eBook

Improving Safety Culture:

Where to Focus Your
Attention for Maximum
Impact
Table of Contents

Introduction 03

A Recipe for Safety Culture Success 04

Showing Leadership Commitment 06

Increasing Employee Engagement 10

Knowing How to Measure Success 14

Improvement Requires Action, Not Just Words 18

Introduction
If you’re looking for suggestions on Consider these examples:
what to binge watch next, HBO’s 2019
historical miniseries, Chernobyl, is worth • A 2016 study found that the portfolios
adding to your list. of companies recognized for health &
safety excellence realized an average rate
While the series certainly emphasizes the of return double the market average1
human costs of the nuclear event, one aspect • A 2011 report found that the return-
it does particularly well is demonstrate the on-prevention ratio, an analysis of benefits
“deficient safety culture” that the International realized from safety investment versus
Nuclear Safety Advisor Group (INSAG) their costs, was calculated as 2.2:12
highlighted in their landmark report in the
• In a 2005 survey, Liberty Mutual reported
years following the tragedy.
that 40% of CFOs surveyed cited
productivity as the top benefit of building
Ever since the Chernobyl event in 1986,
an effective safety culture3.
organizations globally have become fixated
on safety culture: trying to figure out what it
But what makes for a strong safety culture?
really is and the aspects that are necessary
And what should organizations be focused on
to develop and sustain it. And while this
in order to improve their own?
debate continues, there appears to be
almost unanimous agreement on one thing:
developing a strong safety culture is a good
thing for business.

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Chapter 1

A Recipe for
Safety Culture
Success
The truth is there’s no ‘one size fits all’ model
to develop a strong safety culture. However,
it’s been observed that most organizations
that achieve safety culture success do so by
resolving 3 fundamental issues:

1. Knowing how to show leadership’s

commitment to safety to the workforce
2. Knowing how to increase employee
participation and engagement in safety
3. Knowing the right things to measure to
accurately assess progress toward safety
excellence.

Let’s take a quick look at how organizations

can address each issue, while also
understanding how they can leverage
technology to support their safety culture
improvement efforts.

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Chapter 2

Showing
Leadership
Commitment
In the excellent book entitled “From Accidents
to Zero”, Dr. Andrew Sharman writes that
change is most effective when it spreads
through an organization like a virus, moving
from one person to the next. Thus, like a
virus finding an entry point into the body and
spreading outward, building a culture based
on a strong commitment to safety starts at
the top and then trickles down through all
successive organizational levels.
For this viral change to occur, leaders must not
simply talk about their commitment to safety
– they need to show that commitment visibly.
Sharman writes that “leaders must bear in
mind that their attitudes, behaviors, actions
and inactions will all be viewed as illustrating
their personal of level of commitment to safety.
What we say, speak and write must be visibly
reflected in what we do.”4 And one of the best
ways to show commitment is through felt
leadership.
Felt leadership is the practice of influencing
hearts and minds toward shared values by
being visible to and regularly engaging with
© CORITY SOFTWARE INC.
the front-line, to show a genuine interest in
their work and concern for their well-being. In
a very practical sense, leaders need to:
• Be visible and spend time with employees
where they work, get to know them as
people, show an interest in what they do,
and understand what they need to do it
better and safer
• Speak passionately about the importance
of safety, while demonstrating a strong
understanding of current risks, issues, and
driving actions required to solve them
• Accept their role as a coach or mentor and
provide honest, timely, and valuable
feedback to employees through real-world
observations of work
• Recognize and reinforce positive
behaviors that support safety culture
success while celebrating success along
the way
An effective felt leadership approach requires
that leaders develop the necessary skills to
be able to engage with people on safety at
an emotional level, and clearly demonstrate
7
 to them the safety is not just a priority, but a
core value of the enterprise. Organizations
Recommended Reading: are beginning to realize the benefits that
technology can provide when developing
strong, sustainable safety cultures, including
how it can support a felt leadership approach.

Observation is a key element of felt leadership.

As leaders spend more time in the field,
getting to know their people and how the
work is actually done, they will become
increasingly aware of issues that require action
and follow-up. Digital tools that help leaders
record critical observations directly from a
mobile device ensures corrective actions
can be assigned and initiated immediately,
which reduces risk exposure and clearly
communicates the leader’s commitment to
safety.

Technology that allows leaders to easily record

observations in the field ensures that valuable
behavioral data can be collected and analyzed
to help organizations understand why workers
do the things they do. This data can help
reveal whether at-risk behaviors are a result

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of workers making decisions due to
constraints created by a poorly designed
system, or whether workers are knowingly
violating rules. Such data will ensure that
follow-up actions are appropriate to address
the underlying causes of errors and at-risk
behaviors, while preserving a “just culture”
within the company.

