This post is to enable readers to gain understanding of the content through the application of knowledge to familiar and unfamiliar situations. In particular they should be able to:
4.1 Describe the concept of health and safety culture and its significance in the management of health and safety in an organisation
4.2 Identify indicators which could be used to assess the effectiveness of an organisation's health and safety culture and recognise factors that could cause a deterioration
4.3 Identify the factors which influence safety related behaviour at work
4.4 Identify methods which could be used to improve the health and safety culture of an organisation
4.5 Outline the internaland external influences on an organisation's health and safety standards.
Content
E4.1 Concepts of safety culture
Definition of the term 'health and safety culture'
One definition of culture is 'mental training and development'.
Cultural influence on corporate bodies with regards to health and safety issues is derived from the currently acceptable standards of care demanded by society in general as well as what is accepted
locally within a particular organisation. Within an workforce it is observed as the moral and ethical duties of care that are habitual in terms of employees looking after their own well-being as well as
any other persons who may be adversely affected by their acts or omissions.
Low standards of health and safety culture within corporate bodies are much more serious and influentia-l, the further up the line management of the corporate body these low standards of culture are found.
John Donne in the 1ih century said 'No man is an island'. Man by his nature is a social creature and has a basic need to be involved. Effective management develops a good safety culture by
remembering this and responding to the social and psychological needs of their staff.
Managers must remember and build into their company culture the following concepts:
- Treat people as individuals
- People respond to praise rather than criticism
- Motivating words are 'please' and 'thank-you'
- People respond to group culture and expectations
- People like to be involved
- Conflicts should be resolved at an early stage
Everyone seeks two things in life.That is:
Seek Happines Avoid Pain (S.H.A.P.) |
Some people will seek short-term happiness and try to ignore the possible long-term pain.
For example:- Smoking
- Taking short cuts at work
- Not studying for examinations
Ethical management:
Ethical managers will not just respond to legal requirements or indeed to the principle of preventing
accidents. Instead, they will respond to everyone's desire of seeking happiness and wanting to avoid
pain (SHAP). They will commit themselves to doing their best to ensure that all of their
.organisation's employees have a good quality of life not only during their working career, but also in their retirement. This means correcting the things that can debilitate people, mentally and physically, over a period of time.
Good managers will always remember:
Everyone has an invisible notice hanging round their neck saying "make me feel important" |
E4.2actures influencing safety culture
Tangible outputs or indicators of an organisation's health and safety culture
There are both negative and positive types of indicators both for employees and management
Negative indicators that are above the average for the particular industry:
- Numbers of accidents
- Absenteeism from works
- Sickness rates
- Staff turnover
- Non-compliances to safety management systems
- Complaints about working conditions
- Poor industrial relations
Negative indicators within management activities:
- Constant reorganisation
- Changes in management personnel and style of management
- Different approaches and types of managers
- Critical management with no recognition of effort or achievement
- Uncertainty and fear of down sizing or redundancy
- Unrealistic goal setting or goal-posts constantly moved
- Poor industrial relations
Positive indicators that are above the average for the particular industry:
- A clean, pleasant, safe and well designed place of work
- Excellent housekeeping standards
- A good safety culture throughout the workforce
- Ongoing risk assessments as an integral part of work activity management
- Quality management throughout all areas
- Good industrial and personal relationships
- A profitable organisation with a sound market base where everyone shares in the benefits
- A workplace where accidents are alien
These are all examples of safety culture climatic indicators.
Where everyone; staff, contractors, customers and the local community are proud to be associated with the organisation and have a commitment to the organisation
Where the health and safety policy is to do the maximum that is reasonably practicable to achieve and not the minimum so far as legal standards are concerned.
A safety culture must be observed as a commitment from the top management. The further up within a management structure we find pockets of low culture the more serious the problem.
Positive leadership and leading by example will determine health and safety standards in any workplace.
Effects of human and ·organisational factors on health and safety culture
Human factors
There are two main factors to be considered with regards to humans. These are physiological
issues and psychologicalissues.
Physiological issues relate to the physical ability and limitations of humans and psychological issues relate to the strengths and weaknesses of the human mind along with the things that stimulate and debilitate people's minds.
E4.3 Factors influencing safety related behaviour
Comfort zones
Humans are creatures of habit and their ability to work efficiently and safely are disturbed when they are taken out of their comfort zone. This can be the case in terms of environmental, organisational, work activity and relationship issues.
