IRJMSH Vol 8 Issue 2 [Year 2017] ISSN 2277 – 9809 (0nline) 2348–9359 (Print)

SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AND SAFETY CULTURE

Bhawana Yadav
Abstract:
This study tackles the extent to which organization implementation’s urgency play a role in their
acceptance of safety management system in the workplace. Moreover, it highlights the
importance of safety culture among organizations to handle the problem related to accidents and
hazards. Moreover, when everyone is working in any of the organization health and safety issue
is more important than any other issue.
Introduction
Safety management system focuses on policies and procedure, and accidents rates at the
workplace (Santos et al., 2013). Management of health and safety includes the planning
organizing and controlling. It helps to determine the performance at the individual and
organizational level. Organizational performance and productivity will be also increased with the
effective health and safety management system (Akpan, 2009). Safety management system also
related with organization formation, alter in the climate and culture of the organization and the
problem of stress of many types (Eklof, 2008). Employees are more focused and linked to the
safety if employer involves them in the organization safety management system. Then
employees totally devote their mind and physical strength in the work to achieve the profit
objective of the organization. With the help of safety management system, difficult projects and
duties that are related to daily work can be done safely (Wachter and Yorio, 2014).
Definition of safety management is given by (Vinodkumar and Bhasi, 2011) that “it is the
policies, strategies, procedures and activities implemented or followed by the management of an
organization targeting safety of their employees.” The main interest areas of the safety
management system are human being and growth in the health and safety at the workplace (Cox
and Cheyne, 2000). Benefits of the safety management system are decreasing the chances of
incidents and accidents and also reduce the direct and indirect costs. Study of manufacturing and
chemical industries (Vinodkumar and Bhasi, 2011) have revealed that if an industry had
specialized safety management system, considerably accidents were reduced. Arocena and
Nunez (2010) have found that safety will be better if organization includes scientific and human
related procedure in their safety management system. Safety management system is related with
many safety functions like risk estimation, incident analysis, and safety monitoring (Dijkstra et
al., 2008).
2.3.1 Elements of the safety management system
Following elements are covered in safety management system:
Management guidance and commitment: Management should develop the written health
and safety policy for the effective implementation of safety management system. In this
employer should also involve the employees in policy related to health and safety. These policies

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IRJMSH Vol 8 Issue 2 [Year 2017] ISSN 2277 – 9809 (0nline) 2348–9359 (Print)

help to contribute in business performance. These health and safety policies control all the
actions and decisions of the business (Fernández-Muniz et al., 2007).
Safety discipline motivation: Supervisor must be motivating the employees to follow the
safety rules. Regular feedback from the worker can improve the worker safety. To support the
safety, supervisor should provide the rewards and certification to the workers (Kapp, 2012).
Safety engineering: Safety engineering is related to the machinery. Fencing of machinery,
proper space between machines, material handling machine, and timely maintenance of
machinery are undertaken to avoid accidents at the work area (Liou et al., 2008).
Safety training and communication: Safety training is necessary for all the workers
especially for the new workers. Safety training may include safety practices, rules, first aid and
fire prevention. Every organization should display posters, newsletters, and slogans at the notice
board. Two way communication should be done between the management and workers about the
safety to improve the safety at the workplace. There are different levels in the organization so, at
all the levels responsibility and duty should be well defined to achieve the performance of the
organization (Probst and Estrada, 2010).
2.4 Hazards and risk recognition
There are many type of risks and hazards are associated with the work area, so, it is
employer's duty to assess all before commence. Past records of the hazards and helps in
inspection and find out the reasons of incidents at the workplace. Risk at the workplace also
affects the performance of the organizations. By eliminating the process and system which
generate the risk enhances the performance of the organization (Stranks, 2008).
Evaluation of safety effort: Safety audit can easily observe and estimate the safety efforts.
Incident and injury data should be compared with the previous available statistics.
Government support: Indian government formed national safety council in 1966 to
support safety related activities. Every year National safety awards are given to different
industries for their accident free environment (Rao, 2012).
Emergency response plan: Safety management system cannot save the life of employees
in emergency (such as fire, flood, etc.) so, every organization should have the good emergency
response plan which can reduce the risk at the workplace. Employees should know about which
person they will need to contact at the time of emergency (Vredenburgh, 2002).
2.5 Safety culture
Good and effective safety culture can improve the safety performance of the
organization. In an organization, safety culture is the mixture of individual and group efforts.
Safety culture is static and it also includes the overall organization culture (Kennedy and Kirwan,
1998). Safety cultures provide the directions to the groups where every individual change their
behavior with the joint belief in importance of the safety and every individual in a group is ready
to take the group safety norms (Wiegmann et al., 2001). Safety culture helps an individual to
develop the safety attitude and also promoted the safety behavior. Safety culture has
consideration of safety then safety climate (Reichers and Schneider, 1990). The literature
suggests that basically safety culture of any organization depends upon what kind of diverse

