August 2024 International Blog – Passing the Torch: How to build and maintain a lasting culture of safety in the workplace
Well, we had to, really!
With the Paris 2024 Olympic finishing I turned my mind to the team effort needed to build and maintain a lasting culture of safety in the workplace.
What is “safety culture”, how do you define it, and how do you know when you’ve achieved it?
I don’t think I could state it better than a manager in one of my workplaces who once said that a positive safety culture exists when workers know they have the absolute right to stop work if they feel a job is unsafe, knowing that they will be supported and thanked by their management.
Are you competitive enough to issue this instruction to your staff?
Passing the baton
In an early gold medal for the UK, our Health and Safety Executive first started defining and promoting the concept of "safety culture" in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s. Their latest take on this is: Culture can be best understood as ‘the way we do things around here’. The HSE believes that safety culture is a subset of the overall organisational or company culture.
Conversely, if your workplace encourages a rather more pragmatic culture of “get the job done, regardless of what it takes”, you will never achieve a positive safety culture and one day, a serious accident will end up costing more than the short cuts your staff have been taking.
Team Japan wins another gold medal with their: “right first time” philosophy, where the pursuit of zero defects extends to the pursuit of zero H&S defects.
Warming up
Arinite has, for many years, been coaching players on how to achieve world class health & safety standards. The paragraph below pulls everything together into a game plan.
Arinite Team GB
Building and maintaining a lasting culture of safety in the workplace involves several key steps:
- Leadership commitment:
- Top management must visibly prioritise safety
- Allocate resources for safety initiatives
- Lead by example in following safety protocols
- Clear policies and procedures:
- Develop comprehensive safety guidelines
- Ensure policies are easily accessible and understood
- Regularly review and update procedures
- Employee involvement:
- Encourage workers to report hazards and near-misses
- Form safety committees with employee representatives
- Solicit feedback on safety measures
- Training and education:
- Provide thorough initial safety training for all employees
- Offer regular refresher courses
- Keep staff updated on new safety practices and regulations
- Communication:
- Maintain open channels for safety-related discussions
- Share safety performance metrics and goals
- Celebrate safety achievements
- Accountability:
- Set clear safety expectations for all levels of the organisation
- Include safety performance in employee evaluations
- Address safety violations consistently and fairly
- Continuous improvement:
- Regularly assess safety programmes and their effectiveness
- Conduct root cause analyses of incidents
- Stay informed about industry best practices
- Positive reinforcement:
- Recognise and reward safe behaviours
- Implement incentive programmes for safety milestones
- Measurement and analysis:
- Track key safety metrics (e.g., incident rates, near-misses)
- Use data to identify trends and areas for improvement
Crossing the finishing line
Once you have everything in place, and you are confident in your health & safety management systems, why not enter an Olympic event to see how you stack up against the competition?
Our May 2023 International Blog – ISO 45001: 2018 certification recommends subjecting your company to external scrutiny.
Is your team match-fit to take its place on the podium?
Arinite clients appreciate we provide practical, no-nonsense advice about what you need to do to establish and maintain a safe and healthy working environment.
Our team of health and safety consultants take pride in keeping health and safety simple.
If you need to call upon our expert assistance, or just for an informal chat, please call our office +44 (0) 207 947 9581, or type an enquiry to: https://www.arinite.com/contact-us/.
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