Developing a positive safety culture

Fostering a positive safety culture offers numerous benefits for businesses that utilise heavy vehicles in their operations.

What is safety culture?

Safety culture is an element of an overall organisational culture. Safety culture can be described as the collective beliefs, perceptions, and values that a business and its workers share regarding safety. Safety culture is evident in patterns of behaviour and work practices within a business as well as leadership, individual, and group attitudes towards safety.

Safety culture is not about compliance to legislation or policies and procedures. Instead, it is about the business, leadership, and worker commitment to positive safety practices and effective safety risk management.

In simple terms a business with a positive safety culture has their primary focus on conducting business safely understanding that safety will also lead to compliance, productivity and profitability.

Components of a positive safety culture

A positive safety culture is where ownership for safety is evident and front of mind throughout all levels of the business from the executive to administrative and office staff, to mechanics and workshop workers, to heavy vehicle drivers. A positive safety culture underpins business values and beliefs and impacts how health and safety systems are designed and how policies and procedures are implemented, determining how work activities are performed on a day-to-day basis. It promotes individuals taking ownership of their own, and others’ safety.

Below are some of the key components of a positive safety culture. Each component is equally important and must work harmoniously to deliver a safer working environment.

Leadership and commitment

Safety being central to a business’s vision starts with executive leadership and senior management. To promote a positive safety culture and give workers confidence in the safety standards being set leadership needs to prioritise safety discussions with workers, consistently engage in safe behaviours, remain transparent, and invest in resources, training, and equipment that enhance safety within a business.

Leaders should be actively involved in the planning and implementation of safety strategies, understand the purpose of any changes or training and communicate changes to those affected.

Communication and engagement

Communication and engagement are key components to promoting and achieving a positive safety culture. For communication to be effective there must be a business wide commitment to encouraging workers at all levels to speak freely and share information without fear of repercussion. Communication should be more than formal policies and procedures and other written communication. It should include toolbox talks and adhoc discussions where workers are encouraged to share their thoughts and ideas.

Ensure that workers at all levels, contractors, customers, and clients are included in the communication where applicable.

Note: It is important to consider the diversity of the group you are communicating with. Consider what forms of communication are more effective for people of different genders, cultural backgrounds, religions, languages, people living with disabilities and literacy levels.

Training and development

Training and development of workers leads to better safety outcomes. At a minimum, all new workers must be inducted into the workplace and undergo training specific to the task they perform. However, ongoing training and mentoring are essential to ensuring safety and promoting greater productivity and efficiency. Executives and leaders should invest in the resources to mentor, develop, and upskill workers.

More information on the benefits of training can be found in Regulatory Advice - Managing the risks of undertrained workers.

Safety risk management

A commitment to effective safety risk management is a key part in the development of a positive safety culture. Understanding the hazards and potential risks arising from your business activities is essential for establishing a safety risk management framework that eliminates or minimises risks to an acceptable level.

When developing and implementing safety risk management strategies businesses should demonstrate a commitment to safety through systems and procedures that aim to minimise exposure to harm. Leadership should set clear and consistent expectations for managing safety risks and model expected standards to encourage participation and influence worker behaviour.

More information can be found in Safety Management Systems.

Reporting

Having effective reporting strategies in place creates a culture that provides for continual improvement of safety performance. Effective reporting is built through having clear and transparent reporting policy and process and encouraging workers to report any identified hazards, risks, incidents or near misses. Executives and leaders should communicate the outcomes and resolutions to those involved in, or affected by, an incident and share learnings with workers and stakeholders to encourage and improve positive safety behaviours.

Stakeholder relationships

Developing and maintaining meaningful stakeholder relationships will have a positive impact on business operations, reputation, and opportunities. Stakeholder relationships can be established and strengthened by knowing who your stakeholders are and understanding how those stakeholders can impact the safety of your operations.

Businesses should collaborate with external stakeholders to prevent and/or resolve identified safety concerns in line with organisational values and contractual processes. Collaboration with external stakeholders should include setting expectations for safety, ensuring that each party has a clear understanding of the businesses' commitment to and safety and maintaining open communication about safety behaviours, particularly with stakeholders you share an ongoing business relationship with.

Benefits of a positive safety culture

Worker benefits

• A positive and safe workplace environment.
• Workers knowing their safety is prioritised and their input is valued.
• Prevention of injuries and effective management of health or well-being issues that may impact a worker’s ability to perform their duties.
• Improved job satisfaction.
• Improved overall worker physical and mental well-being.
• Workers taking ownership for their behaviour, being more focused, efficient and productive and having a greater sense of pride in how they conduct themselves day-to-day.

Organisational benefits

• Reduced costs associated with worker injuries, illnesses, and lost time/productivity.
• Increased productivity through minimising the frequency of incidents and the severity of the consequences.
• Prioritising safety will likely lead to better compliance. This means penalties associated with non-compliance will be reduced.
• Improved safety performance will enhance a business's reputation of being safe and reliable which can lead to greater business opportunities.
• Improved staff retention optimising operational capability and reducing recruitment and onboarding cost.

Assessing your safety culture

Understanding the culture of your business is key to promoting and maintaining a positive safety culture. Effective self-assessment involves a reflective look into all levels of the business and its activities.

Conducting an assessment raises awareness of the safety culture within the business. It will identify strengths, weaknesses and opportunities, encourage continuous improvement, and foster greater commitment to safety.

Assessing your safety culture may include the use of formal and informal tools such as conversations with workers and stakeholders, observing the dynamics of worker interactions, conducting surveys, formal audits, monitoring incident/non-compliance reports, reviewing stakeholder feedback and investigating complaints.

Results should be used to encourage ownership and develop a commitment to safety and should be communicated across the organisation and with other relevant stakeholders.