Yet, a felt leadership approach is only effective

in driving culture change if it is applied
consistently and rigorously. Software can
help organizations monitor their leaders’
visibility through metrics and key indicators,
holding them accountable to develop the
critical leadership behaviors necessary for
success, while simultaneously showing front-
line workers what the company expects of
its leaders. By analyzing data obtained from
observations, including where the C-suite
is going, who they’re speaking to and what
they are talking about, it may help to identify
key behavior trends that require further
intervention, or significant program gaps that
may justify additional safety investment.

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Chapter 3

Increasing
Employee
Engagement
In his 2016 article5, author Kevin Cobb
introduced the idea of “Safety from the
Shadows” – that in any organization,
employees exert an informal social power
than influences the perceptions, ideas and
commitment of their peers toward safety.
Cobb argued that when power with respect to
safety is centralized amongst management,
to the extent that workers feel they do not
have a voice regarding the conditions under
which they work, that social influence will
turn negative. Workers refusing to use
new equipment or opposing new rules are
simply signs they are feeling “neglected,
marginalized, and powerless” cites Cobb. And
it impacts performance.
Studies conducted by Queen’s School of
Business and Gallup found that disengaged
workers experience almost 50% more
accidents and commit 60% more errors in
their work than their more engaged peers.6
It seems logical then that any effort to improve
safety culture needs to focus on ways to
improve employee engagement. To that end,
leaders should:
© CORITY SOFTWARE INC.
1. Focus on giving workers a bigger voice:
Workers who feel that their interests are
not considered, and their opinions are
not valued will begin to work against
the interests of the organization “from
the shadows”. In these circumstances,
Cobb argued these workers need to
be given more power, not less. This
means organizations must look for ways
to give workers more opportunity to
express concerns, challenge decisions
and propose ideas. While creating ways
for workers to highlight issues, leaders
are encouraged to also look for ways
to increase worker autonomy to fix the
issues they find in the manner they
believe is most appropriate.
2. Trust workers with more data, not less:
It’s often seen in weak cultures that
workers feel management is hiding
information from them – that they
aren’t getting the real picture of what’s
happening. Businesses looking to
improve engagement need to trust
workers with more data, not less. Sharing
11

“Trust workers with more
data, not less: It’s often
seen in weak cultures that
workers feel management
is hiding information from
them – that they aren’t
getting the real picture of
what’s happening.”
© CORITY SOFTWARE INC.
data in real time allows workers to
assess for themselves the state of safety
and where they can contribute. Better
communication will promote a narrative
that there are no secrets and that
management is open to being challenged
and held accountable. This will build
greater trust that strong safety cultures
require.
3. Develop a responsive culture: There’s
a double- edged sword with respect
to employee engagement. If you are
asking workers for their opinions and
what’s going wrong, then you’d better be
prepared to do something about it. Failure
of leaders to respond to issues brought
forward in a reasonable time will erode
trust with the workforce and discourage
further participation (“Why should I
inspect if management won’t do anything
about it?”). To that end, organizations
need to ensure they dedicate sufficient
resources and commitment to fixing
problems to ensure engagement remains
high.
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Mobile applications afford businesses
excellent ways to engage their employees
and get them more involved in safety. Tools
that allow workers to submit hazard reports,
incidents and suggestions from their mobile
device, without having to track down their
supervisor, emphasizes autonomy while
ensuring issues are integrated into workflows
leading to quicker assignment and resolution.
These applications also lead to greater
transparency, since workers can easily track
action status and review metrics to hold their
leaders accountable, where required. In-app
notifications also ensure they are immediately
aware when they are assigned tasks, so they
can contribute equally toward safety goals.
Safer work comes, in part, from ensuring
that workers have reliable access to the
information they need to plan and carry out
their tasks properly. Digital tools provide
workers with the vital data they need, whether
job hazard analyses, work instructions or SDS,
without having to dig through dusty binders
or track down their supervisor, allowing them
to make better decisions that lead to better
safety and business outcomes.

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 Chapter 4

Knowing How to
Measure Success

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How do you measure success in safety? More
specifically, how do you measure improvement
in safety culture? Organizations often struggle
to do just that. Now, there are obvious reasons
why measuring safety culture is a good idea:
1. It allows you to assess success of
specific initiatives: Like anything we
do, we want to know that our efforts are
actually leading to the desired outcomes.
Measurement is necessary to show the
tangible steps we take are positively
influencing our culture.
2. It provides objective evidence of
safety culture’s impact on other key
business levers: Companies pursue
stronger safety culture not only to avoid
incidents, but to improve other business
outcomes. Being able to show how safety
culture positively impacts other key
indicators (i.e. incident rates, productivity,
uptime, costs) helps to strengthen
organizational support for associated
initiatives.
3. It makes the business case for Health
and safety investment: Demonstrating
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that the specific efforts taken to improve
safety culture led to better business
outcomes builds leadership confidence
in the value of the endeavor and can be
used to solicit further health and safety
investment.
4. It influences perception: Reality
influences perceptions and perceptions
influence reality. Sustaining a strong
safety culture requires that everyone
believes in it and sees their efforts as
contributing to better working conditions.
Metrics enable leaders to tell a story of
continuous improvement so to keep the
workforce committed.
Yet measuring safety culture is difficult. Often,
this difficulty arises from the lack of consensus
on how to measure it. While researchers
have been using surveys to measure worker
perception of organizational safety since
the early 1980’s, we know that perceptions
can change quickly based on current
circumstances. As a result, solely relying on
perception surveys may give an incomplete
picture of your culture. Shawn Galloway
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 comments that “perceptions are highly
volatile – perceptions can change by point-
in-time events and flow of information. Ask
anyone if they think this is a safe place to work
right after you have announced layoffs.”7

