Improve Your Organisations Safety Culture

In a positive safety culture, everyone accepts personal responsibility for ensuring strict workplace safety. Supervisors and managers see health and safety practices and procedures as a requirement and the things they do demonstrate their commitment to health and safety.

“Safety cultures consist of shared beliefs, practices, and attitudes that exist at an establishment. Culture is the atmosphere created by those beliefs, attitudes, etc., which shape our behaviour” (OSHA, 2018).   A safety culture creates an environment of holistic commitment to safe practices, procedures and equipment.

Below are 11 signs that your organisation has a powerful safety culture:

1- There is visible leadership commitment at all levels of the organization.

2- Safety is viewed as an investment, not a cost.

3- All employees throughout the organization exhibit a working knowledge of health and safety topics.

4- There is a clear definition of the desired culture the organization wishes to achieve.

5- There is a lack of competing priorities – safety comes in first every time!

6- There is visible evidence of a financial investment in health and safety.

7- Opportunities for improvement are identified and resolved before a problem occurs.

8- There is regular, facility-wide communication on health and safety topics.

9- Employees are actively engaged in health and safety initiatives, producing tangible results for your company.

10- Safety is the first item on the agenda of every meeting.

11- Regular, detailed audits of the company’s health and safety program are conducted by an external auditor.

Safety culture

A safe culture is a happy, high performance culture and long-term productiveness is directly related to sustainable, safe processes. Working together towards the same goals and monitoring progress is key to maintaining a culture of safety.

If you would like more information on safety and some of what Bend-tech is doing to contribute to industry and foster our own culture of safety, download our free whitepaper “10 Valuable Benefits Certification and Compliance Can Add to Your Site.”