Compatibility
What is important is that working environments, equipment and systems of work should be designed compatible with human requirements rather than humans having to do the accommodating. Consideration must be given to:
Environmental factors that include: | Organisational factors that include: | Job factors that include: | ||
Spatial requirements | Personal relationships | Illogical design or purchase o equipment | ||
Ambient working temperature | Autocratic/threatening management | Poorly maintained equipmen | ||
Humidity levels/purity of air | Poor or unsafe planning/ | Constant perceived danger or lack of danger | ||
Plant movement | In-adequate.communications | Working beyond capacity or capability | ||
Colour schemes | Role ambiguity/work pacing | Vegetation of skills | ||
Cleanliness | No feelin of belonging or ownership | Repetitive nature of work | ||
Housekeeping standards | Responsibilities | Comparison to machines | ||
Size of organisation | Threat of redundancy | Quality controls | ||
Lighting standards | Lack of job satisfaction | Obsolete plant | ||
Noise | No prospects | No initiative required | ||
Dangers in the workplace/activities | Poor/lack of communications | Poor operative for job selection criteria | ||
In all of the above, relationships are important. For example:
- The relationship of an employee with their fellow employees and line managers
- An employee feeling that their needs are being ignored and neglected by those who design and layout workplaces and systems of work, purchase plant machinery and tools or make corporate management decisions
All of these factors contribute to stress that can affect the ability of employees to perform at an optimum level of performance both in terms of quality and safety.
E4.4 Improving health and safety culture
By line management's leadership and example
As already stated, the further up the line management hiearchy we find low pockets of safety culture, the more serious the problem. lt is therfore imperative to ensure management at the very top level of an organisation are aware of the benefits that can be derived from developing a good safety culture. Once this has been established, a programme can be put in place to bring about the changes necessary to improve, sustain and develop the culture in which management lead by example.
Weakness can be developed into power through using stimulating rather than debilitating vocabulary. For example
Using stimulating words and phrases like 'please' and 'thank you', remembering to praise conformance to good standards as well as adequately dealing with non-conformances.
Implementing a programme to develop the items mentioned in the latter part of paragraph E4.3 above.
To develop the programme will require personnel with skills and competence in motivational concepts. lt may be worth organising information briefings and training sessions for line managers in such skills before embarking on the programme.
One person who has a vital role to play is the safety practitioner whao must become, if not already, a stimulator rather than a debilitator by their attitude and demeanor in faciliating and co-ordinating the development of a healthy up-beat safety culture. To do so will require new thinking and concepts that will require imaginative thoughts that are then put into action. This is called 'Vision Management'.
Improvements can also be made by gaining a greater understanding of the pressures that employees have in their daily lives.
For example:
Family demands/relationships | Health | Finance | Insecurity |
Insolvency | Tests and check-ups | Inadequate housing | Localculture |
Continual demands | Traumas | Sex | Physical danger |
Diet/physical stature | Special needs or phobias | Race/religion | Traveling |
Effective communication within the organisation
Whilst the organisation and line managers cannot solve everyone's life pressure problems they should at least take cognisance of the fact there may be a reason for a sudden unexplained down turn in an employee's attitude or diligence at work.
Organisations should recruit personnel with the required characteristics for the-job they will
can then develop their competences through a programme of professional
development consisting of information; instruction and training that will encourage them to have confidence in their ability and a sense of belonging.
Effective communication within the organisation:
Communication can be carried out in many ways.
For example:
a) From person to person
- By the spoken word, accompanied by voice inflections. This can be stimulating or debilitating. This type of communication can be individual or colleCtive by means of meetings or toolbox talks where everyone is encouraged to participate.
- By the written word, which can be authoritarian, encouraging or threatening. E.g. notices, posters letters, handbooks etc.
- Through body language and facial expressions By individuals
- By secondary action, i.e.ignoring or bypassing a person. b) By visualaids such as Films, videos, CD's etc.
Training
Physiological factors
When developing training courses it is important to understand:
- That people differ physically from one another is especially obvious just by looking at them.
- That our physical ability increases as we grow from child to adulthood and then begins to decline, as we get older.
- Senses such as feel, smell, hearing and sight are also different in individuals and again deteriorates with the aging process. That differences are also present in the ability of humans
is also a commonly recognised fact.
The full importance and nature of the variation amongst people however is not generally
appreciated. Many believe that practice makes perfection; yet no amount of practice on the part of one person will make them as proficient in their work as a little practice will make another.
We also classify people as bright or dull, good or poor workers, easy going or hot-tempered. The implication in each of these pairs is that a person falls into either one of two categories. The reasons could be in many instances related to organisational work factors. For example:
- The employee is not given any stimulation by being involved in decision making.
- Their job is dull and uninteresting.
