Safety culture change could be the key to improving action and performance
Organisational culture has been described as ”the way we do things around here” and forms the context within which people judge the appropriateness of their behaviour.
‘Safety culture’ is a subset of overall organisational culture and can have as much influence on safety outcomes as the company safety management system.
Culture will influence peoples actions and performance at work and a ‘negative’ safety culture has frequently been identifed as a significant root cause of major incidents and poor health and safety performance.
Many organisations refer to ‘safety culture’ when referring to the inclination of front-line staff to comply with rules or act safely or unsafely. However, the culture and style of management can have equally significant effects, e.g excessive bias for ‘production’ over ‘safety’, or short-term, reactive management.
A Safety Climate survey provides a snapshot of the organisation’s culture in relation to safety.
Health and Safety Laboratory (HSL) Safety Climate Tool
HSL is an agency of HSE and has developed a Safety Climate Tool (SCT) designed to enable organisations to secure insight into organisational safety culture and take the steps to improve.

The SCT is a CD Rom that can be customised to each organisation. It uses a series of tailored questions to measure perceptions of health and safety and help focus resources on where they are need and will be most effective.
It can be applied across industries of all sizes – from small to medium enterprises (SME’s) through to larger, more complex organisations. A video demonstration of the Safety Climate Tool is available on YouTube.
For more information on the SCT or to discuss your requirements contact: Madelaine Daniels: +44 (0) 1298 218 356 sct@hsl.gov.uk
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