ESTABLISHING A SAFETY-FIRST CORPORATE CULTURE

In this lesson, you will learn:

Recognize the importance of a safety-first corporate culture in organizations.

Identify the key elements and characteristics of a safety-first corporate culture.
Understand the impact of a safety-first corporate culture on business success and
competitiveness.
Apply strategies and steps for establishing and maintaining a safety-first corporate culture.

A safety-first corporate culture is one in which the safety of employees is the top priority. This means
that the organization's tacit understandings, beliefs, values, attitudes, expectations and behaviors are
all aligned with creating and maintaining a safe and healthy work environment.

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Evidence of a safety-first corporate culture includes organizational priorities, how people succeed in
the organization, how they make decisions, employee management expectations, management's
expectations of employees and group dynamics. The influence of pressure implicitly affects the
generally accepted rules and how security conflicts are handled.

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A safety-first corporate culture is important to businesses because it helps ensure correctness and
regulatory compliance more effectively. However, the most important reason for a safety-oriented
corporate culture is competition. In today's global market, the most effective way for a company to
thrive is to consistently provide great value to its customers. This is achieved by providing superior
quality, cost and service. All three of these high-value key factors require a safe and healthy working
environment, which cannot be achieved in the long run without a safety-first corporate culture.

Globalization has increased the intensity of competition in today's business world. In an effort to cut
costs and stay ahead of the competition, some organizations may take shortcuts when it comes to
safety and health. However, this short-sighted approach can have serious financial and reputational
consequences in the long run.

Unsafe work environments can lead to regulatory penalties, accidents and injuries, insurance costs,
workers' compensation costs, lawsuits, poor morale among workers, negative publicity and other
financial losses. These costs can sap the financial and intellectual strength of an organization, making
it more difficult to compete in the global marketplace.

In contrast, organizations that invest in safety and health can improve their bottom line and gain a
competitive advantage. By creating a safe and healthy work environment, organizations can attract
and retain top talent, boost productivity and reduce absenteeism and turnover. They may also be able
to negotiate lower insurance rates and avoid costly lawsuits.

Ultimately, the decision of whether to prioritize safety and health is a business decision. However, the
long-term costs of an unsafe work environment can far outweigh the short-term savings.
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Organizations that fail to invest in safety and health are putting their financial and reputational future
at risk.

As a result, companies that seek to adopt the world-class approaches needed to compete in the
global marketplace, like establishing a first-world corporate culture without prioritizing safety and
health, are building without a foundation.

Corporate cultures are established in organizations through a variety of means, including:

Expectations: Employees are told what is expected of them in terms of behavior,

performance, and attitude.
Role modeling: Leaders and managers set an example for employees by modeling the desired
behaviors and attitudes.
Orientation: New employees are introduced to the organization's culture during orientation.
Training: Employees are taught about the organization's culture through formal training
programs.
Recognition and rewards: Employees are recognized and rewarded for behaviors that align
with the desired culture.
Monitoring and evaluation: The organization's culture is monitored and evaluated on an
ongoing basis to ensure that it is aligned with the organization's goals and values.

When a safety-first corporate culture exists in an organization there is widely shared agreement
among decision makers that a safe and healthy work environment is essential to success, an
emphasis on protecting valuable human resources from on-the-job hazards, ceremonies to celebrate
safety- and health-related successes, widely shared agreement that a safe and healthy work
environment is conducive to peak performance and continual improvement, recognition of safe work
behavior, rewards for safe work behavior, a strong customer focus that includes product safety as a
critical concern, insistence on safety as part of supplier relations, an effective internal network for
communicating safety and health information and expectations, informal rules of behavior that
promote safe and healthy work practices, a strong pro-safety value system set forth in the strategic
plan, high expectations and high standards for performance relating to safety and health and
employee behavior that promotes safe and healthy work practices.

The steps for establishing a safety-first corporate culture are to understand, assess, plan,
expect, model, orient, mentor, train, monitor, reinforce and maintain. As a result, companies that
seek to adopt the world-class approaches needed to compete in the global marketplace, like
establishing a first-world corporate culture without prioritizing safety and health, are building without
a foundation.

Reference

Creating a Workplace Safety Culture: How to Motivate Employees to Care. Available at:
https://www.vgminsurance.com/blog/post/creating-a-workplace-safety-culture

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