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Within any organisation there is a need to document a safety policy to align with the current legislative requirements applicable to that country. That’s the easy part. Creating an organisation that is visibly and actively conscious of actual and potential safety issues is another thing.
INSAG 4 defines safety culture as:
‘The shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterize an organization as demonstrated through an integrated pattern of behaviours’.
Developing a sustainable safety culture that understands that safety is the most important feature of the organisation is seldom a ‘breakthrough’ activity that Six Sigma (minimum 70% improvement) achieves; more often it is a recognition that to help those at the sharp end of power production or manufacturing or those equally liable for error in a support function, a series of enablers needs to be in place to reduce the probability of errors occurring. Those enablers should include:
Corrective action process – applicable and accessible for all personnel (on and off site employees) to record actual and potential concerns for any issue adverse to safety, quality or process;
Human Performance programme – applicable to all personnel including non-operatives to reduce the latent organisational weaknesses such as procedural compliance; providing visible leadership (initially in active areas and subsequently in support areas); human performance observations and data review;
Operational Focus – modelled on ‘lean’ production principles to provide clear unambiguous expectations and data in a visual format across the entire site; standardized working days/practices; leaders visibly putting the emphasis on safety rather than production;
Operating Experience - providing a physical and practical mechanism for individuals and groups to share their learning from internal and external sources; using pre/post job briefings to support understanding and learning at every opportunity;
Professional Personnel – who actively support the ethos of safety is paramount to the continued activity of the plant; who are comfortable to make conservative decisions based on good data and information, who have the capability to lead effectively and develop individuals/groups understanding of safety and production,
Standards – communication and deployment of conduct of Operations, Maintenance and Training that explicitly include the expectations of a safety aware organisation as an integral part of how to organize and manage those areas of the plant;
Metrics – to illustrate the cultural change gap initially and subsequently to show how each element described above is contributing to the improved safety culture at that plant.
Current indications reinforce the need to continually consider develop and improve the culture of the organisation to reflect its principles of ‘if you get safety right first, then productivity and sustainability follow’. Understanding what makes your organisational culture respond to safety is a key element of any improvement programme. The development of a sustainable safety culture within an organisation is an exciting and interesting opportunity. We do not believe that there is a one size fits all for developing and implementing a sustainable safety culture but we do believe that there are common elements, such as those indicated above, that when in place can support your safety culture to develop into one to be proud of.
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