The field of health and safety is often viewed as an industry that follows a very paper-driven approach, with an emphasis on process and compliance. Many feel this approach has failed in reducing the fatality rate in recent years.
This is one of the reasons why the ‘Safety Culture’ movement has emerged with a focus on improving the health and safety practices in the general culture of an organisation. Here’s how you can start to foster a good safety culture in your workplace.
1. Encourage open communication
The presence of organisational silos are often viewed as something that has a damaging effect on health and safety. Encouraging your employees to communicate and express any concerns on the risks in your workplace will help foster a good safety culture.
2. Put more accountability on the process than the person
One of the more recent ideas behind improving safety culture is the idea of introducing a just culture. This is a method that puts more accountability on workplace processes and does not punish front line employees for mistakes. You can do this by encouraging your employees to undertake training if they are underperforming in terms of HSE.
3. Provide training to employees
Another way to encourage good employee participation in a just culture is to make sure there is ample training provided to the workforce. This can come in the form of specified training and individual research. If employees are more aware of the hazards in their workplace they are more likely to report them and contribute to a good safety culture.
4. Encourage a positive reporting process
Leading on from good training your organisation should implement a good reporting process for your employees to report on their newly acquired knowledge of hazards. Reporting the hazards in a workplace is also good from a due diligence standpoint.
5. Encourage the development of good HSE behaviours
Influencing the culture of an organisation requires a change in each individual employee’s attitude to safety. If the behavioural norms of individuals are promoting good HSE practices this makes it easier to implement changes on a more wider cultural scale.
Use these tips to help develop a robust safety culture strategy
These are just five of our recommendations to put your business on a way to developing a good safety culture. Naturally, it will take a comprehensive approach and you should make sure you bring the whole organisation into the improvement of your businesses safety culture.
