E-Books:Improving Safety culture

In recent years companies have begun to recognise the important contribution that an effective safety culture can make to the control of their ongoing operational costs and the efficiency of their ongoing operations. Much of this is due to the recent introduction of EC goal-setting legislation that places the onus on organisations to identify and properly manage the risks created by their activities. Many organisations have realised that this provides the perfect opportunity for them to streamline their operational processes and optimise the associated management and control systems. In practice, it has also meant that responsibility for health, safety and environmental issues has become firmly established as an integral part of the line management function, rather than being the sole domain of the safety officer (or safety department as has traditionally been the case). Therefore, now more than ever before, all levels of line management need to possess a much greater knowledge of how to develop and implement high quality safety management systems. They also need to know how to manage safety on a day to day basis throughout their areas of responsibility.The traditional `policing’ role of the safety practitioner has also changed. No longer a mere safety officer, the safety practitioner’s role is now that of a high-level internal consultant. They are expected to offer independent advice to senior management on the development of the organi- sation’s safety policies and their short, medium and long term strategic objectives for creating and maintaining a positive safety culture.

 In addition, they are expected to advise line-managers on both the development and implementation of appropriate control and monitoring systems and the review of ongoing safety performance, while at the same time conducting independent reviews of the whole safety management system. To fulfil these functions in an effective manner, it is self- evident that safety practitioners must be authoritative all rounders. While possessing an awareness of all aspects of safety per se, he or she will also need to:

• have an up-to-date and in-depth appreciation of all aspects of management and management systems
• be experienced in problem-solving and decision-making
• be highly aware of the effects organisational change and development issues (e.g. project management, team-working, downsizing, contracting out, etc.) exert on

Only when they are armed with all this knowledge will safety practitioners be in a position to recognise the need for change, and be able to positively influence unfolding events to help create an optimal safety culture throughout the organisation. Thus, because of their new consulting role, and the need to ensure that their recommendations accord with business needs, modern safety practitioners must be as familiar with all aspects of management as those practitioners from other disciplines (such as finance, human resources, production, etc.) who comprise the senior management team. Although the safety profession is making great strides to address these issues,

it is still too often the case that many safety practitioners lack knowledge of the most basic management tools and techniques and, therefore, lack an understanding of how they might be used to good effect.

Section One   The Immediate Level of Effort                                              29

• Effective Leadership for Developing a Safety Culture 30

Introduction                                                                                                30

Leadership                                                                                                  30

Strategic Planning                                                                                        32

Problem-solving                                                                                          37

Increasing People’s Commitment to a Decision                                         43

Strategic Communications                                                                         51

Resistance to Change                                                                                  54

• Methods of Evaluating and Integrating Organisational Systems 60

Introduction                                                                                                60

Identifying structural problems                                                                  61

Using Workflow Analysis to Identify Specific Information-sharing Problems                                                                                                     62

Job Characteristics Analysis                                                                         67

Work group Communications                                                                     75

Job Analysis                                                                                                86

Work Safety Analysis                                                                                 92

• Developing Risk Control Systems 94

Introduction                                                                                                94

What is Risk Assessment?                                                                          94

Risk Control Measures                                                                             103

Section Two   The Intermediate Level of Effort                                        111

• Integrating Management Information Systems 112

Introduction                                                                                                      112

Management Control Mechanisms                                                                  112

Information Requirements                                                                               119

System Characteristics                                                                                     125

Developing an Integrated Management Information System                          130

• Safety Management System Auditing 144

Introduction                                                                                                      144

Developing a Safety Audit System                                                                   144

Establishing the Need for Safety Audits                                                           146

Types of Safety Audit                                                                                        147

Audit Frequency                                                                                               150

Standards Required for Planning and Executing the Audit Programme          153

Audit Elements                                                                                                 157

Auditing Practice                                                                                               163

Audit Follow-up                                                                                               175

Reviewing the Audit System                                                                            175

Section Three   The Ultimate Level of Effort                                                    177

• Safety Propaganda and Safety Training 178

Introduction                                                                                                      178

Safety Information Campaigns                                                                        178

Safety Training                                                                                                 182

• Measuring Safety Climate 200

Introduction                                                                                                      200

Safety Attitudes                                                                                                 200

Safety Climate                                                                                                   204

Developing a Survey Instrument                                                                      217

• Improving Behavioural Safety 225

Introduction                                                                                                      225

Why Focus on Unsafe Behaviour?                                                                   226

Why do People Behave Unsafely?                                                                   228

How is Unsafe Behaviour Prevented?                                                              230

Achieving Improvements in Safety Behaviour                                                233

Does it Work?                                                                                                   233

Putting a Behavioural Safety Initiative into Operation                                    234

Additional Reading                                                                                                    254

Index                                                                                                                          255