Running head: SAFETY CULTURE AND ACCIDENTS REDUCTION 1

Safety Culture and Accidents Reduction

Student’s Name
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SAFETY CULTURE AND ACCIDENTS REDUCTION 2

Safety Culture and Accidents Reduction

Accidents at the workplace continue to increase, resulting in high rates of fatal injuries,
lengthy hospitalization, work absenteeism, permanent disability and early retirement. There is a
high chance that an employee will have one or more accidents in course of performing their
duties during the employment. Therefore, there is a need for a different evidence-based approach
that identifies the most appropriate intervention to prevent accidents at work. Improvements in
the safety culture of organizations have the potential to impart a positive effect on occupational
safety and awareness and in turn, reduce accidents. Safety culture refers to shared valued and
perceptions that intermingle with the organizational structures and its control systems to trigger
behavioral norm (Antonsen, 2017). An enhanced safety culture enables every employee,
regardless of the rank, accept and take an active role in preventing errors that may lead to
accidents where the organization supports it. Safety culture provides a set of guidelines to shape
the belief of the employees toward the importance of workplace safety, where each member
shares this understanding, and they will willingly uphold and abide by the safety norms and
support other members to uphold them as well. An improvement in the safety culture of an
organization improves the overall organizational safety and leads to a reduction of accidents.

Discussion

Safety culture gained national prominence after a series of major disasters in the 1990s
(cite). A safety culture creates a set of beliefs, attitudes, and establishes technical practices that
seek to minimize the exposure of members of the organization and the general public to
dangerous or injurious conditions. A good safety culture starts from committed senior
management who considers safety as paramount and hence establishes effective practices for
dealing with hazards and promote seamless organizational learning on the significance of safety
across all employees (McKinnon, 2013). There is also a need for managing the interaction
between technology systems and people properly to achieve effective safety in the work
environment. Accidents at work normally occur due to unsafe behavior and interactions between
the people, elements of an organization, and the technological systems. Thus, safety culture
recognizes that the perceptions, attitudes, and the behavior of the workers are critical in the
adoption of safe behavior at work that reduces accidents. For an organization to promote safety
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culture across all employees and hence promote safety performance, the organization must
establish a reciprocal correlation of safety management and behavior (Ali, et al., 2009). The
reciprocal relationship should depict the interrelationship that exists between the employees,
jobs, and the firm to prove the existence of a positive safety culture. In this view, improved
safety culture is critical in guaranteeing that the employees and the firm uphold the highest
standards of safety at the workplace to minimize injuries.

A strong safety culture is impacted by four levels of influence that include external
influences, organizational influences, workplace environment, and individual influences. The
influences interact to give an organization a strong safety culture or a weak safety culture. An
organization attains a strong safety culture when the values adopted by the management align
with safety behavior of employees. On the other hand, an organization gets a weak safety culture
in the event where the values of the management do not match with the behavior of employees.
Therefore, the management plays a critical role in developing and instilling a strong safety
culture in an organization by adopting varied values and practices that enhance employees’
adoption of safety culture and reduce the occurrence of injuries.

Safety Culture Concept

Safety culture is critical in enhancing the overall safety outlook of an organization but its
theoretical framework is quite underdeveloped and further, there is no research that links it to
organizational culture. Due to lack of an in-depth literature, there is no standardized model of
safety culture and there is no generally agreed consensus on how to describe an organization’s
safety culture. These ambiguities make the concept of safety culture appear vague and cannot be
transformed into change efforts. To remedy the missing literature of safety culture, it is necessary
to integrate safety culture to the overall organizational culture or the aspect of organizational
culture that mold the behaviors and attitudes of the employees, and have an effect on the safety
levels of the organization.

Organizational culture is the pattern of shared common assumptions acquired by a group

through a learning process as they solved the issues of external adaptation while pursuing
internal integration. The common assumptions shared by the group are not observable since they
are unconscious, but they play a key role in influencing decisions, actions and influence behavior
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(Nielsen, 2014). Organizational culture can be molded to serve the intended purpose provided
the circumstances are right and the management put in the right initiatives. However, it is not
easy to change an organizational culture since it acts a stabilizing force that reduces anxiety as it
direct the group on how to react or think in new situations. Therefore, changing a culture invokes
anxiety and it is only takes place when there is adequate motivation to change it.

