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Abstract
This paper discusses a joint industry and UK Health and Safety Executive research project
on the assessment of safety culture in oshore environments. It particularly describes the
development of a safety culture assessment methodology which is based on a systems
approach to organisational culture. This approach combines a number of assessment meth-
ods, such as: questionnaires, focus groups, behavioural observations and situational audits, to
describe and explore the ecacy of health and safety management systems. The evidence
produced by these methods are complementary rather than alternatives and provide dierent
views of organisational health and safety culture by tapping many aspects of the organisa-
tion's structure, function and behaviour. The assessment techniques have been piloted within
collaborating organisations, both within the UK and the Gulf of Mexico. The culmination of
the work is the ``Safety Climate Assessment Toolkit'' which is now published and available
for use by managers and safety professionals within the oshore oil extraction industry.
# 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Organisational culture; Safety culture; Health and safety management; Cultural assessment;
Safety Climate Assessment Toolkit
1. Introduction
In the decade following the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster many of the oshore oil and
gas processing organisations within the UK have made changes in the manner in
which they manage health and safety (Alexander et al., 1994; Flin et al., 1996; Cox
and Cheyne, 1999). The majority of these changes were precipitated by developments
in the oshore health and safety regulatory regime following on from the recom-
mendations of the Cullen Report (Cullen, 1990), including, for example, the estab-
lishment of the Oshore Safety Division of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
and the application of the Oshore Installations (Safety Case) Regulations (1992).
0925-7535/00/$ - see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S0925-7535(00)00009-6
112 S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111±129
In the wake of such changes, a Cross Industry Safety Leadership Forum has been
established to facilitate the sharing of safe working practices. The members of this
forum recently highlighted a number of indicators of improved safety performance
(Cross Industry Safety Leadership Forum, 1997), including an overall decrease in
reported injury frequency rates and an estimated $5 billion in investments in health
and safety-related improvements. However, despite these overall eorts, there is
some evidence to suggest that the rate of improvement, as measured by accident/
injury frequency, has slowed down over the past 2 years (HSE, 1997; Cox and
Cheyne, 1999). Furthermore the Cross Industry Safety Leadership Forum (1997)
have also con®rmed that much of the existing eorts in support of these improve-
ments have been focused upon technology and management systems rather than
human factors. They also suggest that potential for future improvements may best
be realised through enhanced eorts in the areas of human factors and through the
associated developments in health and safety culture. In light of this initiative this
paper considers how oshore installation managers can gauge their safety culture.
Discussion here focuses on the development of a generic safety culture assessment
methodology which was designed to support improvements in safety performance
across the sector.
This paper describes a series of studies that are focused on the practical needs of
oshore managers and workers for the monitoring of safety culture through the
development of a self-assessment tool. It aims to give a broad overview of the
development of this methodology (Cox and Cheyne, 1999) and draws heavily upon
recent work carried out in the UK sector of the North Sea. It also explores the
practical utility of the concept in oshore environments. The methods described
here are concerned with both the development and piloting of this tool. Whereas the
methodology is based on sound safety science, the overall aim of the assessment
process is to chart a path through, what is increasingly becoming, a conceptual
mine®eld (Cox and Flin, 1998), and one in which researchers have been challenged
by industry to address practical issues (Cox and Lacey, 1998). Although much has
been done in other sectors (e.g. Hale and Hovden, 1998; Hofmann and Stetzer,
1998) in these studies the cultural context for investigation is set within the oshore
industry.
work groups. These studies indicated that those personnel who were most prone to
injuries and near misses were also those who experienced the greatest physical strain
and who perceived the highest risks in relation to their work situation (Rundmo,
1993). Flin and Mearns (1994) carried this work forward into the UK sector of the
North Sea. They identi®ed three important areas which could contribute to acci-
dents and near misses: (1) individual characteristics (including experience, knowl-
edge, attitudes to safety, etc); (2) job characteristics (work tasks, environment, job
stress, etc.); and (3) platform characteristics (safety culture, social support and safety
management systems). This study (Flin and Mearns, 1994) also indicated that man-
agement commitment to safety, job satisfaction, attitudes to safety versus produc-
tion and job situation had the greatest eect on workers' perception of risk and their
satisfaction with safety measures.
