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Posted By Dominic Cooper
As some of you may know I am interested in the topic of safety culture and its measurement. I have put forward various ideas for measuring safety culture, but have failed to ask busy safety practitioners how they actually measure their company's safety cultures. I would appreciate the membership sharing real life examples with me. Thanks.
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Posted By Robert K Lewis
Dominic
What specific area are you researching/developing at the moment so that we can target/filter any information given?
Bob
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Posted By Dominic Cooper
I have been working on the interactions between safety management systems (measured by audits), safety climate surveys (e.g. HSE's safety climate tool) and Behavioral safety scores (at different hierarchical levels). This has been placed within the framework of James Reason's 'Pathogen' or 'Swiss Cheese' model and HSG 65 (i.e. at each of the different level to give a view of the organisation as a whole).
However, I am wondering what others, particularly practitioners, actually measure to provide them with a sense of their prevailing safety culture. In other words how does the practitioner know that he or she is working in a company with a good, poor, or indifferent safety culture.
I know some say that the safety climate scores give them a view of their safety culture, but I think that is only one-third of the story. My research data seems to support my views (it would wouldn't it!), but the theories can be tested over a period of time by others to see if they are universally applicable.
Some say that their SMS audit scores reflect their safety culture, while others say that their behavioural safety scores better reflect their safety culture. James Reason talks about various cultures (e.g. flexible, Just, etc) that make up a 'learning culture' (equivalent to a safety culture). How many people are using James Model and what impact has it had on safety is but one question in this area.
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Posted By david baird
Dominic,
I looked at the interaction between a safety management system and safety culture over an extended period in manufacturing, while employed as HSE advisor for the company, (part of a multi -national group).
In essence we introduced, at that time, a system to BS 8800 standard which two - three years later we converted to OHSAS 18001,(fairly routinely I might add). The result was that absolutely nothing happened in terms of HS performance. We concluded by measuring safety culture before and after, using various techniques that safety culture had in effect suffocated any gains to be made from implementing a safety management system. I think this is a fundamental point in that it would appear an organisation can have a "benchmark" safety management system but still be very poor when it comes to actual HS performance.
I realise this may not be in tune with the accepted wisdom of introducing a safety management system equals improved HS performance. But I think (as a personal opinion) that this whole area is an area of some weakness for the profession, ie. what actually is the bottom line regarding safety management systems and interaction with safety culture. I think that there are many safety professionals working to achieve 18001 certification, or building structures according to HSG 65 or BS 8800 that are going to be disappointed with the lack of positive results.
If you wish I can give you more details of the study.
Best Regards
David
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Posted By Raymond Rapp
It is an interesting and hot topic at the moment, as is measuring anything that moves (or percieves to move) in the world of h&s.
I shall be starting my dissertation soon based on the safety culture in my organisation. It is not feasible to measure the 'climate' as I do not have the time and resources, however I shall be conducting a survey to examine some of the 'softer'issues.
For me, a safety climate (culture) is about people and their attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions and how these interact with cultural factors such as trust, blame, fairness, double-standards and even disciplinary measures.
Other factors such as procedures, compliance, communication etc are the 'hardware' and arguably easier to measure, but not necessarily what you should measure (Cox & Flin, 1998).
Should anyone wish to exchange ideas, theories, methods etc please feel free to contact me by email.
Regards
Ray
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Posted By Robert K Lewis
Dominic
Thanks for a helpful response. I am afraid that hard measurements of culture are not something I particularly take on board as an absolute help. Cultural measurement for me is often more of a soft measure. One can assess response and enthusiasm in a soft way but it is highly subjective and I am not sure we can achieve a fully intersubjective view.
I still work within the models proposed by Freire for education and cultural change. You no doubt are familiar with the Dupont models of Dependant - Independant and Interdependant safety cultures, which are closely allied I believe to the Illiterate - Banking and Concientised cultures of Freire. Dupont take the reduction of minor accidents and high Near Miss reporting as indicators of achieving this and to an extent I work the same way. However I take a whole series of measures including Management System audits, Site tidiness scores and Supervisory routine inspections as part of my overall assessment. These do tie in to some extent I believe with the general thrust of Reason but i need to re-examine that before I make further comment.
Bob
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