Safety Culture Excellence

The fact that perceptions affect safety cultures is undeniable, yet too often organizations pay little attention to existing perceptions and the conditioning affect they have, when new employees become a part of the safety culture, and tenured employees are trained in new jobs.

Very often perceptions become culturally norming beliefs, whether they are valid or not. When these common beliefs are combined with values, attitudes and hypercompetitive priorities, a potentially dangerous mixture of tools are used to solve problems in day to day operations. In addition the more uniform the perceptions are, the more likely they will both positively or negatively, encourage individual and organizational tendencies.

For a systematic approach to safety culture improvement or behavioral change to work effectively, it is important to understand what common perceptions exist within the organization. Moreover if the perceptions are inaccurate, the approach should consider opportunities to change the experiences that create the perceptions, for the safety cultural change or improvement to be sustainable.

A safety culture is made up of common practices, attitudes, and perceptions of risks that influence behavioral choices both at work and away from work.  A safety culture is also influenced by leadership, management, supervision, workplace conditions and logistics. To better understand your safety culture, (certainly a complex metric of perceptions are important) consider also assessing the workplace realities, past accident history, and inter-connectivity of the people at all levels.

Shawn Galloway

President & COO - ProAct Safety, Inc.

Founder & Coauthor – Safety Culture Excellence