Health and safety culture

Health and Safety Culture
By
Ahsanullah Soomro
09/04/15 Engr. Ahsanullah Soomro 1

health and safety culture
• The health and safety culture of an organization may
be described as the development stage of the
organization in health and safety management at a
particular time.
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Safety culture and safety
performance
• The following elements are the important
components of a positive health and safety culture:
– leadership and commitment to health and safety
throughout and at all levels of the organization;
– acceptance that high standards of health and safety are
achievable as part of a long-term strategy formulated by
the organization;
– a detailed assessment of health and safety risks in the
organization and the development of appropriate control
and monitoring systems;
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– relevant employee training programmes and
communication and consultation procedures;
– systems for monitoring equipment, processes and
procedures and the prompt rectification of any defects;
– the prompt investigation of all incidents and accidents and
reports made detailing any necessary remedial actions.
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Safety culture and safety
performance

Important indicators of a health and
safety culture
• There are several outputs or indicators of the health
and safety culture of an organization.
• The most important are the numbers of accidents,
incidents and occupational ill-health cases occurring
within the organization.
• Although the number of accidents may give a general
indication of the health and safety culture, a more
detailed examination of accidents and accident
statistics is normally required
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• The OSHA Recordable Incident Rate (or Incident
Rate) is calculated by multiplying the number of
recordable cases by 200,000, and then dividing that
number by the number of labor hours at the
company.
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safety culture

• a company has 17 full-time employees and 3 part-
time employees This equates to 28,400 labor hours
each year. If the company experienced 2 recordable
injuries, then the formula works like this:
– What is now known is that for every 100 employees, 14.08
employees have been involved in a recordable injury or
illness.
– smaller companies that experience recordable incidents
will most likely have high incident rates
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• an organization with a high accident incidence rate is
likely to have a negative or poor health and safety
culture.
• There are other indications of a poor health and
safety culture or climate. These include:
– a high sickness, ill health and absentee rate among the
workforce;
– the perception of a blame culture;
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safety culture

– no resources (in terms of budget, people or facilities)
made available for the effective management of health
and safety;
– a lack of compliance with relevant health and safety law
and the safety rules and procedures of the organization;
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safety culture

• In summary, a poor health and safety performance
within an organization is an indication of a negative
health and safety culture.
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safety culture