Using Safety Climate to Improve Safety Culture

It is important to change the existing safety culture in order to make better and improve
it to reduce accidents at the workplace. Safety culture traces its origin from organizational safety
climate that refers to fundamental processes and actions of an organization. Safety climate is
used as a pointer of how employees perceive the safety culture of an organization. On the hand,
the concept of safety culture is blurred while the basic assumptions held by the employees to
make organizational culture are unconscious and may be able to change culture significantly.
Therefore, to effect changes on safety culture, the organization should use safety climate.
Climate refers to the perception shared by the employees about the organization’s policies and
practices. Organizational climate offers a glimpse of the integrated cultural levels of an
organization and reflects the attempts that the management has made to modify culture.

Employees form a safety climate perception by assessing the relative safety priority and
how the management practices stipulate the efficiency goals. From this point of view,
management safety practices acts as the main link between organizational safety climate and the
organizational culture. Management safety practices are shaped by the basic assumptions held by
the management (culture) and the practices act as the guiding principle that determines the
actions of the employees, and this shapes how the employees perceive such practices (climate)
(Nielsen, 2014). The general patterns of management practices that exist for a long time form the
climate and to an extent, form a part of the organizational culture. Therefore, if the management
creates a sustained change in its practices, it can gradually change the organizational safety
climate and the organizational culture, which can reduce accidents.

The approach shows that the management plays an important role in influencing
organizational climate and culture change. The finding proves that management commitment to
organizational safety culture is an important aspect that promotes the safety performance of an
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organization (Leonard & Frankel, 2012). However, making an organizational or a cultural

change is a complex process that does not prescribe to top-down process. Due to the complex
nature of the change process, it is important to evaluate change process from the perspective of
complex theories. Complex adaptive theory perceives that organizational change emanates from
interactions between all elements of an organization where the control of the resulting changes
do not lie in the hands of a single individual such as the leader, but lies in the organization as a
whole. It views change as an uncontrollable and unpredictable phenomenon and this nature of
change requires self-organization to take center stage during the process of change (Nielsen,
2014). Self-organization refers to the unpredictable order that results from multiple interactions
between uncontrolled and distinct agents. It is evident that the management does not have a full
control of initiating and implementing a change process and they cannot predict the outcomes
that will occur after the change process. Therefore, although the management plays a crucial role
in influencing organizational change, change is not a top-down process but instead, it emanates
from the interactions between all elements of the organization. However, management does
impact the change process by modifying their management practices and encouraging or
restricting interactions between various elements of the organization. Therefore, it is possible to
change the organizational culture by changing the pattern of how different elements of an
organization interact to reduce accidents at the workplace.

Safety Culture Elements

There is a no agreed consensus on the definition of safety, and therefore, safety culture
elements tend to differ from study to study, and they also depend on the prevailing
circumstances. However, key elements and indicators of safety culture include a strategic
leadership that demonstrates strong commitment to safety values (Taylor, 2012). The
management constantly sends messages indicating that the firm is committed to safety and
accidents are preventable and avoidable. In such organization, the management sets a high
standard of safety performance and commits to attain those standards. The managers incorporate
safety in business decisions and promote safety culture by placing adequate support systems to
ensure that the organization meets its safety objectives.
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Further, the organization continuously invests in safety training to sustain safety

performance and improve situational awareness (Thomas & Galla, 2013). The programs continue
even after the achievement of an excellent safety record, where there is a continuous monitoring
and learning for all employees to sustain the safety performance. Safety training is further
backed-up by a long-term strategy that guarantees funding on a long-time basis to ensure that the
organization establishes a strong safety consciousness and culture.

Management vision, safety structure, and risk management is sustainable to ensure that it
is easier to control risks and improve the chances of continuous improvement of safety
performance. The leadership structure has plans that prioritize the chances and consequences of
adverse situations and allocate adequate resources to cover such events (McKinnon, 2013). In
addition, the framework includes the input of all employees and offers a proper guidance on risk
identification, assessment, and the necessary mitigating measures that are important in promoting
safety culture. Another indicator of the safety culture element is clearly defined roles and
responsibilities of each individual within the framework and integration of continuous
improvement programs in all work processes. The long-term safety and risk management
strategy should have adequate allocation.

