Health and Safety Culture - A Valuable Methodology or Blame Avoidance

So safety culture. A phrase that seems to creep into almost any discussion on safety these days - the question is do we actually know what it means or has it turn into a rainbow statement with little real value or meaning.

The concept or Organisational Cultures within psychology has a long history and evidence shows the "culture" will always exist at work - there might be variations on that culture, but we are able to pick out strong consistent themes generally in most successful companies. Now for most companies the culture differs and how people view the planet differs influenced by status. How many companies struggle alongside management believing one thing and the ones at the sharp end having somewhat different views.

There are plenty of definitions of Culture - however in a means I've always liked the simplicity of "just how we do things here". In a way that summarises everything we must know - successful companies generally have broadly shared views on how things are done within a company underpinned by way of a shared belief. Most likely the best modern examples being Google and Apple - both have strong messages, brand identity and company values are largely shared through the entire company.

Taking it one step further we also understand that "belief" and behaviour are linked - a solid culture requiring both align therefore the belief in the culture in turn is shown by behaviours good company's way of doing things.

Historically there is a belief that if you changed belief it would in turn change behaviour - effectively train your staff and they're going to suddenly believe in the business message and then they'll behave in the "required" manner. Pity it isn't really true.

We can say for certain that no one can exist when their beliefs don't match with their behaviour - something always gives. The issue with attempting to train belief and values is apart from they tend to be deeper rooted than training will ever reach is that even if the course works and the learners adopt a few of the message in the classroom the real world interferes - pressure to provide results, peer group pressure, other sources like the press or contradictory messages within the business will rapidly get rid of any gains you did achieve.

A method shown to be more effective is to forget the push concept - (change belief and behaviour will observe) and think about the idea of pulling behaviour forward and dragging belief kicking and screaming behind.

In some ways this is almost time for old fashioned values - strong supervision was always about controlling behaviours. However there are other monitoring tools that work - be it productivity wall charts with clear targets, response time targets in call centres or time for the initial message safety performance inspections.

When groups are monitored and ranked on real measurable outcomes usually people react by wanting to improve - add bonus payments in and boy do they react.

Now many older schemes based themselves around individual targets -which works for sales - but one interesting factor is that whenever groups are measured and ranked all together the stronger (or arguably more compliant) members of the group will exert peer pressure on the colleagues to conform and thus improve the score (and rewards) for the group as a whole.

When "Safety Culture" was first mooted back the 1990's it had been based around similar concepts:

You will need a strong set of shared beliefs regarding safe working
You can monitor behaviour with regards to indicators of safety - do people wear PPE, do people use guards, do people clean up as required, do people follow rules.
If you can monitor it - you can score it and therefore it is possible to set targets
If set targets and publicly display performance you will drive behaviour
If you drive behaviour to where you need it peoples beliefs must follow (it's either share the belief, quit or go mad - and most people take the initial option).

Now it works - exactly like using targets to drive sales or productivity - you can change behaviour and therefore beliefs with regards safety - so effectively you have a concept of safety culture and a way of defining that culture in a organisation. There are several big buts though:

The company will need to have all the basics of workplace safety set up first - there must be adequate training to do the job safely, the workplace must be safe, equipment must be safe and jobs should be designed to be achieved safely.
The company needs good basic safety performance in place and effectively managed.
Senior management and down through line managers must share the vision and make sure they stick to message constantly. Shouting safety is essential monthly at team meetings and spending the next four weeks screaming profit no matter what is commonly a mixed message and safety is viewed as an afterthought - and the monthly message is ignored as lip service.

So safety culture can in effect be accepted as a sub band of the business's overall culture - also it could be manipulated by carrot and stick methods with regards behaviour at work and thus beliefs will follow and in time behaviours will become automatic and new staff will quickly adopt that belief to squeeze in and conform.

The other aspect safety culture programmes were designed to "fix" is the concept of safety violations. A violation is whenever we knowingly do things wrong - speeding on a motorway is the common everyday example (you don't mistakenly drive at 80mph for 100 miles). Violations occur for various reasons but often they will have positive intentions - save time, increase productivity, fit in with the peer group - or exist simply because the rules are all but impossible to follow in real life. But even within this sphere you need the basics right - you need rules which might be followed, you will need rules that match other demands on the staff/company and you all have to agree the values aimed for.

Brilliant. Ah but...
That's where it started to go wrong. Like so many things "safety culture" became a buzzword and incredibly quickly became devalued to the stage of becoming near meaningless. In many cases "safety culture" is quoted out of context - just as bad it's quoted as an entirely positive concept. Ask people to explain what their safety culture is today and a string of verbage with little substance follows -or scarily we forget 40 years research in psychology and stress that safety culture is attained by training.

The other side that's become apparent recently and drawn criticism from Unions especially is that it's being used to step back in its history. Safety culture and management of that culture came about to greatly help companies with strong safety performance take it to another level - but without the basics of safe workplaces and strong management we all knew it was doomed.

Unfortunately that message appears to have gotten lost - suddenly combined with the meaningless mantra of safety is everyone's business (no really... wow... erm but who's actually responsible?) safety culture is frequently used to pretend safety is purely down to the shop floor and move responsibility away from management (well move in peoples minds if not reality). It's an easy sell unfortunately - we'd all like safety to be someone else's problem.

Where a company has problems with safety performance the first question has to be the old faithfuls of:

Perhaps you have actually got a policy and risk assessments that define how a job ought to be done?
Are those rules actually achievable or are they pious and unachievable in the real world
May be the workplace safe, is equipment safe, perhaps you have trained visitors to do their jobs and do you supervise them?
Do management buy into safety as a confident thing and actively manage safety?
Can you actually measure and monitor safety?

All to often companies are leaping into safety culture programmes based purely on "safety is everyone's business" and hoping that in doing so they shift the legal burdens. It doesn't even achieve that aside from actually change the reality.

So before hanging out and money on safety culture programmes:

Don't believe safety culture means a completely positive thing - it is the values people put on safety at work. Rubbish everywhere, poor working practices still denote a safety culture - it's not the culture you want.
Don't think that safety culture programmes will fix the fundamentals - the fundamentals come first and can prevent any organisational change in belief or behaviour.
Ensure that  Click for info  are realistic and achievable.
Make sure management buy into safety as a confident thing and agree the behaviours you need to mould.
Think that telling everyone safety is everyone's business changes the way the courts view safety responsibility and it will be embarrassing when a claim comes in.
Safety is everyone's business is really a meaningless statement. It's true but has no value - safety is managements problem in the eyes of regulations and all cultures have leaders - if management don't share exactly the same aims they want imposing on the shop floor then you're pulling in two directions and can fail.
Get those right and you'll have a chance. But have problems with the old fashioned boring items of safety or think you're moving responsibility from management to the shop floor then you'll fail.

Now I understand I seem very negative - I'm not - I just see something losing all value as we fail to understand what the term means and turn to programmes that promise to deliver "improvements" with no concept of the foundations which are required.

If you are considering a safety culture programme ask the questions above - so when speaking with consultants and advisors see who discusses whats already in place. But golden rule should always be obtain the basics right and your culture will largely follow anyway - but once you have the got the fundamentals right cultural change programmes will help you take the final steps to better safety.