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Safety Culture: some pitfalls a promise Geoff C Simpson May 2010

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Safety Culture: some pitfalls a promise Geoff C Simpson May 2010

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    1. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson May 2010

    2. Safety Culture: Some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson Pitfall 1 The Definition

    3. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson That assembly of characteristics and attitudes in organisations and individuals which establish that, as an overriding priority, nuclear plant safety issues receive the attention warranted by their significance. International Atomic Energy Agency (Nuclear Safety Advisory Group 1998)

    4. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson At the opposite extreme of conciseness: Its the way we do things around here. CBI(1990)

    5. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson The safety culture of an organisation is the product of the individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organisation’s health and safety management. Organisations with a positive safety culture are characterised by communications based on mutual trust, by shared perceptions of the importance of safety and by confidence in the efficacy of preventative measures. HSC Advisory Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (Human Factors Study Group 1993)

    6. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson To overcome the difficulty of wording a comprehensive and concise definition some authors have favoured operational definitions – defining the attributes which make up a safety culture For example, Mulder (1998) lists 14 attributes which are vital in creating a positive safety culture.

    7. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson Genuine and visible commitment and leadership from the top Sound codes of practice and health and safety standards Health and safety should be awarded adequate resources Health and safety must be a line management responsibility Employee ownership, involvement, training and communication All incidents or deviations, irrespective of whether injury or damage occurred must be thoroughly investigated, documented and disseminated Factors that influence the behaviour of managers, supervisors and employees must be properly managed

    8. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson The second of which is: Don’t set too many goals

    9. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson A second element in the process of trying to pin down what exactly safety culture is that there is a tendency among some authors to use Safety Culture and Safety Climate inter-changeable. This is not the case – Safety Climate is the transitory reflection of the underlining culture.

    10. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson Pitfall 2 Measurement

    11. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson To the best of my knowledge no-one has yet devised a means of measuring safety culture. Various methods have been developed to measure safety climate but not safety culture. Even these measures are transitory – they are, at best, snap-shots of the prevailing culture at a Very specific point in time.

    12. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson Even those measures of safety climate which have become accepted (e.g. The HSE’s Safety Climate Tool) are only inferential and are based largely on the measurement of attitudes to a generic question set. Moreover, unlike their counterpart attitude measurement techniques in general psychology, few, if any of the safety climate tools have been systematically validated.

    13. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson Pitfall 3 There can be a range of Safety Cultures in the same organisation

    14. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson It has been shown on numerous occasions that different safety cultures can exist in parallel within the same organisation. This is particularly likely where: It is a multi-site operation Where there are a significant number of TUPE’d staff Where there is a heavy use of contractors

    15. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson A particularly significant factor in such circumstances is where there is lack of clarity in terms of health and safety Roles, responsibilities, authorities and accountabilities between aspects of the operation must be unequivocally clear

    16. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson Pitfall 4 Safety Culture is notoriously fickle

    17. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson Safety culture is like trust: It can take years to develop a positive safety culture but only milliseconds to destroy it.

    18. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson Pitfall 5 Why just Safety Culture?

    19. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson So, looking only at these five pitfalls we can conclude: It is considerably difficult to define safety culture in a way which is meaningful, simple and concise. We can only measure safety culture by inference and even then we are forced to use generic techniques which have not been seriously validated. There can be multiple layers of safety culture within a single organisation/operation. Safety culture is highly transitory and fickle.

    20. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson In light of these problems it is arguable that safety culture has become a bit of a smoke screen. It’s appeal has outstripped its usefulness

    21. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson The Promise

    22. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson If you stop worry about improving safety culture and concentrate on dealing with specific issues in a systematic and inclusive way ... You will improve health and safety directly, albeit perhaps in a small step at a time AND As a result safety culture will improve and will continue to improve as long as the day-to-day improvements continue.

    23. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson The Conclusion

    24. Safety Culture: some pitfalls & a promise Geoff C Simpson As a concept Safety Culture is both interesting and Important HOWEVER As a route to improving safety its rather like pursuing the Holy Grail Laudable, even heroic, but, highly unlikely to achieve anything

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