safety culture

Safety culture describes an organisation’s approach to safety in the workplace. It is the sum of your organisations safety values; "the way we do business around here." Safety culture reflects "the attitudes, beliefs, perceptions and values shared by personnel at all levels of an organisation. Positive safety cultures feature:

• Management commitment at all levels
• Employee involvement in all safety decision making processes
• Effective and open communication
• Risk based approach to business practices
• Objective reporting and blame free event analysis
• Personal accountability
• Training for all personnel
• Clear lines of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and practices
• Processes for monitoring and continuous improvement

 
Creating a positive and strong safety culture requires commitment from every individual within the organisation. It is an ongoing process that evolves in response to the changing needs of the organisation, its people, industries and market places. Positive and strong safety cultures are intrinsically embedded into the Health and Safety Management Systems.
A strong and positive safety culture means good business through:

• lowering WHS compliance costs (e.g., reduced Work Cover premiums)
• reducing sickness on-the-job (presenteeism)
• reducing costs associated with workplace accidents and fatalities
• reducing the costs associated with return-to-work processes
• reducing labour costs associated with absenteeism and turnover
• higher levels of employee productivity as a result of improved morale, motivation, commitment and/or engagement

• more efficient work processes
• better risk management
• protecting intangible firm assets (e.g. brand image and customer loyalty); and
• improving business reputation
  
  

PJL WHS consultants have developed Safety Cultures across a wide and diverse range of industries and working environments. We can guide you through the development of a strong and positive safety culture; a culture that values worker health and safety and adds to your bottom line through minimisation of the cost of health and safety failures.

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