In a study focussing speci®cally on safety culture, Alexander et al. (1994) used self-
administered questionnaires and supporting interviews in an attempt to measure
aspects of safety culture in the oshore environment within one operating company
in the UK sector of the North Sea. The study also focussed on dierences in per-
ceptions of the prevailing culture between company employees and contractors and
those working in onshore and oshore environments. The culture for safety within
the operating company was described, in terms of employees' attitudes and percep-
tions, by six factors, labelled as management commitment, personal need for safety,
appreciation of risk, attribution of blame, con¯ict and control and supportive
environment. Contractor employees were found to have a higher appreciation of
risk and a higher personal need for safety compared with the operating company
employees. Similarly, oshore workers in general had a higher appreciation of risk,
greater personal need for safety and were more convinced of management's com-
mitment to safety than those working onshore. Mearns et al. (1998) have continued
this focus on human and organisational issues in their study of safety climate in the
UK sector of the North Sea. Their study, based on a questionnaire survey of
employee attitudes, provided evidence that sub-cultures, centred around, for exam-
ple, work teams or parent organisations, are important for workers' perceptions of
their overall safety.
There are, thus, a number of dominant themes in relation to human factors and,
in particular, safety culture emerging from these oshore studies and other reported
studies in the literature (Cox and Flin, 1998). For example, the importance of man-
agement commitment and, in particular, the perceived priority accorded to safety
matters, has been repeatedly highlighted. Equally a number of studies (e.g. Flin et
al., 1996) have con®rmed the need to consider not only key organisational factors,
but also to take account of individual factors, such as personal appreciation of risks
and involvement in safety-related decisions, as key in¯uences on safety performance,
and the related safety culture, within oshore environments. Similarly, potential
sub-cultures, characteristic of dierent occupational groups, and the concomitant
in¯uences on overall installation, or organisational, culture have been identi®ed. As
a consequence of these studies, and recent discussions and conferences within the
oshore environment (Cross Industry Safety Leadership Forum, 1997; Cox and
Lacey, 1998), the awareness and development of an `appropriate' safety culture is
114 S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111±129
The present studies are concerned with the development and testing of an assess-
ment technique which provides both a practical tool for the assessment of safety
climate and simultaneously aids the promotion of a `positive' safety culture. The
studies described here are published in the ``Safety Climate Assessment Toolkit''
(Cox and Cheyne, 1999) together with a guide for those using the toolkit. In view of
the practical intentions of the studies and the nature of the output, potential toolkit
users in participating organisations were widely consulted in the development of the
conceptual framework. This framework has been described in a number of previous
publications (e.g. Cheyne et al., 1988; Cox et al., 1998; Cox and Cheyne, 1999) and
involves a holistic view of safety climate assessment. Assessments of safety climate
are used here as an indicator of overall safety culture. Culture in general, and safety
culture in particular, is often characterised as an enduring aspect of the organisation
with trait-like properties and not easily changed. Climate, on the other hand, can be
conceived of as a manifestation of organisational culture (Schein, 1985) exhibiting
more state-like properties. The nature of culture and climate and their relationship
has also been related to the concepts of personality and mood (Cox and Flin, 1998),
where culture represents the more trait-like properties of personality and climate the
more state-like properties of mood. For the purposes of this discussion climate is
viewed as a temporal manifestation of culture, which is re¯ected in the shared per-
ceptions of the organisation at a discrete point in time (Cox and Cheyne, 1999).
A multiple perspective, or holistic, model of the safety climate assessment process
was proposed and, as such, dominated the project design. Similar approaches are
discussed within the literature in relation to the assessment of organisational climate
(James and Jones, 1974; Cox and Cox, 1996; Denison, 1996). It has been suggested
(Jick, 1979) that organisational researchers and practitioners can improve the accu-
racy of their judgements by both utilising multiple methods and collecting dierent
kinds of data bearing on the same phenomenon, in this case safety climate. `Between
(or across) methods' triangulation (Denzin, 1978) oers such an approach. Jick
(1979) cites the example of reviewing the eectiveness of an organisational `leader',
where eectiveness may be studied by: (1) interviewing the leader; (2) observing their
leadership behaviours; and (3) evaluating performance records. The focus remains
with the organisational issue (in Jick's, 1979 example `leadership') but the mode of
S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111±129 115
data collection varies. Multiple and independent measures, if they provide suppor-
tive evidence, can thus provide a more certain picture (or pro®le) of the issue under
review (Denzin, 1978; Cox and Cheyne, 1999).