The organization continually learns from internal and external adverse or positive
situations and lessons integrated in the safety and risk management plan to enhance safety
performance of the organization. Thus, the organization gathers relevant information that
enhances risk management and uses the information to improve its safety standards. In this
regards, various incidents are thoroughly investigated to establish their root causes, and the
corrective actions taken are defined and included in the safety improvement strategy. The
company also emphasizes on sharing the lessons learned from previous and new incidences to
minimize complacency about the chances of risk exposure and reinforce the importance of
situational awareness. Further, organizations benchmark their safety standards against other
organizations with excellent safety culture and apply the lessons learned from such organizations
in their workplace to improve the safety culture further.

The organization promotes a culture of trust and openness that involves the employees
and ensures that safety is well understood and adopted as a shared responsibility. Employees
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trust that the management will lead by example and walk the talk regarding safety issues. In such
an environment, employees are confident in their safety system and can raise their safety
concerns without any fear of consequences, and they are empowered to identify and manage
organizational risks successfully. Communication is important in enhancing safety, and
therefore, there are adequate communication channels that facilitate up-down and horizontal
communication (McKinnon, 2013). In addition, the culture promotes rapid and timely
communication concerning any safety or emerging risk concern to ensure that preventive
measures are put in place immediately. On its part, the management offers a quick response to
safety and risk communication to address the issues raised and encourage and rewards the
employees who identify, assess, and communicate safety and risky events.

An organization that incorporates the identified safety culture elements registers a

decreased number of accidents. The elements act as broad guidance on the necessary safety
measures that an organization can integrate into the system while the indicators act as a pointer
of the success of the measures that are in place. Management plays a crucial role in enhancing
the safety culture of the organization since committed management motivates and guides the
employees in adopting the implemented measures and shapes their attitudes and perceptions
towards these measures. In addition, the elements improve the existing safety culture, leading to
an overall decrease in injury events.

Features of Safety Culture

A good safety culture comprises of several features that enhance the safety performance
of an organization. The adoption of safety culture is promoted by a management that is
committed to safety objectives of the organization, flexible practices that facilitate the handling
of hazards, continuous learning, and enhanced awareness about potential safety concerns in the
workplace (Stewart & Stewart, 2012). An organization’s safety culture is depicted in the manner
that the organization handles safety and safety concerns in the workplace. Safety culture has
several characteristics that include:

Effective Communication
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It is a major milestone in improving safety culture, and therefore, it includes top-down

and horizontal interactions. The management sets the objectives of the safety program and
communicates these objectives to every employee to create awareness and ensure that every
member is aware of their responsibilities toward the achievement of the objectives. Effective
communication also includes proper feedback channels and quick responses to encourage
employees raise safety concerns.

Commitment

Excellent safety culture reflects a commitment from the management and the employees
toward the attainment of safety objectives of the organization. Lack of commitment scuttles
safety program and is demonstrated by laxity or failure to take the necessary actions to avert, or
in the event of a crisis. Non-committed management also encourages the staff to ignore safety
program while a committed management encourages and motivates the employees to uphold the
safety values.

Cooperation

Safety management produces the desired results when the management and the
employees work together to create a safety program. In a cooperative environment, workers
strive to attain the set safety values and also provide useful feedback necessary for making
improvements in the program.

Continuous Training

A good safety culture incorporates constant training to ensure that employees understand
the safety processes and update them on the emerging issues pertaining to safety. Such training is
integrated into the strategic safety plan and allocated adequate resources to ensure its success. In
addition, employees are required to undertake formal training frequently to ensure that they are
prepared to achieve and maintain the required safety standards that can reduce accidents in the
workplace. An organization should ensure that its safety culture reflects these characteristics as
they are fundamental in improving the safety culture, which leads to a decrease in the rate of
fatal injuries and accidents.
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Features of poor safety culture

According to Ali et al (2009) health culture is all what an organization anticipates,

however some organization only portray poor culture which is very unhealthy. Feature of poor
culture in an organization include:

Poor incident/ accident reporting, investigation or analysis-When an organization starts

having cases that were not reported or investigated, it is a sure way that the organization is no
longer fit for the employees. This is because employees are not empowered and protected.

Management passing blames to individuals for accidents; for an organization with poor
safety cultures, blame game becomes the order of the day. The management would blame its
workers for accidents and make the accidents and injuries part of their work. This is uncouth as
the management should provide safety measures against accidents and take responsibility in case
they happen.

Poor communication of safety issues within the workforce- The organization

managements should be interested in letting each and every member of the organization be aware
of safety issues within the organization. Additionally, the management should encourage its
employees to speak up incase of accidents or injuries as required. However, if this doesn’t take
place, then it is a clear indication that the organization has poor safety culture.