To effectively measure safety culture, we need

to use a variety of tools to build a complete
Psychological Aspect
picture of what’s going on. In a 2000 study8,
Dominic Cooper proposed that safety culture
is essentially composed of 3 interconnected
aspects:

1. A psychological aspect that

encompasses the attitudes, beliefs,
perceptions and values held across the
organization. This is often referred to as
safety climate, specifically “how we feel
Behavioral Aspect Situational Aspect
about safety.” This aspect is normally
measured via questionnaires and
interviews.
2. A behavioral aspect that concerns the
specific actions and behaviors exhibited
by employees in an organization to
advance safety. It is generally described
as “what we do for safety”. Organizations

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 must consider what specific behaviors
they believe all employees must
demonstrate in order to improve safety
culture. Once defined, these behaviors
should be measured and communicated
daily, and leaders must not only advocate
for these behaviors, but model them to
the workforce.
3. A situational aspect that describes
the structure and resources of the
organization’s safety system reflected in
its policies, procedures, workflows and
controls. It is commonly defined as “what
we have to realize safety.” This aspect
is most often measured via audits, and
indicators derived from audits (i.e. % of
actions closed).
Companies are immersed in data, but how
they use that data to make better decisions
that lead to better cultures and fewer injuries
and illnesses is key. EHS software affords
businesses the opportunity to dive further
into their “big data”, to identify key trends and
insights that will enable them to determine
what’s working, and where further effort
is required. As data analytics and insights
improve, we will build greater capabilities
to predict where the next failure will occur,
enabling us to respond before such failure
results in loss. This is where culture leads to
zero harm.

Any organization looking to measure their

safety culture accurately should consider
all three aspects. These aspects can be
measured individually or compiled to
provide a single metric that could be used
to evaluate the impact of safety culture
improvement on other key indicators. This is
where technology provides a huge benefit.

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Chapter 5

Safety Culture
Improvement
Requires Actions,
Not Just Words
In his bestselling book “What You Do Is Who
You Are”, author Ben Horowitz makes the
following revelation: “Your culture is how
your company makes decisions when you’re
not there. It’s the setup of assumptions your
employees use to resolve the problems they
face every day. It’s how they behave when
no one is looking. If you don’t methodically
set your culture, then two-thirds of it will end
up being accidents, and the rest will be a
mistake.”9
Understanding and communicating the
importance of safety culture is a good first
step toward protecting people sustainably.
Businesses, however, need to ensure that
their words are matched with tangible
actions to ensure safety culture is not simply
an interesting buzzword or unintentional
consequence, but rather becomes a guiding
philosophy across the entire organization.
© CORITY SOFTWARE INC.
1 Fabius. R. 2013. “The link between workforce health &
safety and health of the bottom line: tracking market per-
formance of companies that nurture a culture of health”. J.
Occup. Environ. Med. 55(9): 993-1000.
2 International Social Security Association (ISSA). 2011.
“The return on prevention: Calculating the costs and
bene- fits of investment in occupational health & safety in
companies”. Geneva. 8 pp.
3 Liberty Mutual Insurance. Chief financial
officer survey. 2005. Accessed from: http://
www.libertymutualgroup.com/ omapps/
ContentServer?cid=1138358195557&pagename=L
MGroup/Views/lmgView98&kw=false&c=cms_asset
4 Sharman, A. 2016. From Accidents to Zero: A Practical
Guide to Improving Your Workplace Safety Culture. Lon-
don. 230 pp.
5 Cobb, K. 2016. “Safety from the Shadows”. Accessed from:
https://safestart.app.box.com/v/Safety-in-Shadows
6 Boeldt, M. 2017. “How engaged workers are safe
employees”. Accessed from: https://www.ehstoday.com/
safety/ article/21919203/how-engaged-workers-are-safe-
employees
7 Galloway, S. 2009. Measuring Safety Culture: Why
Perception Surveys are Not Enough. EHS Today. Accessed
from: https://www.ehstoday.com/safety/article/21915488/
measuring-safety-culture-why-perception-surveys-are- not-
enough
8 Cooper, M.D. 2000. Toward a model of safety culture.
Safety Science. 36(2000): 111-136.
9 Horowitz. B. 2019. What You Do Is Who You Are: How to
create your business culture. HarperCollins: New York. 288
pp.
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