In the same vein James and Jones (1974) describe three dierent approaches to the
assessment of organisational culture (and climate) and, in doing so, oer commen-
tary on its dierent (conceptual) loci. First, is the `multiple measurement-organisa-
tional attribute approach' which regards organisational climate exclusively as a set
of organisational attributes (or main eects), measurable by a variety of methods;
e.g. organisational structure or organisational systems measured by propriety audit
systems. Second, there is the `perceptual-organisational attribute approach', which
views organisational climate as a set of perceptual variables which are still seen as
organisational eects, e.g. views of the organisation's commitment, etc. Finally,
there is the `perceptual measurement-individual attribute approach' which captures
organisational climate through perceptions of individual attributes, e.g. individuals'
feelings and attitudes towards organisational issues, their related behaviour, etc.
Given the importance of both organisational and individual factors in in¯uencing
safety culture (James and Jones, 1974; Denison, 1996) it is suggested that in an
attempt to measure culture these dierent approaches should be treated as com-
plementary and not as alternatives. Thus a multiple perspective was taken which
also combined dierent approaches to assessment, as recommended by Jick (1979).
This is illustrated in the framework model shown in Fig. 1.
In such a model, the representation of organisational safety culture is consistent
with one sponsor's preferred (HSE, 1997) de®nition. For example, the Advisory
The three methods proposed for use in a safety climate assessment exercise, and
illustrated in Fig. 1, form the basis of the assessment methods included in the Safety
Climate Assessment Toolkit. The toolkit is a practical instrument for in-house use
and it contains a selection of tools that can be used as part of the measurement
process. These tools include questionnaires, interview and focus discussion group
schedules and behavioural indicators. A full text and electronic version of the toolkit
can be found at http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/bs/safety
The remainder of this paper discusses some of the studies that contributed to the
development of these assessment methods. Two representative studies and a case
illustration, which collectively cover the issues of exploration, instrument develop-
ment and practical use, are outlined here:
. Study 1 included a series of focus discussions which formed the basis of some
of the tools and measures which are developed in Study 2;
. Study 2 describes the development of a safety climate questionnaire; and
. the case illustration brie¯y outlines a case study application of the ques-
tionnaire tools developed in Study 2 in a pilot organisation.
The accounts of the development of the behavioural indicators and the semi-
structured interview schedule, also included in the assessment process, are outside
the scope of the paper and are described within the ``Safety Climate Assessment
Toolkit'' (Cox and Cheyne, 1999). The ®nal discussions are focussed on the mutual
experiences of implementing the practical assessment process together with the per-
ceived bene®ts; e.g. the practical utility of the output of the assessment and the
potential for action planning.
The ®rst study was concerned with exploring employees' understanding and per-
ception of `safety culture'. These shared understandings and underpinning con-
structs were utilised in the design of subsequent studies and formed the bases of the
development of the assessment methodology. Focus discussion groups were
S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111±129 117
employed here for two reasons: (1) to elicit constructs based on individuals' notions
of `safety culture'; and (2) to provide initial indications of any dierences in overall
perceptions between dierent work groups in the study organisations. The focus
group studies were deemed to be particularly appropriate at this stage of the inves-
tigations since the data collected would be utilised as the basis for the toolkit devel-
opment and, in particular, the development of the questionnaire tool. Focus groups
as a method are well accepted (Krueger, 1994) but they can be biased by a number
of factors, e.g. domination of the group by one member or too much direction by
the facilitator. These biases were controlled for by the use of a small number of
group facilitators who followed a structured discussion format.
2.1. Method
A series of focus group discussions (n=40) were conducted using both oshore
and onshore personnel in three separate organisations, at a total of six dierent
locations. These 40 discussion groups involved 375 employees in groups ranging
between three and 12 individuals. One hundred and eighty-one participants worked
in onshore locations and 194 were based on oshore installations. Eighty-three
managers and supervisors took part in the study. Wherever possible the groups were
homogenous and comprised either: (1) managers and supervisors; or (2) members of
the workforce. This promoted an atmosphere of open enquiry and, wherever possi-
ble, avoided inhibiting the group members (Carroll, 1998).