Feedback loop is not closed after an incident: This happens when the first priority of an
accident is on punishing the employee rather than closing loopholes for future accidents.
Majoring on disciplining the employee first is uncouth as it makes work environment for the
employee and other employee unconducive. Poor safety culture should not be tolerated at all as it
is a major cause for many employees leaving their work, or falling into depression while working
for their organizations.

Healthy and Unhealthy Safety Culture

Safety culture is paramount in addressing safety challenges of an organization. However,

unhealthy safety culture is detrimental to the safety efforts of the company and hinders the
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achievement of safety program objectives. Unhealthy safety culture disregards safety processes
and procedures that improve the safety of the workplace (Nielsen, 2014). Further employees fail
to comply with safety policies and systems implemented to increase the safety and health outlook
of the organization. Unhealthy safety management on the part of the management is depicted by
putting the production costs ahead of safety priorities. It is difficult to identify unhealthy safety
practices since employees tend to hide unsafe practices and do not notify the management in the
event where they break the rules and regulations.

On the other hand, health safety culture is depicted by strong and positive cooperation
and commitment at all levels of the organization. Every person is aware of their responsibilities
towards the attainment of safety objectives and demonstrates high awareness of safety and risks
that may occur at the workplace. The goals are well defined, and the management prioritizes
safety concerns over the cost of production. Further, the organization continuously invests in
training and other measures to improve and sustain a safe working environment, and there are
good communication channels to air concerns and get a response. In such an organization, all
elements interact well with the objective of attaining safety objectives. Healthy safety culture
improves the overall safety performance of the organization and leads to a decline in the number
of accidents. It is the prerogative of the management to establish and maintain a healthy safety
culture.

How Safety Culture Relates to Safety Performance

The safety performance of an organization depends on how the organization uses its
limited resources to attain the goals of organizational safety. Safety performance reflects how
various safety measures have interacted under organizational operation to work towards the
attainment of safety goals (He, Xu & Fu, 2012). Safety culture has a direct impact on the safety
performance of an organization where this relationship can be expressed in both qualitative and
quantitative manner, as reflected in theoretical and empirical studies.

Qualitative research reveals that a good safety culture greatly improves the safety
performance of an organization and reduces the number of accidents that occur in the workplace
environment. Improved safety culture improves the safety performance of an organization
showing that safety culture has a positive correlation to performance (Kalteh, et al., 2019).
SAFETY CULTURE AND ACCIDENTS REDUCTION 11

Independent findings have also established quantitative findings that show a relationship
between safety culture and safety performance. A survey conducted in a North American pulp
firm revealed that improvements in the elements of a safety culture improved the safety culture
of the firm and this led to a reduction in the number of registered accidents in the 5th and in the
7th year (He, Xu & Fu, 2012). Data also shows that there exists a linear relationship between the
scores of safety performance and the scores of safety culture in an organization. In an
organization with a high safety culture score, there were fewer accidents and a high safety
performance outcome. Therefore, improved safety culture and sound management practices
reduce the number of accidents in the workplace.

Conclusion

Safety culture is an integral aspect of maintaining safety at the workplace and the
attainment of safety goals of an organization. Improved safety culture leads to improved safety
performance, and this reduces the number of accidents registered at the workplace. Healthy
safety culture molds the employees’ perception of risks and guides them about the necessary
mitigating measures that are necessary to prevent accidents by reporting and taking
precautionary measures. Thus, organizations should strive to instill a safety culture among the
employees to enhance the achievement of safety program goals. The management plays a critical
role in developing and promoting the adoption of safety culture by the employees. Further, they
motivate the employees to uphold safety practices by demonstrating that they also believe in a
good safety culture. Involvement of the employees in the safety culture is important to ensure
that they are a part of the whole strategy. Everyone has a role to play in realizing the safety
objectives of the company and safety should be integrated into the organizational culture where it
is viewed as a collective responsibility of every member of the organization. Excellent
communication improves safety awareness and encourages response and feedback to improve
safety plan. Further, organizations should invest in employee training where they frequently
attend formal sessions to make them aware of emerging safety strategies and enhance situational
awareness. Organizations should also ensure that their safety culture has all elements of a good
safety culture to improve the safety and minimize risks in the workplace. Safety culture has a
positive correlation with safety performance and hence, improved safety culture improves the
safety performance of an organization, and this reduces the numbers of accidents. Therefore,
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organizations should work toward improving their safety culture to reduce accidents at the
workplace.
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