•Factors affecting a
health and safety
culture??????
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Factors affecting a health
and safety culture
commitment to health
and safety
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and safety culture
Performance targets
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and safety culture
feelings of uncertainty
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and safety culture
Poor levels of supervision
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and safety culture
Poor levels health and safety
information
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and safety culture
Poor levels training
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and safety culture
Human factor
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Human errors and violations
• Human failures in health and safety are classified
either as errors or violations.
• An error is an unintentional deviation from an
accepted standard, whereas a violation is a
deliberate deviation from the standard
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• Human errors
• Human errors fall into three groups –
• slips,
• lapses and
• mistakes, which can be further sub-divided into
rulebased and knowledge-based mistakes.
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Slips and lapses
• These are very similar in that they are caused by a
momentary memory loss often due to lack of
attention or loss of concentration.
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Slips
• Slips are failures to carry out the correct actions of a
task.
• Not doing what you’re meant to do
– A slip also describes an action taken too early or too late
within a given working procedure.
– omitting a step or series of steps from a task, eg forgetting
to switch the kettle on while making a cup of tea
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Lapses
• ‘Forgetting to do something, or losing your place
midway through a task.’
• taking your mask off to talk to a colleague and then
forgetting to put it back on
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Mistakes
• Mistakes occur when an incorrect action takes place
but the person involved believes the action to be
correct.
• A mistake involves an incorrect judgment. There are
two types of mistake – rule-based and knowledge-
based.
• Rule-based mistakes occur when a rule or procedure
is remembered or applied incorrectly.
• These mistakes usually happen when the rule that is
normally used no longer applies.
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Mistakes
• For example, a particular job requires the counting of
items into groups of ten followed by the adding
together of the groups so that the total number of
items may be calculated.
• If one of the groups is miscounted, the final total will
be incorrect even though the rule has been followed.
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Mistakes
• Knowledge-based mistakes occur when well-tried
methods or calculation rules are used incorrectly.
• For example, the depth of the foundations required
for a particular building was calculated using a
formula.
• The formula, which assumed a clay soil, was used to
calculate the foundation depth in a sandy soil. The
resultant building was unsafe.
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Mistakes
• Errors and mistakes can be reduced by the use of
instruction, training and relevant information.
• However, communication can also be a problem,
particularly at shift handover times.
• Environmental and organizational factors involving
workplace stress will also affect error levels.
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• The following steps are suggested to reduce the
likelihood of human error:
– Examine and reduce the workplace stressors (e.g. noise,
poor lighting) which increase the frequency of errors.
– Examine and reduce any social or organizational stressors
(e.g. insufficient staffing levels).
– Design plant and equipment to reduce error possibilities –
poorly designed displays, unclear instructions.
– Ensure that there are effective training arrangements.
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– Simplify any complicated or complex procedures.
– Ensure that there is adequate supervision, particularly for
inexperienced or young trainees.
– Check that job procedures, instructions and manuals are
kept up to date and are clear.
– Include the possibility of human error when undertaking
the risk assessment.
– Monitor the effectiveness of any measures taken to
reduce errors.
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Violations
• These are intentional failures – ‘deliberately doing
the wrong thing’.
• The violation of health and safety rules or
procedures is one of the biggest causes of accidents
and injuries at work.
• Workplace rules are broken for many different
reasons:
– ‘I felt I had no choice’ – (intentional due to the situation or
rules).
– ‘I didn’t care about the consequences’ – (intentional
violations).
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Violations
• There are three categories of violation – routine,
situational and exceptional.
• Routine violation occurs when the breaking of a
safety rule or procedure is the normal way of
working.
• It becomes routine not to use the recommended
procedures for tasks.
• An example of this is the regular speeding of fork-lift
trucks in a warehouse so that orders can be fulfilled
on time.
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Violations
• There are many reasons given for routine violations;
• for example:
– taking short cuts to save time and energy;
– a belief that the rules are unworkable;
– lack of knowledge of the procedures;
– perception that the rules are no longer applied;
– poor supervision and a lack of enforcement of the rules;
– new workers thinking that routine violations are the norm
and not realizing that this was not the safe way of working.
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• The following features are very common in many
workplaces and often lead to routine violations:
– poor working posture due to poor ergonomic design of the
workstation or equipment;
– equipment difficult to use and/or slow in response;
– equipment difficult to maintain or pressure on time
available for maintenance;
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– unreliable instrumentation and/or warning
systems;
– high levels of noise and other poor aspects to the
environment (fumes, dusts, humidity);
– associated PPE either inappropriate, difficult and
uncomfortable to wear or ineffective due to lack
of maintenance.
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Situational violations
• Situational violations occur when particular job
pressures at particular times make rule compliance
difficult.
• They may happen when the correct equipment is not
available or weather conditions are adverse.
• A common example is the use of a ladder rather than
a scaffold for working at height to replace window
frames in a building.
• Situational violations may be reduced by improving
job design, the working environment and
supervision.
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• Exceptional violations rarely happen and usually
occur when a safety rule is broken to perform a new
task.
• Good examples of this are the violations which can
occur during the operations of emergency
procedures such as for fires or explosions.
•
• These violations should be addressed in risk
assessments and during training sessions for
emergencies (e.g. fire training).
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• Everybody is capable of making errors.
•
• It is one of the objectives of a positive health and
safety culture to reduce them and their
consequences as much as possible.
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How health and safety
behavior at work can be
improved????
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commitment by the
management,
A visible management is very important for a positive health and
safety culture.
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the promotion of health
and safety standards,
everyone within the organization needs to understand the
standards
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effective communication
within the organization
verbal, written and graphic
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cooperation from and
with the workforce and
It is important to gain the cooperation of all employees which is
achieved by consultation
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an effective and developing
training programme
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Health and safety training
• Health and safety training is a very important part of
the health and safety culture and it is also a legal
requirement
• There are several different types of training; these
include induction, job specific, supervisory and
management, and specialist.
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• Induction training
• Induction training should always be provided to new
employees, trainees and contractors.
• It is useful if the employee signs a record to the
effect that training has been received.
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• Job-specific training
• Job-specific training ensures that employees
undertake their job in a safe manner.
• Details of the safe system of work or, in more
hazardous jobs, a permit to work system, should be
covered.
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• Supervisory and management training
• Supervisory and management health and safety
training follows similar topics to those contained in
an induction training course but will be covered in
more depth.
• There will also be a more detailed treatment of
health and safety law.
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• Specialist training
• Specialist health and safety training is normally
needed for activities that are not related to a specific
job but more to an activity.
• Examples include first-aid, fire prevention, fork-lift
truck driving, overhead crane operation, scaffold
inspection and legal health and safety inspections.
• These training courses are often provided by
specialist organizations and successful participants
are awarded certificates
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Health and safety culture

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