Safety Culture

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Objectives:

 Examine the current culture in our workplace

in regards to the management of safety and
health.

 Examine key elements vital to strengthening a

sustainable safety culture.

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 What is a safety culture?
Safety Culture – the product of individual and group values,
attitudes, competencies, and patterns of behavior that
determines the commitment to an organization’s health and
safety programs.

Safety Culture determines how individuals in your

organization commit to:
 Personal responsibility for safety
 Foster trust in one another
 Enhance and communicate safety concerns
 Adapt and modify behavior based on lessons learned from
mistakes 3
Building a strong safety culture is not a top-down
strategy. It involves every level of the
organization. It means being committed to safety
regardless of other concerns in your business.

Nothing is more
important than Safety,
Nothing!
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 Where do we fit in?
 Production First Safety Culture – Get the product out the door as fast as you
can. It doesn’t matter how safe people are, or how many injuries they have.
The almighty dollar rules this mentality.
 High injury rates
 Low worker morale
 High worker Turnover
 Rarely compliant
 “It’s not MY job!” Mentality
 Companies with top notch safety cultures have:
 Low Injury and Illness Rates
 High worker morale
 Low worker turnover
 “That’s how we used to do it” mentality
 Always looking to improve their safety
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Keys for Success

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Safety as a Core Value, and not a priority

One of the best places to start is setting Safety as one of your

Core Values. Core values are what you live and breathe every
day. These are the beliefs that define who you are and how
you react during certain situations.

 Do you make two trips with the overhead crane when

moving material, or do you overload your crane just to “save
time?”

 Do you stop at the red light at 3am, even though you do not
see any other cars on the road?

Priorities Change. Typically, priorities are something

that need to go on a “To-Do” list.
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Core Values need to go on a banner!
 Management Commitment

Managers and supervisors set the tone for your safety culture. The
leadership team MUST “talk the talk” AND “walk the walk.”

The leadership team allocates resources – people, time, and

invests money in their teammates, demonstrating their
commitment to safety. Leaders know that safety adds value to the
company.

Establish and enforce high standards for performance. As a leader

in your company, you get the behavior that you accept. If you
accept shortcuts and bend safety rules to meet production
deadlines, you are setting your team up for failure.

The fastest way to destroy a safety culture’s credibility is through

a leadership team’s disregard for the safety rules.
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 Empowerment

Empower individuals to successfully fulfill their safety

responsibilities to themselves, their family, and their
coworkers.

 Everyone holds themselves and each other accountable for

safety!

 Give your teammates the authority to stop unsafe behavior

without fear of negative repercussions.

 Encourage your people to correct unsafe conditions as soon

as possible. There is no better time to fix something than
as soon as it is identified.

 Provide multiple options for your team to report unsafe

conditions and/or behaviors – Safety Teams, Anonymous
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Suggestion Boxes, Open Door Policies, behavior based

 Communication

Build TRUST! Do what you say you will do, when you say you
will do it!

Ensure timely and appropriate responses to identified hazards

reported by your teammates. Have an action plan in place to
address and remove the hazards.

Reinforce current safety practices through ongoing teammate

coaching and discipline, where necessary.

Ongoing training demonstrates lessons learned from incidents

and educates new and existing teammates in proper safety
techniques and procedures.

Celebrate the successes along the way!

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 Continuous Improvement –
Are we better than we were yesterday?

 Set Lofty Goals – zero lost time Plan

incidents by 2023
Act
 Benchmark with others who
have achieved more success.

 Continuously review your own Do

policies and procedures,
especially after an incident.
Che
ck
 Re-train your teammates when
deficiencies have been
corrected.
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 Even if you’re on the
right track, you’ll get
run over if you just sit
there.
~Will Rogers
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 Building a Strong Culture
 Safety as a Core Value
• Core Values go on a Banner, not a list!

 Management Commitment
• Lead by example!

 Empower your team

• Give them the authority to correct unsafe
behaviors and conditions.

 Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

 Strive to be better today than you were yesterday!

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What would YOU
do?

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You just checked into your hotel, round the corner to
head towards your room, and you see a guy standing
on a bucket on the top rung of a ladder.

What do you
do?

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 You see the Director of your company walking through
your job site and he is not wearing all of his PPE.

What do you do?

What if it looks like he is in a bad mood? Would you stop

him, knowing he is going to lose his temper and make a
scene?

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 Always Remember This
Slogan
‘There is no expectation to
take a risk in order to
complete your task’

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