Element 4

The concept and significance of safety culture

Describe the concept of health and safety culture and its significance in the management of health and safety in an organization?

Key Information:

The safety culture of an organization is the way that all the people within the organization think and feel about health and safety and how this translates into behavior. It can be defined as shared attitudes, values and behaviors relating to health and safety.

There is strong link between safety culture and health and safety performance. Organization with a strong positive culture tends to good performance whereas those with a weak negative culture perform poorly.

Identify features of positive & negative safety culture within an organization?

Positive Culture:

In organization with a strong positive safety culture the majority of the workers thinks and feels that health and safety is important. There is a strong policy and clear leadership from the top because senior management has this attitude which runs through the whole organization form the top to bottom.

Negative Culture:

In an organization with a weak negative safety culture the majority of workers thinks and feels that health and safety is not important; they are poorly educated in health and safety. There is a lack of clear direction and leadership from senior management. Managers do not think about health and safety in their decision making and priorities other things on safety.

Identify indicators which could be used to assess the effectiveness of an organization’s health and safety culture and recognize factors that could cause weaknesses?

Factors Influencing safety culture:

The safety culture of an organization can be assessed by looking at indicator such as

·   Accidents	·   Sickness Rates	·   Absenteeism	·   Staff turnover
·   Compliance with Safety rules	·   Worker complaint  About working conditions

Factors Promoting a Negative Culture:

·   Reorganization	·   Uncertainty	·   Blame Culture	·   Poor Communication
·   Conflicting priorities	·   Lack of Consultation	·   Poor Leadership by Management

                                                                                              

Factors Influencing Safety Related Behavior:

Individual worker behavior is a critical importance to health and safety management. One worker may behave in a ideal manner but another may not and this unsafe behavior may endanger themselves and others working around him.

Identify the factors which influence safety related behavior at work?

There are three significant factors influence a worker’s behavior:

·         The individual  Factors – their personal characteristics

People bring to their job their own mix of knowledge and experience, attitudes habits and personality. These individual characteristics influence behavior in complex ways.

·         The job Factors – the task that they are carrying out

These are behavior characteristics of worker’s job that influence their safety related behavior

-          Characteristics of the workplace environment like, temperature, humidity and lighting.

-          Characteristics of plant, machinery and equipment like noise or vibration

-          Characteristics of the work itself like worker need to bend or stoop over while working

-          Mental demands of the job like worker has to handle large volumes of work in short time.

·         The organization Factors – characteristics of the organization that they are working for

These are the characteristics of organization that influence workers behavior

-          Policies and procedures.       -              Commitment and leadership from management.

-          Levels of supervision.            -              peer group pressure      -              Training               

-          Communication                        -              Consultation and worker involvement  

Outline the influenced of a worker’s attitude, aptitude and motivation of their safety related behavior and considered the importance of perception?

There are three personality characteristics of an individual that may influence their safety related behavior

·         Attitude

·         Aptitude

·         Motivation

Attitude:

An attitude is a person’s point of view of looking at something; how they feel about it.  Changing attitudes is notoriously difficult but can be done using following method such as:

·         Education and training

·         High impact interventions

·         Enforcement

·         Consultation and involvement in the decision making process

Aptitude:

Aptitude refers to an individual’s innate ability to learn and acquire new skills. For example some people have an aptitude for using computers other for languages.

Motivation:

Motivation can be defined as person’s drive towards a goal. Workers often behave unsafely not because they are willful, but because they perceive a reward and they think that the risk is worth the reward. Their unsafe behavior is incentivized.

What are the differences between mistake and violation?

Key information: slips lapses mistakes

People in a workplace are subject to human error; they get things wrong even though they are trying to do them right. Human error can be broken down into two main types;

1.       Slips and lapses                 2.  Mistakes

Slips and lapses:

When a person is carrying out a routine operation that they have done correctly many times before but they get it wrong or they forget to carry out an action.

Mistakes:

When a person does something deliberately thinking that it is correct thing to do, but it is not. For example an airline pilot caused a plane crash when he deliberately switched off an engine that he thought was on fire. The engine was in fact functioning normally it was the other engine that was malfunctioning

Violations:

People in workplace also commit violations. They deliberately break rules knowing it is the wrong thing to do. They are three types of violations:

1. Routine        2.  Situational            3.  Exceptional

1.       Routine                Rule breaking as a matter of custom and practice for example workers went into

Building where hard hat require but they do not wear not because they forget (this would be laps) but deliberately not wear hard hats.

