Safety culture of an organisation

The safety culture of an organisation is the product of the individual and group values, attitudes, competencies and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organisation s health and safety programmes. Organisations with a positive safety culture are characterised by communications founded on mutual trust, by shared perceptions of the importance of safety, and by confidence in the efficacy of preventative measures. 

The safety culture of an organisation has been described (HSG48) as the shared values, attitudes and patterns of behaviour that give the organisation its particular character. 

The safety culture of an organisation is a concept that describes the attitudes and beliefs of an organisation in terms of its safety performance. It must be recognised that the so-called safety culture within which a company operates is driven by the pervading culture within the wider organisation. The safety culture will impact upon the effectiveness of all safety functions including the management of fire safety matters. 

The development of new technology therefore poses both a threat and an opportunity to the safety culture of an organisation in that, at the time that the new technology is embraced, the workforce is liable to feel positive about the benefits (providing that it doesn t result in a worsening of their employment conditions). Conversely if new technology is available and not adopted by the organisation employees are likely to feel that their needs and safety are not a priority. 

Figure 4.12 The interrelated job, person and organisational factors that affect the safety culture of an organisation...

It is therefore possible, once the causes of the incident have been defined, to provide guidance to the investigator to help determine whether a behaviour represented an error or a violation, and whether there may be issues relating to the safety culture of the organisation. A preferred safety culture model can be mapped onto the RCA model. 

A learning culture A learning culture, vital to the success of the safety culture within an organisation ... 

Audit is an overview across the organisation of the entire risk management process. It should consider whether the objectives are sufficiently comprehensive to cover all hazards and their effects on all those persons (internal and external) who may be affected. It should include the objectives and management style of the directors and their influence on the safety culture of the organisation. It can use data from the review of performance to assess the strengths of the organisation and those aspects where improvement is necessary. 

We would actually do better to refer to the culture of an organisation which affects safety, rather than a safety culture. There are only a few rare companies where safety as a value is really so central that we can consider them as having a safety culture. Most companies have values which are at odds with safety to some extent, preferring production or costsaving above risk reduction. The essence of the values which would make safety central are the following, cited from reference 3. 

The culture of an organisation is said to have a significant impact upon performance. Organisational culture is manifested in behaviours and attitudes of both workforce and management. Often difficult to define and measure it is widely accepted that the prevailing culture within an organisation is an important factor in order to achieve successful management of any safety issues. 

The term safety climate is used to refer to psychological characteristics of employees, in other words the way that people feel about the safety culture within an organisation. An investigation into safety culture by the HSE into the two major rail crashes in 2000 and 2001 concluded that the safety climate within an organisation is an expression of the values, attitudes and perceptions of employees with regard to safety within an organisation. 

So it can be seen that the safety climate of an organisation is an important influence on its overall safety culture. If employees own values, attitudes and perceptions do not motivate them to support and/or comply with safety rules the safety culture will be a negative one. 

It can be safely assumed that the absence of all the factors discussed above (see section 4.3) will promote a negative safety culture. If an organisation fails to provide a working environment that nurtures a positive culture it will have a direct impact upon the organisation and the employees. 

The NMMS must be able to benefit from and contribute to other existing tools for measuring or understanding an organisation s performance, e.g. other safety-related information systems, audits, Total Quality Programmes, etc. This also means that the level of acceptance of a NMMS should, in itself, be considered as an important measure of an organisation s performance or "safety culture" (see Chapter 6). 

Summarising the various concepts and definitions proposed, safety culture appears to be the broader, manifest concept behind the fiamewoik of safety climate. Safety cultme is the source for patterns of behaviour which can be observed, described and changed (Goodmaim 2004), whereas safely climate is the sum of behaviours and attitudes based on common assumptions and beliefs toward patient safety. Cox and Flin (1998) describe culture as an organisation s personality while climate is seen as the organisation s mood . 

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