- Their job is above, or below, the employee's capability or capacity to perform.
In industry it is common practice to pay employees by the hour. This implies that a person's time is what counts rather than how much they accomplish. Paying for time encourages employees to put in their time rather than to produce according to their ability. This can debilitate people and does
not stimulate them to work efficiently.
Everything we do, say or think will either mentally stimulate or debilitate us. In addition everything
we say or do to other people has the same effect. lt is important that all line managers, and indeed safety practitioners, ensure that they stimulate rather than debilitate their work colleagues.
When training it must also be remembered that the human mind cannot think of two things at the same time and that this fact lies behind quite a number of accidents. For example you always remember a rung is missing when climbing a ladder but it's completely forgotten by the time you are coming down.
Motivational factors
Motivational factors will stimulate a person to action.
Examples are:
Praise for good conformance | Possibility of promotion | Incentive schemes |
Emergencies | Peer group pressure | Threats |
Attitude
This is our perceived thought about any particular subject that will influence our judgements and decision-making. For example:
Statement is made to a person
And is then filtered through their Attitude to a particular subject
Then the person will make a pronouncement that has been influenced by their Attitude
This highlights the need to try and influence a person’s attitude to be more favourable to what we are about to say before we make a statement to them. There are a number of different ways in which a person’s attitude can be influenced, for example:
- Facts or examples
i.e. stating facts that will be influential to the receiver of the information.
- Feeding their ego
Praising their attitude or common sense or acknowledging their expertise before you start.
A person will always be more influenced by their own thoughts rather than by the thoughts of others. This requires giving them scope to change their position/attitude.
There are two components that combine to influence a person's attitude. These are: )
Cognitive (learned) ingredients. These are based upon fact, knowledge or experience or beliefs. This latter ingredient is perhaps deeply ingrained and therefor most difficult to change.
Immediate response ingredients: These are based upon a person’s immediate attitude to the fact implanted into their mind.
Perception
This is the way in which people interpret their environment and relationships. lt includes their perception of what is hazardous, constitutes a risk, is dangerous or what is safe. There is a correlation between a person's perception and past experiences as well as their biological and psychological needs.
In perception the mind more readily identifies and evaluates immediate dangers as against the type of dangers associated with long term or slow injuries. For example the perception of a prehistoric man like Fred Flintstone would have identified the dangers associated with being confronted by a sabre tooth tiger much more readily than the hazards associated with food or personnal hygiene. Perception is often based upon past experience.
Remember:
| Experience is what we get when we did not get what we -expected |
The child that touches a hot stove did not get what they expected, but they learn, don't touch stoves, they are hot and burn!
The child's perception of dangers associated with stoves is now a defense against the possibility of being burnt.
Idiots never learn from experience, wise people do but the really wise people learn from the experience of others.
Personality
Personality includes characteristics that are inherited or evolved. Inherited ones can be temperament, emotions or traits and include whether the person is introvert or extrovert by nature. While some of these characteristics can be altered, they are often deep-rooted and difficult to change although not impossible.
By effective communications
- ChC:Jnging the style of in-house communications (verbal, written and graphic) by making them up-beat and optimistic rather than down-beat and pessimistic.
- Making the health and safety notice-boards and propaganda attractive and interesting rather than dull and boring
None of us know as much as all of us!
- Making dialogue with the work-force a two way affair where open management prevails and management listens as well as imparts.
Remember:
- Actively encouraging employees to participate through work and safety committees as well as asking for feed-back on how things are perceived by the work-force pro-actively before changes are made
E4.5 Internal and external influences on health and· safety management
Internal influences of health and safety culture
These come from:
- Individual job activities and organisational factors
- The influence of peers
- Sense of belonging or not belonging
- Sense of ownership or achievement
- Perception of risk and danger
- Sense of being appreciated and use of motivational language
External influences on health and safety culture
These come from:
- Society in general and local·environs
- Statutory legislation and standards of enforcement
- Civil case law
- Insurers
- Trade associations
- Trades unions
- Shareholders
- Economics or trade down sizing
Training requirements
- Ensure training is relevant and available where and when required. For example when:
- New employees join the organisation
- Personnel are promoted or change jobs
- Refresher training
- New legislation is invoked
- New work systems, processes, machinery or technology are introduced
- Additional training is identified following an accident investigation
All training should be reviewed and up-dated as required and properly focussed with feedback on benfits in terms of:
- Work being less stressful
- Work becoming part of each employee's comfort zones
- Productivity and human relations improving in the workplace
- The workforce feeling part of the management system of the company
- Enhancement of the organisation's health and safety·culture.