Each of the discussions involved four questions being put to the group partici-
pants, namely what they understood by the term safety, what they understood by
the term company culture, how safety ®ts into their picture of company culture and
what they understood by the term safety culture. The ®rst three questions were
designed to put participants at their ease and help focus their discussion of the
concept of safety culture. All members of the group were encouraged by the facil-
itator to make a response to the ®nal question.
Each of the focus group discussions were recorded on audiotape and then tran-
scribed verbatim. These transcriptions were then subjected to a preliminary content
analysis (Holsti, 1969; Dane, 1990) involving two independent raters, and the
resulting keywords (based on the most commonly occurring constructs in the dis-
cussions of the concept of safety culture) were tabulated. There was 96% agreement
between raters on the classi®cation of concepts. Where the raters did not agree on
the categorisation of a concept (in 13 cases), a third rater arbitrated. In addition to
the extraction of individual key constructs, general group feelings and perceptions of
safety were recorded as appropriate.
2.2. Results
All groups actively participated with a good degree of co-operation. The number
of occasions each concept was mentioned during the focus discussion groups is
shown in Table 1, together with a breakdown by organisation. The numbers shown
in brackets indicate the number of times each issue was raised in a negative sense.
118 S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111±129
Table 1
Focus group keywords
For example, in the case of involvement, the number of time individuals felt that
they were not involved in safety issues.
Many of the non-managerial participants, especially within Organisation 2,
recounted experiences of not feeling that they were adding value to safety-related
processes and perceived that they were not involved in any safety decision-making
processes aecting anything other than routine day-to-day operations. Responses
from oshore workers suggest that they have a greater appreciation of risk than
onshore workers which, in turn, aects their perception of safety issues and may go
some way to explaining the many emotive comments made about the importance of
safety oshore. The responses from the onshore groups represented a more sanitised
viewpoint, given with much less emotion than those received from the oshore
groups. Several groups expressed the view that, although attitudes to safety had
improved, they perceived that the principles of risk management were providing the
main impetus for improvements in all three organisations. Combined responses
suggest that management were quite committed to safety although improvements
could still be made. Although some non-managerial participants, particularly in
oshore environments, related feelings that a blame culture existed.
2.3. Discussion
that, although the results of the studies described here were used primarily as an
important and essential starting point for the project, focus groups had further
potential for safety climate assessment in this environment.1 Furthermore the data
collected from the focus group studies supported the holistic view illustrated in Fig.
1, with reference being made to a range of organisational systems and artefacts and
to both organisational and individual factors.
The second study is focussed on the development of one of the safety climate
assessment tools that are included in the toolkit (see earlier) and also builds upon the
constructs developed in Study 1. In particular this study describes the process
involved in developing the attitude questionnaire.
Over the last 5 years, a variety of safety attitude questionnaire surveys have been
carried out in the organisations participating in the project (e.g. Alexander et al.,
1994; Fitzpatrick, 1996). The common items and themes from the three survey
instruments were identi®ed (and highlighted in Table 2). In addition to these studies,
Table 2
Oshore attitude survey dimensions and their origin
Oshore Nuclear Energy supply Chemical/process Manufacturing
questionnaires (Lee, 1995) (Donald, 1995) (Byrom and (Cox and Cox, 1991)
Corbridge, 1997)
1
The results not only provided this basis for future development, but also gave the facilitators valuable
insights into the organisations under study.
120 S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111±129
safety attitude measures have also been developed and utilised in other industrial
sectors (e.g. Zohar, 1980; Brown and Holmes, 1986; Cox, 1988; Dedobbeleer and
BeÂland, 1991; Cooper and Philips, 1994; Mearns et al., 1998). An initial question
bank, derived from the initial in-house studies, was re®ned in the light of other
published studies. Consideration was given to developments within: (1) the nuclear
industry (Lee, 1995); (2) the energy supply industry (see Donald, 1995, for details);
(3) a variety of manufacturing settings (Cox and Cox, 1991; Cheyne and Cox, 1994;
Cox et al., 1998); and (4) the HSE attitudinal indicator of safety climate (Byrom and
Corbridge, 1997). Extra dimensions, not included in the common threads from pre-
vious studies in participating organisations, were included if common to two or
more of the external studies and if highlighted by the focus group discussions (Study
1). The full set of dimensions and their origin is shown in Table 2.
