Safety Culture Plus

While climate is difficult to define, it is easy to see and feel. According to Dan Petersen, “Probably the best definition I’ve ever heard on culture came from a worker I interviewed who stated, culture is the way it is around here;”. It’s the unwritten rules of the ballgame that the organization is playing. Culture is what everybody knows, and therefore it does not have to be stated or written down. Safety climate reflects if safety is perceived by all employees to be a key value in the organization.

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Most managers can give many good reasons they want to improve the way they manage their safety system. However, many cannot tell you how to develop and enhance their safety management systems. A well-designed safety management system can help to reduce injuries and illnesses along with the associated hidden costs. One of the most compelling reasons that management must consider is to minimize injuries. In addition, a good management system can increase efficiency; improve productivity, morale, and/or quality of products; and reduce the potential for regulatory citations. Evidence of a comprehensive, well-managed safety and health program that support the management system will help to strengthen your position during any Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

I was listening to Joel Osten, author of the book on “Becoming a Better You” and Pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas this past Sunday when he told an interesting story about ham.  I am not sure where this story originally came from but you can find it through out the internet.  But first take your strongest belief about your safety system and ask yourself this question: “Is this belief based on factual evidence or is this belief something that I ‘believe” to be true?”

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Think about this: injuries occur, in part due to the consequence of our daily actions, habits, and lifestyles. For example, we add to the probability of having an injury every time we get in our car to go to work or run an errand, board an airplane to go on vacation or a on business trip, crossing the street, lifting a heavy object, reaching inside of a moving piece of equipment to adjust, unjam parts, etc. The list is endless and can go on forever.

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Think that you are good at presentations.  Take a look at this presentation to see if you make the same mistakes.  Is the culture that we live in?

Feeling like morale is down? Looking to perk it back up? Why not sing a song?
There’s an energized, soulful trend on the team building scene – choreographed musical numbers.  Let’s see how a corporate musical videos can go bad.  You make the decision.  Follow this link and make your decision.

 Readers and authors engage in risk taking effort. While writing information for this Safety Culture Blog one would hope that it will offer a comprehensive approach to developing an effective safety culture, and the reader is hoping to get something out of this material to help build a successful safety culture. It is my attempt to provide a Safety Culture Blog that can be used as a reference in all phases of building a safety management system (process) and ultimately developing a safety program that fits your safety culture. As stated in the about section, this Safety Culture Blog is based on my book, “How to Develop an Effective Safety Culture: A Leadership Approach.” If you like what you read here, you may consider purchasing the book which goes into much more details on safety culture.

Now, I want you to stop and think about what I am going to say now. Most time when I do a presentation on culture, hazard recognition, and preventing injuries, I always get people that will disagree with that we can reduce injuries if we have the right systems in place. The most common thing that I hear is: “Accident can not be prevented.” “They are something that just will happen and you have no controls over when it happens.”

I look at it this way. If you know something exist and you chose not to fix it and some one gets hurt, is that an Accident? What is an Accident? “According to Webster, “An Accident is an unexpected and undesired event.” Think about that definition and then think about the following example: If you know something exists, i.e., water on the floor, a machine guard missing, (a condition) and you chose not to correct this condition (a behavior) and someone gets hurt, how you call it an Accident. We have a condition that could have been fixed and a behavior or not fixing the condition that probably contributed to the injury. Try and prove me wrong on this.

Labor Pool: What Does A Life Cost?
Worcester Business Journal – Worcester,MA,USA
After the accident, OSHA inspected the site and found serious violations in the way the company trained its employees and how work was being handled.

John West, a canned fish company in Britain, certainly would. Its slogan is, “We endure the worst to bring you the best.” Its commercials certainly back up that claim.

The company is famous for its hilarious commercials. I’m bringing you two of the best. I laugh every time I see them.  Reference: Kim Komando’s Video of the Day

A nice commercial that can be a good ice breaker for a safety meeting.

Let me discuss one more mis-understood concept, audits. How many "audits" have you performed? What does the word audit mean? Typically, it means that you have to find something wrong. In my opinion, this is the case with most auditors. We need to get over this attitude and stop looking for all the “bad” things that have happened. We would encourage you to look at "audit" as a "conformance appraisal”, “Management Review,” or something of the nature, which means that you are looking at your management system to see how it is conformance to your expectations. This will help you to keep focused on a positive approach. Under these conditions, you will be focusing on conformance to practices and procedures of the management system and/or program requirements. We continually need to understand how to focus on the positive aspects of safety.