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Enhancing Workplace Safety Culture

Sanjay and Sophia observed unsafe behaviors throughout the factory despite delivering safety training. The CEO did not follow safety protocols and the production supervisor encouraged risky behavior by new employees in order to meet quotas. Workers felt pressure to take risks and work through illness to avoid letting down their teams. Simply posting safety reminders would not be enough to change the culture where leadership prioritized productivity over safety.

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QP0125 Vu Song Ha
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83 views1 page

Enhancing Workplace Safety Culture

Sanjay and Sophia observed unsafe behaviors throughout the factory despite delivering safety training. The CEO did not follow safety protocols and the production supervisor encouraged risky behavior by new employees in order to meet quotas. Workers felt pressure to take risks and work through illness to avoid letting down their teams. Simply posting safety reminders would not be enough to change the culture where leadership prioritized productivity over safety.

Uploaded by

QP0125 Vu Song Ha
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

MINI CASE STUDY

DEVELOPING AND MAINTAINING A SAFETY CULTURE


Sanjay and Sophia looked out over the factory floor in dismay. They both worked in human
resources management, and just a week ago they had delivered some safety training in an attempt
to reduce their higherthanaverage rate of workplace injuries. They had lectured all the employees
about safety for three hours and then given them a written test. Although all employees had passed,
nothing had actually changed. Sanjay and Sophia were chagrined and wondered what else they
needed to do to change the culture.
As they looked out over the factory floor from the secondstorey lunchroom, they began to share
their observations.
“Look,” said Sanjay, “there is the CEO rushing out to talk to someone wearing only his dress shoes
again. I keep telling him he needs safety shoes and safety glasses on the manufacturing floor, but he
just keeps telling me he’s only out there for a minute so it is too much of a pain to change shoes
and find glasses.”
While Sophia found that distressing, she was more concerned with the newly hired junior
employees, whom she saw joking and pushing each other around the forklift loading area. “You
know,” she told Sanjay, “I mentioned that the new hires are goofing off around the loading area,
and their supervisor just said that they work hard and need to blow off a little steam now and then.
He said I should leave them alone. The other day I even saw him get involved in one of their little
pranks, making a guy jump out of his skin by blaring the forklift horn. When I asked him about it,
he said pranks help the workers relax when they are stressed about manufacturing quotas.”
“Well, I’m not surprised they’re stressed,” said Sanjay. “After all, the entire team’s bonus is based
on productivity targets, and nobody wants to be the one who lets everyone else down.
If they miss their target because of one worker, the poor guy will never hear the end of it.” “I
know,” replied Sophia. “Just last week, someone came in with active pneumonia because he didn’t
want his team to miss their target. I know other workers covered for him a bit, but he kept at it no
matter what. I even caught him trying to take the handguard off his machine so he could work it
faster. He said he was behind from coughing and needed to catch up!”
“It’s so strange,” observed Sanjay. “All these workers passed the safety test with flying colours but
nobody actually does any of the stuff we talked about. What’s happening?” “I don’t know,” said
Sophia. “Maybe if we put some safety posters up to remind people about risks, that will help.”
Discussion Questions
1. Why have Sanjay and Sophia failed to foster a safety culture in their workplace? What
specifically acts to undermine that change?
2. Will their new strategy (putting up posters) work? If yes, why? If no, why not?
3. What would they have to do to institute meaningful change in the safety culture at this
organization?

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