In summary, the initial question bank for the questionnaire instrument was,
therefore, based on:
1. an initial review of oshore surveys within the study organisations and the
establishment of common themes;
2. comparisons between these and instruments in other industrial sectors (in par-
ticular the nuclear and chemical/process industries); and
3. a review of the constructs identi®ed in the focus discussion groups (Study 1 above).
These reviews and comparisons allowed a pilot questionnaire to be developed to
include 47 items covering the areas of Management Commitment, Communication,
Priority of Safety, Safety Rules and Procedures, Supportive Environment, Involve-
ment, Personal Priorities and Need for Safety, Personal Appreciation of Risk and
Work Environment. This attitude questionnaire was piloted using a population of
oshore personnel in two locations. These personnel were asked not only to com-
plete the questionnaire but also to comment on the general content and any speci®c
items they felt to be unclear. Sixty completed questionnaires were returned. The
main objective of this pilot study was to test the face validity of the items in the
questionnaire with an appropriate group. Comments were restricted to individual
items and resulted in two items being reworded and four items being deleted. The
new, 43-item questionnaire was tested on a larger pilot population.
3.2. Analysis
Table 3
Standardised factor loadings
Item Loading
Management commitment
In my workplace management acts quickly to correct safety problems 0.811
Management acts decisively when a safety concern is raised 0.792
In my workplace management turn a blind eye to safety issues 0.737
Corrective action is always taken when management is told about unsafe practices 0.690
In my workplace managers/supervisors show interest in my safety 0.520
Management acts only after accidents have occurred 0.500
Managers and supervisors express concern if safety procedures are not adhered to 0.440
Priority of safety
Management clearly considers the safety of employees of great importance 0.665
I believe that safety issues are not assigned a high priority 0.585
Safety procedures are carefully followed 0.585
Management considers safety to be equally as important as production 0.534
Communication
There is good communication here about safety issues which aect me 0.721
Safety information is always brought to my attention by my line manager/supervisor 0.633
My line manager/supervisor does not always inform me of current concerns and issues 0.594
Management operates an open door policy on safety issues 0.541
I do not receive praise for working safely 0.481
Safety rules
Some safety rules and procedures do not need to be followed to get the job done safely 0.724
Some health and safety rules and procedures are not really practical 0.685
Sometimes it is necessary to depart from safety requirements for production's sake 0.583
Supportive environment
I am strongly encouraged to report unsafe conditions 0.639
I can in¯uence health and safety performance here 0.543
When people ignore safety procedures here, I feel it is none of my business 0.480
Employees are not encouraged to raise safety concerns 0.421
A no-blame approach is used to persuade people acting unsafely that their behaviour is inappropriate 0.367
Co-workers often give tips to each other on how to work safely 0.323
Involvement
I am involved in informing management of important safety issues 0.724
I am involved with safety issues at work 0.687
I am never involved in the ongoing review of safety 0.524
Work environment
Operational targets often con¯ict with safety measures 0.795
Sometimes I am not given enough time to get the job done safely 0.668
Sometimes conditions here hinder my ability to work safely 0.666
There are always enough people available to get the job done safely 0.596
I cannot always get the equipment I need to do the job safely 0.448
This is a safer place to work than other companies I have worked for 0.256
122 S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111±129
particular set of linkages between the observed variables and their underlying factors)
and then tests this model statistically, examining the degree to which it ®ts with the
available data. In its con®rmatory approach, factor analysis is concerned with
implementing a theorist's hypothesis about how a domain of variables may be struc-
tured. The nine factors included in the questionnaire were already well-established
dimensions derived from the literature and so in this case, the hypothesis that is being
tested is whether the variables actually relate to each factor, or latent variable. An
exploratory approach would have been more appropriate if there had been no theore-
tical structure to the questionnaire and it was necessary to explore the factors it covered.
Incremental ®t indices measure the proportionate improvement in ®t by compar-
ing a target model with a restricted baseline model, usually a null model in which all
the observed variables are independent. The comparative ®t index (CFI) was used as
it is one of the best ®t indices (Marsh et al., 1996). A value of around 0.9 is accepted
as indicating good model ®t.
