 2010 (5). 

Lee T R. 1996. Perceptions, attitudes and behavior the vital elements of a safety culture. Health and Safety, (10) 1-15. 

The safety culture action principle, behavior based attitudes theory and accident triangle principles work together to promote the change of zero accidents concept to zero accidents objective from three indispensable aspects of idea , action and methods , as is shown in Figure 4. Three principles commonly guide zero accidents concept, which is one of the key elements of safety culture, to strengthen enterprise safety management, prevent accidents and lessen accident rate, as follows ... 

Neither the first approach nor the second one is realized in its pure form. Each of them possesses the elements of the other. Nevertheless, proceeding fi om the concept SAFETY CULTURE [14], when developing the advanced RI, it seems necessary to use the approach most based on the inherent safety. 

One view of process safety culture is to divide the topic into 12 elements (Arendt, 2009) as shown below ... 

The table in Figure 13.4 has four columns. The first column lists the 20 CCPS management elements starting with 1. Process Safety Culture and finishing with 20. Management Review. The topic of MOC, which is the 13th of the elements, is used here to illustrate the spreadsheet process. 

Lagging and leading indicators provide little guidance to do with some of the more abstract management elements such as process safety culture and management review. This difficulty is entirely overcome when a management assessment approach is used. 

Unfortunately, this appears to be precisely what happened in the Bhopal case an assumed match or compatibility of the two pairs of cultural systems as regards elements related to the safe operation of the transferred MIC plant technology apparently blocked recognition by managers and engineers of a profound mismatch and incompatibility between the safety-related elements of the respective cultural subsystems of donor and recipient. 

While this study cannot be considered conclusive, it is probable that a further and more scientific study would establish that effective incident investigation reaps many benefits — as a productive means of eliminating or controlling hazards and achieving fewer injuries and illnesses, as an augmenting factor in attaining reduced workers compensation costs, and as a supporting element within a sound safety culture. 

Although primarily dealing with safety culture change at workplaces, non-work-related activities are important to the discussion because the work safety culture often rubs off on employees, who tend to take the safety concepts home with them and apply them both at home and at play. Structured SMS should have an element dedicated to off-the-job safety promotion as well. 

A common factor in all accredited safety management systems (SMS) is an element that calls for management leadership and commitment to the safety and health process. It is almost guaranteed that any attempt to change or improve the safety culture at any workplace will fail if there is not total commitment, leadership, and management involvement from the executive right down to and including frontline supervision. 

All these functions entail the managanent of anployees, materials, machinery, the environment, and processes. These four basic functions of safety management, if integrated into a manager s normal functions, could provide for better management, leadership, and involvement in the safety program and its elements. A positive safety culture can only be obtained by positive proactive leadership. 

There are usually between 60 and 80 critical safety activities (elements) that mnst be controlled to constitnte an effective safety system. These elements may vary from organization to organization and from industry to industry. The emphasis on individual elements will also vary according to the nature of the process, culture of the workforce, and category of business, such as mining, the iron and steel industry, transportation, the fishing industry, manufacturing, etc. 

In implementing safety culture change management one should also focus on those safety activities (elements) that have the potential to bring about the biggest culture change with the least amount of effort. 

Some critical safety elements help control the physical conditions and the health and safety of the environment that would contribute to the reduction of losses as a result of an unsafe workplace. The act of cleaning up a workplace helps to clean up the thought processes of those in the workplace. The physical conditions of the workplace have a major effect on the attitudes and behaviors of anployees. Positive safety culture cannot be nurtured in a dirty, disorderly work area. 

Numerous safety elements help control both the behavior of people at work and the work environment and procedures. No hard-and-fast dividing line can be drawn between elements defining them as either behavior or environmental control. One influences the other. All elements are mini safety culture change interventions and demand certain actions and performances that eventually create behavior and conditions that equate to an ongoing safety culture. 

According to the ACSNl Study Group on Human Factors (HSC, 1993), a written corporate statement on the safety policy and organization should be a crucial element in the promotion and maintenance of a positive safety culture within the organization. Its objective should be to establish the corporate attitude to safety and the organizational framework through which the safety objectives can be assured. (Health and Safety Executive, 2001, p. 8)... 

Having standards for each element of the safety system means that safety issues are documented and the requirements are clearly spelled out. Both managers and employees prefer safety directives and policies in writing so that expectations at all levels are clearly spelled out. Safety standards commit the organization and its members to carry out certain safety activities on a regular basis, and who must perform the activity and what the required result is are clearly laid out in the standard. Having committed the organization and its members to specific standards creates the foundation of the company s safety culture—its safety personality. 

Every element of the safety system forms a building block of a strong safety culture. The system demands action and reaction in terms of safety, and these actions become integrated into the day-to-day activities of the plant or mine, and this culmination of actions, activities, and norms is the safety culture. The requiraneut of the structured safety system creates and maintains safety culture. 

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