Safety Culture - Defining Safety Culture

Defining Safety Culture

The trend around safety culture originated after the Chernobyl disaster brought attention to the importance of safety culture and the impact of managerial and human factors on the outcome of safety performance (Flin et al. 2000; IAEA 1986). The term ‘safety culture’ was first used in INSAG’s (1988) ‘Summary Report on the Post-Accident Review Meeting on the Chernobyl Accident’ where safety culture was described as:

"That assembly of characteristics and attitudes in organizations and individuals which establishes that, as an overriding priority, nuclear plant safety issues receive the attention warranted by their significance."

The concept was introduced to explain how the lack of knowledge and understanding of risk and safety by the employees and organization contributed to the disaster.

Since then, a number of definitions of safety culture have been published. The U.K. Health and Safety Commission developed one of the most commonly used definitions of safety culture:

"The product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies, and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organization’s health and safety management" (HSC, 1993a, p. 23).

Another widely used definition, developed by Advisory Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (ACSNI) (yr), describes safety culture as:

"The safety culture of an organization is the product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies and patterns of behavior that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organization’s health and safety management."

"Organizations with a positive safety culture are characterized by communications founded on mutual trust, by shared perceptions of the importance of safety and by confidence in the efficacy of preventive measures."

Perhaps the most user friendly definition came from the Cullen Report into the Ladbroke Grove rail crash and which suggests that the culture is simply "the way we typically do things around here". This relates to a full range of safety critical behaviors from the wearing of PPE (or not), the quality of delivery of a tool box talk - or the seriousness with which safety is discussed at a high level meeting. The UK safety psychologist Tim Marsh (who was on the Cullen panel) suggests that this is vital as a new start or recently arrived sub contractor will automatically look around to see what the local norms are and be heavily influenced by them as these norms exert massive 'peer pressure and are a hugely powerful influence on behaviour. If a tipping point of around 90% compliance is observed then these individuals will be highly likely to comply too - but if these individuals observe a 50:50 split then they may feel they have free choice as whatever they do they wont stand out. From this perspective it's argued that every organisation has a safety culture - just some a better one than others.

Since the 1980s there has been a large amount of research into safety culture. However the concept remains largely “ill defined” (Guldenmund 2000). Within the literature there are a number of varying definitions of safety culture with arguments for and against the concept. The above-mentioned definitions, from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and UK Health and Safety Commission (HSC), are two of the most prominent and most-commonly used definitions (Yule, 2003). However, there are some common characteristics shared by other definitions. Some characteristics associated with safety culture include the incorporation of beliefs, values and attitudes that are shared by a group. Glendon et al. (2006) highlights that a number of definitions of safety culture depend on the individuals’ perceptions being shared within a group, organization, or societal context. For example, Cox and Cox (1991), HSC (1993a), Pidgeon (1991) and Schein (1992) all refer to ‘shared perceptions of safety’.

Reason (1998, p. 295) highlights that safety culture “is a concept whose time has come”, stating that there is both a challenge and an opportunity to “develop a clearer theoretical understanding of these organizational issues to create a principled basis for more effective culture-enhancing practices.”

There is a trend for safety culture to be expressed in terms of attitudes or behaviour. Glendon et al., (2006, p. 367) highlight that when defining safety culture the premise of some researchers is to focus on attitudes, where others emphasize safety culture being expressed through their behaviour and work activities. In other words, the safety culture of an organization acts as a guide as to how employees will behave in the workplace. Of course their behaviour will be influenced or determined by what behaviours are rewarded and acceptable within the workplace. For example, Clarke (2006, p. 278) states that the safety culture is not only observed within the “general state of the premises and conditions of the machinery but in the attitudes and behaviours of the employees towards safety”.

It is important to identify the perception of the organization’s safety culture as it represents a critical factor influencing multiple aspects of human performance and organizational safety. One of the most succinct and usable definitions of safety culture can be found in von Thaden and Gibbons (2008): Safety culture is defined as the enduring value and prioritization of worker and public safety by each member of each group and in every level of an organization. It refers to the extent to which individuals and groups will commit to personal responsibility for safety; act to preserve, enhance and communicate safety concerns; strive to actively learn, adapt and modify (both individual and organizational) behavior based on lessons learned from mistakes; and strive to be honored in association with these values. This definition combines key issues such as personal commitment, responsibility, communication, and learning in ways that are strongly influenced by upper-level management, but include the behaviors of everyone in the organization. It implies that organizations possess a safety culture of some sort, but this culture is expressed with varying degrees of quality and follow-through.