A nine factor model was proposed and tested. This model indicated a relatively
poor ®t for the data (CFI=0.78) and so six constraints identi®ed in the model
modi®cation statistics were released. This involved six of the items being associated
with dierent factors. This improved the model ®t (CFI=0.85) and resulted in the
structure shown in Table 3. Each item is shown in this table with its standardised
loading, all of which were statistically signi®cant at the 0.05 level. It should be noted
that those items with relatively low factor loadings may not be wholly indicative of
the factor, but such items could be usefully consulted individually. Furthermore, in
any summation of factor scores these loading might be used to weight individual
items.
3.2.2. Reliability
Two forms of reliability were examined, internal-scale reliability and alternate-
forms reliability. Internal-scale reliability (or consistency) is applied to groups of
items that are thought to measure dierent aspects of the same concept (Litwin,
1995). This is important because a group of items that purports to measure one
variable should be clearly focused on that variable and the accepted level for this
statistic (Cronbach's alpha) is around 0.7. Measures of internal reliability for each of
Table 4
Factor internal reliability
Factor Cronbach's a
Table 5
Alternate-forms reliability coecients
the factors in Table 3 are presented in Table 4. It can be seen that all the alphas
reported are in the range 0.53 through 0.84, the lower ones being consistent with
those factors where some original factor loadings were low.
Alternate-forms reliability involves comparing two dierent versions of the same
measure (Dane, 1990). In the case of the questionnaire, 30 subjects were asked to
complete the survey and then later, after an interval of at least 18 h, were asked 17 of
those items orally as part of an interview format. These items were chosen randomly
from the larger questionnaire. The inter-item correlations are shown in Table 5.
Only three of the inter-item correlations are non-signi®cant, indicating overall good
alternate-forms reliability. The low inter-item correlation in these cases may have
been due to the relatively small sample size involved and the eect of a few outlying
scores on such a sample.
3.3. Discussion
This study has dealt with one of the tools for use in a safety climate assessment, as
well as detailing its development, the instrument's reliability and consistency has
also been discussed. This tool has been based, wherever possible on the concepts
highlighted by the focus group discussions (Study 1) and a review of relevant lit-
erature pertaining to the measurement and assessment of safety culture and climate.
The organisations involved also requested that any questionnaire tool developed be
consistent with what had been used in the past. The ®nal section of this paper brie¯y
describes the use of the toolkit and discusses some of the issues raised, the pro®ling
124 S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111±129
of the results of the assessment process, and subsequent actions that may be con-
sidered by those assessing safety climate. The con®dential nature of the assessment
process makes it dicult to report this study in great detail.
The developed ``Safety Climate Assessment Toolkit'' process was initially tested
in one organisation involved in hydrocarbon production. The pilot organisation is
involved in the extraction of hydrocarbons, operating on various sites world-wide.
This organisation had a strong commitment to safety, health and environmental
excellence and also has a tradition of `quality'. The initial management character-
isation of their culture for safety was one of `total commitment and safety excel-
lence'. The organisation hoped to appreciate a broader perspective of shared
attitudes and communicate these goals through the use of the assessment toolkit, as
well as examining dierences between occupational groups. The toolkit procedures
were implemented by an in-house team, who only made use of back-up from the
research team in analysing the dierences between occupational groups.
The full assessment toolkit (Cox and Cheyne, 1999) consists of three sets of tools,
as described earlier: climate questionnaire, semi-structured interview schedule and a
set of behavioural indicators. It also provides guidance on their application and
interpretation. The organisation using the toolkit in this case considered the fol-
lowing sources of evidence:
Table 6
Means for the three work groups involved in the studya
4.1. Results
Two-hundred workers took part in the pro®ling exercise and the results of climate
assessment surveys were represented on a radar plot graph (Fig. 2). These plots were
included at the request of the participants and provided a visual representation of
climate pro®les in dierent parts of the organisation (i.e. on dierent installations).
Each of the dimensions represented on the radar plot was scored on a standardised
scale (out of 10) and included not only questionnaire dimensions but also the data
collected from interviews and document audits.
Overall, the assessment process con®rmed the organisation's strengths in the areas
of Management Commitment and Management Style and the implementation of
Safety Systems. The questionnaire survey, however, highlighted Communication
issues (with a standardised mean of 6.1), the Supportive Environment (with a stan-
dardised mean of 5.6) and Employee Involvement (with a mean of 4.9) as the three
areas most in need of improvement. The interviews and focus groups supported
these ®ndings in highlighting Co-operation and Safety Training as being relatively
poor, and the direct and indirect observations also found problems with Commu-
nication, e.g. unclear and/or ambiguous brie®ng documents. These preliminary
®ndings illustrate some of the relationships between separate measures, particularly
those related to the work and supportive environments and involvement, which in
this case provided the initial focus for action in this organisation.
