The goal of forming a safety culture is to get better safety results. It could be argued that certain characteristics make a culture more likely to get better results, but the results will come from the culture’s capabilities, not its characteristics.
During World War II, the American military gained a reputation around the world for having a “can do” culture. They tended to quickly identify problems and address them with creativity, tenacity and a lot of teamwork. This culture was seldom described by its characteristics, but it was known for its capabilities and for the results it accomplished.
The quest for safety culture excellence has led some world-class safety organizations to emulate this model. So what are the capabilities that characterize an excellent safety culture and how can these capabilities be cultivated? Below are six capabilities that most commonly have been found among organizations that have an organized approach to safety culture excellence:
Capability 1: The ability to accurately identify problems
In safety, problems are risks. Can the safety culture identify the risks inherent in the workplace and in the work processes?
Risks can involve the physical characteristics of the workplace (conditions), actions of workers to operate the processes (behaviors) or a combination of these factors. A critical skill in safety is “contingency thinking.” For example: If I do this activity in this setting, what risks are present and how could they result in injury?
This type of thinking accomplishes two important objectives: 1) It gets workers thinking upstream from the accident event; and 2) It addresses low-probability risks, which often are more difficult to identify. This capability can be developed in a culture in two ways: Workers receive training in risk identification and compile their findings or the organization completes a professional risk analysis and briefs the workers on the results.
Capability 2: The ability to prioritize
Many safety cultures fail to achieve results simply because they try to do everything at once. A “can do” culture makes progress one step at a time and develops the ability to prioritize the order of these steps. The highest priority is not always the biggest risk or the most frequent accident type. It often is the quick win that will make rapid progress and motivate the improvement effort. It also can be the project that will teach the culture how to solve more complicated problems in the future.
The ability to prioritize is a science with a lot of art interjected throughout. It is factual, but subjective as well. There seldom is an absolute right or wrong decision, but rather several options with advantages and disadvantages. Like many soft skills, it can be taught in formal classroom settings or grown through champions within the culture who have the training or natural abilities.
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