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practices, law and system an organization follows and values, ideas and perceptions of members
as regards to chase the safety (Thompson et al., 1998).
Various definitions of safety culture abound in the academic safety literature are:
Uttal (1983) defined it as “shared values and beliefs that interact with an organization's
structures and control systems to produce behavioral norms.'' Turner et al. (1989) defined it as,
“the set of beliefs, norms, attitudes, roles, and social and technical practices that are concerned
with minimizing the exposure of employees, managers, customers and members of the public to
conditions considered dangerous or injurious''.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA, 1997) defined safety culture 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 Confederation of British Industry (CBI, 1990) defined safety culture as, “the ideas
and beliefs that all members of the organization share about risks, accidents and ill health''. The
Advisory Committee for Safety in Nuclear Installations, subsequently adopted by the UK Health
and Safety Commission (HSC,1993), defined it as, “the product of individual and group values,
attitudes, competencies and patterns of behavior that determine the commitment to, and the style
and proficiency of an organization’s health and safety programmes”.
Pidgeon (1991) explains three facts about the safety rules these are for dealing with risk,
safety attitude and capacity to reflect on safety practices. Safety culture is the main component
that makes coordination between all activities of the employers and employees to achieve the
organization goal (Hofstede, 2004). Good safety culture may includes the importance given by
top manager to safety and consider safety as a goal even it cost money and time. Good
communication between people helps to bring a good learning experience which leads to control
risk at the workplace (Westrum, 1991; Reason, 1997).
Safety culture is the phenomenon which expressed the attitude of employees (Cox and
Flin, 1998). Safety culture is a particular characterized the safety related aspects. Guldenmund
(2000) has also stated that attitude is the part of culture where as the perceptions are more linked
to climate measure. Attitude is the main factor which leads to increase in the safety performance
and it also helps in reduction in the accidents at the workplace (Bryan, 1988).
In another study, Green et al. (1980) have claimed that knowledge related to happening of
accidents linked with the attitude as well as safety performance. In a survey of chemical industry,
Donald and Canter (1993) have revealed that three aspects of safety attitude i.e. organizational
roles, individual safety behavior, and safety activity have the direct impact on safety
performance. In opinion of Bailey (1989), ‘safety outcomes’ being a more direct intermediate
variable where accidents rates were high, less involvement of employees in rules and procedure,
and management is less concern for safety. Smith et al. (1978) and Cohen (1977) have identified
entrenched safety training procedure and formal and informal relations among the employees and
management as the important factors to lower the rate of accidents percentage at the workplace.

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Many studies on safety culture have been done mainly in the areas of rail, transport
(Clark, 1998), chemical, nuclear power production (Lee and Harrison, 2000), the chemical
(Grote and Kunzler, 2000), processing (Varonen and Mattila, 2000), and construction industries
(Glendon and Litherland, 2001), and offshore oil production (Mearns et al., 2000).
Reason (1997) has identified five components of safety culture:
Informed culture - Information related to accidents, and incidents should be received from
every level and must be related with safety audit. All this provide real picture of safety within the
organization.
Reporting culture - Organization environment where workers will be easily communicating the
accidents and avoiding collision.
Just culture - Organization makes an atmosphere of trust and rewarded the peoples to provide
safety related suggestions but there is gap between acceptable and not acceptable suggestions.
Flexible culture - Make changes in the organization culture as the traditional mode to the
modern structure.

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