An examination of the dierences between certain occupational groups was also
made. The organisation involved in this study was particularly interested in dier-
126 S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111±129
ences between managers, production teams and drilling teams. A series of one-way
analyses of variance were performed for each factor in the attitude questionnaire.
Dierences in mean scores (standardised to a 10-point scale for each factor) for each
of the three groups are shown in Table 6.
Dierences were found in six of the questionnaire dimensions with drilling teams
showing signi®cantly lower evaluations than managers in terms of Supportive
environment, Involvement, Personal appreciation of risk and Work environment
and lower evaluations of Communication and Personal priorities than both man-
agers and production teams. Production teams, however, only diered signi®cantly
from managers in terms of Involvement, Personal appreciation of risk and work
environment. These ®nding are consistent with those of Mearns et al. (1998) sug-
gesting that drilling teams, who often belong to another `parent organisation' may
have their own sub-culture and may, consequently, ®nd themselves outside various
communication channels.
4.2. Discussion
Users found the process straightforward and found little diculty in constructing
their safety climate pro®le. Users then examined the initial questionnaire items and
interview responses in order to get some notion of the exact nature of any problems
highlighted by poor scores. This investigation revealed that a large number of
employees felt that they were not involved, in, or informed of, safety initiatives,
indeed it was perceived that a small group of `select' people were the only individuals
involved in any safety activities, and these individuals gave little, or no, support to
others on safety issues. These feelings were also re¯ected with regard to safety
training. Once again, the majority of those questioned felt that they were not
informed of relevant training or encouraged to attend courses, other than those
legally required.
Several initiatives are planned as a result of these ®ndings. Firstly, the users have
decided to actively promote, with the help of the training manager, the range of
safety training courses on oer. This involves listings of appropriate courses
appearing in the company newsletter, as well as announcements at all team meetings
in an attempt to reach the various `sub-cultures'. Team meetings are also to be used,
in the ®rst instance, to encourage individuals to get involved in, and indeed to pro-
pose, new safety initiatives. The user will reassess the safety climate pro®le when
these measures have been in place for at least 1 year.
5. Discussion
During this process reliance is not placed on any single form of assessment, e.g.
questionnaires, nor is it placed on any single part of the overall system, e.g. only
organisational systems and compliance. It builds upon a holistic approach and provides
a `rich-picture' of the overall safety climate as recommended by Cox and Flin (1998).
The immediate bene®ts of using the toolkit are the pro®ling of safety climate and
the action planning that this pro®le allows. In theory, achieving and maintaining a
positive safety climate will provide an environment where improvements in safety
performance can be made (ASCNI, 1993). Speci®c bene®ts of using the toolkit can
be summarised as: (1) providing a focus for raising the pro®le of health and safety;
(2) allowing active monitoring in support of other processes; (3) providing an
opportunity for sensitive issues to be discussed, which in other circumstances may be
seen as disruptive; (4) providing a focus for working together on safety issues; and
(5) facilitating benchmarking, both internally and externally.
The particular assessment tool described in Study 2, the employee attitude ques-
tionnaire, has been extensively piloted. The initial analysis has shown the instrument
to be reliable in terms of what it measures, and sensitive enough to uncover dier-
ences between occupational groups. The initial feedback also suggests that the
questionnaire is easy to administer and pro®le. Similarly users found the toolkit's
interview schedule and behavioural observations practical and straightforward. The
pro®le, once completed in the pilot organisation, allowed the various relationships
between its measures to be examined in detail. The results of the initial climate
assessment exercise have provided the organisation in Study 3 with several useful
prompts for future action, as well as highlighting the level at which these actions
should be aimed.
Acknowledgements
The studies described in this paper have been funded and supported by the O-
shore Safety Division of HSE, Chevron UK, Chevron Gulf of Mexico (Ship Shoal/
128 S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111±129
Eugene Island), Mobil North Sea and Oryx UK. The authors would like to
acknowledge the assistance of Martin Alexander and Bill Cockburn in the gathering
of data. The views expressed here are those of the authors and are not necessarily
representative of any other individual or organisation.
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