Safety Culture Plus

Another word that we hear often is “VALUE”. What does it mean?" Can values can be defined as looking at the underlying beliefs and/or philosophies of individuals (at-risk behavior) and/or organizations (management support/employee participation). When we talk about ways to change or create a proactive safety culture, we need to recognize and understand the full impact that values have on an organization.

If you were to view the work values from the other side of the fence (human side), you will find that employees bring their own set of personal beliefs and judgment to an organization. This forms the foundation of unique personal characteristics and is sometimes difficult to change. Why? Because we as humans are shaped and influenced early in life by our parents and our social environment. “Most people are a function of the social mirror, scripted by the opinion, their perceptions, and the paradigms of the people around them."

How about norms? Do values become norms? Is this how we operate a business? Norms have been described as unwritten rules, beliefs, attitudes, and/or practices that demonstrate proper or improper action. Norms can become expressions of personal and organizational values. Many professional will say that norms can be accomplished through observable behaviors of employees. For example, we believe that everyone can remember when a member of management knowingly permits an employee to operate equipment without the proper guarding or wearing the personal protective equipment. Why? Probably because the manager “did not have the time” to say anything to the employee or it would have slowed production. In these unspoken words, this is known as: “Production is #1 and safety is not important”. The norm is to take chances if the objective is to speed up production.

Let’s look at other cases: A manager sees a fork truck driving too fast for conditions and does not do anything. However, employees are being praised or rewarded for production results, without any consideration given to how they achieved the results. Their risk-taking may have put themselves and others at risk. In this case, risk-taking behaviors have become the unwritten rules (our norm) of getting the job done fast. If management allows this to happen, a message is sent to employees that doing something at-risk is okay. What do you think has just happened? The manager just non-verbally said that violating a safety rule t is okay, particularly when the employee is rewarded for completing the task in record time. Given this situation, this at-risk practice will continue. I would bet that you can think of many more of these types of situations that occur in your workplace.

Reference: Covey, Stephen R., The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Fireside, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1989

CFMEU tv ad: Your Safety – Our priority. Andrew’s story