2.       Situational          Rule breaking in response to work pressure. For example worker in factory a

worker need to change a filter but scaffold is not available and without filter factory need to stop. Because of this work pressure he does the job with ladder.

3.       Exceptional        Rule breaking in extreme circumstance for example a worker uses forklift truck

to lift a heavy piece of machinery that is actually heavier than the rated lifting capacity.

How do an individual’s peers exert influences over his behavior?

The influence of peers:

When people are put together into groups they interact. Some individuals will come to have a lot of influence over the group others will have little influence. In this way a hierarchy is established within the group. Certain ways of behaving will become the normal which will often be established by the more influential members of the group. A person wishing to become a member of the group will have to comply with the group “Norm”. This pressure to comply with group norms is peer group pressure.

Identify methods which could be used to improve the health and safety culture of an organization?

Improving health and safety culture:

The safety culture of an organization can only be improved if following things

1.       Management commitment and leadership

2.       Competent staff

3.       Effective Communication

4.       Broadcasting methods (Notice Board, Posters and Videos, Toolbox talks, Memos and Emails & employee handbook)

5.       Cooperation and consultation

6.       The effective training.

1.      Management commitment and leadership:

Management commitment starts at the very top of the organization. Senior managers must provide the leadership necessary to inspire and motivate managers at all levels to pursue health and safety objectives strictly.

Visible commitment can be demonstrated by:

·         Behaving safely

·         Involvement in the day to day management of health and safety  e.g. attend safety meetings.

·         Taking part in safety tours or audits

·         Promoting changes to improve health and safety

·         Enforcing the company safety rules.

2.      Competent Staff:

A competent person is a person who has sufficient training, knowledge, experience and other abilities or skills to be able to carry out their work safely and without risk to health.

3.      Effective Communication:

The process of delivering information from a sender to a recipient there are three principal delivery media for communicating information: Verbal, Written and Graphic

-          Verbal Communication:

Communication using the spoken work e.g. face to face meeting this is easiest and most commonly used form of communication but there are some weaknesses like language barrier may exist, strong accent, background noise, recipient may have poor hearing, recipient may miss information  or forget, no written records as proof.

-          Written Communication:

Communication using the written word e.g. report memo, email, notice, company handbook, policy, risk assessment and MOMs etc. but there are some weaknesses like indirect, takes time to write, message may not read by recipient, immediate feedback is not available, question cannot be asked.

-          Graphic Communication:

Communication using picture, symbols or pictograms e.g. safety signs such as fire exit signs but have some weaknesses like, can only convey simple message, expensive to by or produce, may not be looked at, symbols or pictogram may be unknown to the recipient, no feedback available and question cannot be asked

4.      Broadcasting Methods:

1.       Notice boards    2. Posters and videos    3. Toolbox talks     4. Memos and emails   5. Employee handbook.

5.      Cooperation and consultation:

A positive safety culture can only be created in an organization with workers cooperation and involvement

6.      The effective training:

Employers have responsibility to train their staff to carry out their jobs in safe manner. Once worker has been trained they will understand

1.       The hazards and risks inherent in their work.

2.       The correct rules and precaution to apply.

3.       Foreseeable emergencies and the actions to take should these events occur.

4.       Limitations and restrictions that apply to their work.

When should training be provided?

When training is require for person:

1.       New employees

2.       Job change

3.       Process change

4.       New technology

5.       New legislation

New Employees: when worker join an organization

Job change: when worker’s job changes in such a way that they are exposed to new hazards and risks

Process change: when the way in which way the work is done changes that require training

New Technology: new technology creates new hazards and risks that worker should familiar with.

New Legislation: changes to the law governing a particular health and safety issue often create need to

   Train workers on the implications of new legislation.

Outline the internal and external influences on health and safety management standards?

Internal and external influences:

The standards of health and safety management within an organization are influenced by both internal and external factors

Internal Influences:

These are the various internal factors which influence the safety and health standards

1.       Management commitment

2.       Production demands

3.       Communication

4.       Competence

5.       Consultation

External influences:

These are the various external factors which influence the safety and health standards

1.       Societal expectations

2.       Legislation

3.       Insurance companies

4.       Trade unions

5.       Stakeholders

6.       General economics